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A Phoenix of Truth

Burning Revelations

Finding and dismantling each and every one of the cameras watching the little room would have aroused too much suspicion. Solholme had mentioned that Kaiver had a whole floor dedicated to watching the facility and maintaining security so it was entirely plausible that there was an entire team currently dedicated to watching his every move. Thankfully, a Chronomancer had many tricks to fool the casual observer.

The technique was called ‘Record Time’ which allowed him to create a space where his actions were recorded and replayed over and over until he released the spell. It was the same technique he had unleashed back in Anita Oakley’s ball where, while he had paused time for all participants, he spoke certain words that were only released at his command.

While confined to his room, he lay on the bed, hummed a nameless tune for a few minutes, walked around, made faces at the lone mirror, toyed around with Timekeeper for a bit and then pretended to just lay on his back and close his eyes while absently tapping his foot to show that he wasn’t truly asleep. This, added with a myriad of other insignificant activities, took up an entire hour.

Then, when he was ready, he he started replaying those events through Chronomancy in the confines of the room. The small space helped matters. Bigger expanses made things more difficult especially if there were other environmental factors to consider. With the very sanitized and minuscule quarters, he could ‘program’ his image to constantly be replayed at random intervals through Time. All the while, he quietly unscrewed a nearby vent by reverting it to a moment in time when it was open and crawled inside, sealing the vent behind him as he did so.

Could’ve walked out the front door, I suppose, but that would disrupt the distraction.

Much like the rest of the Havenese architecture, the vets were hexagonal shaped, perfectly clean and glistening white. The air was so saccharine sweet and clean that it burned Harm’s nostrils with just how clean it was. Even on Haven, being in any facility that used purified air left his eyes watering and nostrils burning. At least out in the rest of the Bunker, a lot of the air was mixed with the Incendian atmosphere so much of this sweetness was diluted. In the ventilation shafts, however, it was highly concentrated.

Ignoring the burning sensations in his senses, Harm crawled through the vents slowly and quietly. It didn’t take long to reach a tall shaft that likely ran up the entire height of the main laboratory; all ten storeys of it. There was enough room to stand upright. As he crawled out of the vent, golden runes formed circles at the soles of his feet. He stood on the shimmering platform and tucked his paws into his pockets, allowing the platform to rise quietly against the thrum of the fans. His scarf fluttered behind him, whipping around thanks to the various directions the air was being circulated.

For a moment, he paused at the fifth floor.

“Weird…” he mused quietly.

The gap between the fifth floor and the fourth was significantly larger than the rest. Similarly, there was far more room between the fifth and sixth floors.

Might be that there’s a really thick deposit of some sort of metal that forced them to build around it…

… but that doesn’t explain why this shaft is completely straight… as is the lab.

He shook his head and turned his gaze upwards. “That’s for later. Right now…” His eyes narrowed. “Exactly what are you hiding, Professor Solholme?”

His ascent continued and upon reaching the 9th floor, he crept back into the vents, quietly shuffling in the near-darkness and peering through grating into various rooms. One such grating revealed Solholme’s quarters. Though only slightly bigger than the rest of the quarters, it showed no noticeable differences to the others. A short distance away was what appeared to be a conference room. Likely where she held meetings with her heads of staff.

Beyond that was her office.

No one was present at the moment leaving Harm to quietly once again unscrew the grating and slip inside soundlessly. Here, he spotted the cameras immediately and drew a quick circle through the air. Golden rings began spiraling around the camera’s lenses, replaying the same empty scene with him absent over and over again; cursing the devices with another instance of Recorded Time.

The smell of ash and cigar smoke permeated the air. A crystal ashtray sat beside a Havenese console with a pile of ash a good inch thick sitting in it. The large, blackwood table was clearly imported as blackwood was only available in the Twilit Forests of the Incendian mainland and the Custodia Vampiri were very protective of such things. Similar blackwood furniture dotted the large office with bookshelves filled with all sorts of academic books pressed up against the walls. This formed a stark contrast to the white, metal walls and blue-green magical circuits that ran throughout the office. Three panels of floor-to-ceiling windows peered out into the expanse of the main laboratory, allowing for the orange glow of the central generator to cast a luminescent fire into the space.

What caught his eye the most, however, was the rug beneath the table. Bright crimson, it had an emblem emblazoned upon it in black. To the casual observer, it would have been mostly invisible thanks to the presence of the desk, high-backed chair for Solholme and the two chairs for guests. But Harm could make out the majority of the emblem. It was the silhouette of a bird with six, long tail feathers and six wings spread out in all directions.

I’ve seen that before.

Dread filled him and he quickly made his way towards the console. Unsurprisingly, the crystal screens that sprang to life the moment he activated it was password protected. Easily bypassed thanks to Chronomancy. He pulled out the folded Timekeeper and absently flicked a claw against its metal frame. Golden particles emitted from the weapon, tracing shadows of movement through Time. He followed the ghost of Edith Solholme as it keyed in the password.

“F1r343vEr. I’m disappointed, Professor,” he said as the screen sprang to life. “No special characters.”

Without any clue on what to investigate first, Harm stared at the screen for a short moment. Solholme wasn’t so foolish as to keep a diary of her inner thoughts on an internal network but that didn’t stop him from snooping for any ‘personal’ folders. While there was a folder marked ‘Personal’, it mostly contained immigration forms from Incendius to Haven and vice versa as well as employment letters.

“And here I was expecting some kinky bird porn,” he sighed. “Uptight woman like that probably gets off into some weird shit. Given the fact we’re in the middle of a land caught in perpetual darkness, I bet she only gets of to threeway ASMRs. Maybe with a bit of bondage or rubber.”

Next was the documents on the experiments being conducted. Sadly, all of that was in line with what Solholme had said previously. Resources had to be diverted to defense. Curiously, she had actually wanted to shut down Ulerian’s research but because two years had already been devoted to the endeavor for the next letter in the sequence, she considered it a waste to cancel the project when that next character could be discovered at any second. Valdin’s protests were also noted and she had moved his research as far away from Ulerian as possible without encroaching on the upper levels to avoid conflict while maximizing collaboration between the two teams.

“God…” he mumbled, scratching his cheek. “It sounds like she’s actually a decent manager just trying to make the best of a bad situation.”

Then something caught his eye.

Security reports.

Many of them were petty. A few scuffles in the cafeteria due to rising tensions. Stolen equipment. People having sex like it was a college campus. The reports that caught his eye, however, were the ones marked in red. They were logs of people approaching ‘the door’ on the fifth level. They were short and rather blunt. Merely a name, the time and a short description of what that person did. Most of them were that they were passing ‘the door’. A few times, some people were caught ‘praying’ to the door. One incident had Ulerian and Valdin arguing in front of it.

“What is on the fifth floor?” he mused aloud.

Shaking his head, he searched her files for a map of the facility but stumbled onto personnel files instead. Curious, he shifted through them. There were performance evaluations there too dating back years.

Wait… Years?

He checked to see just how far it went back. These evaluations reached all the way back to when Flareclaw was first founded.

That’s when he hit the jackpot.

“What the…?”

Without hesitation, he commanded the console to print the documents. A small, blue-green cube was produced from the crystal desktop a second later and he immediately shut it off. As he was jumping back into the vent, he released the cameras from his spell and closed the vent behind him.

Honestly surprised no one came to walk in on me while I was investigating.

It took a good half hour to get back to his room where he released the illusion and immediately stepped out of the door. No doubt Kaiver or whoever was watching him would alert Solholme that he was on the move but he didn’t need to go far. He knocked on the door right next to him.

“Aria, are you awake?” he called out.

“I am now,” came the reply.

A second later, the door sprang open and he gave her a dubious look. “How do you have perfect hair and not even a single blemish if you just woke up.”

She tossed her hair back with a cocky smirk. “How else? I am an Angel.”

“Right.” He tossed the cube at her and stepped into her room. “Check this out.”

Aria unfolded the cube like she was undoing a simple origami piece, unfolding the device until it was basically the same shape and size as a crystal tablet. With her finger, she swiped on the twelve profiles that were displayed in front of her. The door shut behind her and she kept her back to it, ensuring that if anyone were to step inside, they’d have to contend with her.

“These are the former lead researchers of Flareclaw,” she said. “What of it?”

He gave her a deadpan stare. “Aria…”

She returned the stare. “Don’t be racist, Harm. So what if they’re all Avios.”

“And female.”

“Now you’re being sexist,” she fired back. “They have different colorations in their feathers and…” Then she groaned at herself. “Fine. They’ve all been the same person.”

“Exactly!” Harm exclaimed, throwing his paws into the air. “Edith Solholme has been running this facility since its inception over fifty years ago! But the catch is that she’s been constantly coming back under different pseudonyms and different forms of expertise!” He pointed in the vague direction of the outer campus. “It wouldn’t surprise me if she was actually responsible for setting up and inviting those different research branches out there!”

Aria held out a hand. “Harm, I know what you’re thinking…”

“She’s a fucking Chronomancer!”

Avios have an average lifespan of eighty years. Ninety at most. If she is the same person, even if she’s using Haven-level illusionary magic, she should be showing signs of aging!

Not only that, the fact that she is able to switch from one field of research to another and take over this facility suggests some sort of temporal manipulation!

Harm’s heart was beating fast and he was digging his claws into the side of his head. A Chronomancer. Another Chronomancer or at least a student of Chronomancy. How could that have happened? He was sure he had eliminated every last Chronomancer during the Purge and those that he hadn’t, he had ensured were impaled or imprisoned for all eternity. He made a pilgrimage to Temporal every year to make sure every Chronomancer was accounted for. Every last textbook on Chronomancy had been destroyed.

How could another Chronomancer be active and alive?

There is one way…

He lifted his gaze towards Aria, his smile fading from his face. “Aria… Did the Church release one of them?”

Her expression said it all. A sigh of resignation and her eyes filled with pity. “Harm…”

WHAM!

His forearm pressed against her neck, the force of the blow sending her slamming against the far wall with enough impact that the metal bent and warped around her. Anyone else would have seen their insides liquefied but Aria was far more resilient than that.

“Are you people fucking insane!?” Harm roared, fangs bared. “Employing a goddamn Chronomancer to cure the Molting Disease!?”

Her hand closed around his wrist and she easily peeling his limb away from her neck, her amethyst eyes staring at him hard. The element of surprise was gone and in a head-on battle, Aria held the advantage. Harm’s greatest advantage was his adaptability and the element of surprise but Aria was both a tank and fortress at the same time; resilient and powerful.

“We would never release any of the Chronomancers,” she said evenly. “At least none of them were released under my watch.”

He yanked his arm away from her grip. “Then explain to me how Solholme could continuously be the head of this facility for fifty years, through a dozen iterations and different fields of expertise. It has to be some sort of temporal tampering.”

It has to be!

Or… do I want it to be because the alternative is far more disastrous…?

“There could be a variety of other explanations,” answered Aria. “Valdin is a geneticist. Perhaps part of his research is to extend the life of the average Avios and that’s what Solholme has been using.”

Harm shook his head, slumping down on Aria’s bed. “Valdin has only been here for the past ten years or so. About the same time that ‘Solholme’ took over. No… it has to be something else…”

“Then perhaps the different fields of research that Solholme has been undertaking has extended her life to the point that she is capable of changing her appearance. Do we even know if she is the same person definitively? Perhaps they are all related?”

He gave her an exasperated stare. “What? Like all of them are sisters or something? I suppose that’s possible…” Groaning, he fell back onto the bed, covering his eyes with his paws. “Goddamnit… then it has to be the other thing…”

“Other thing?” Aria asked cautiously. “What other thing?”

Harm took a moment to compose his thoughts as he slowly pulled his paws away from his eyes. “In Solholme’s office she had this rug. It was marked with a particular emblem. A bird with six tails and six wings.”

Aria’s eyes immediately boggled and her voice came out in a soft whisper. “The Cult of Adramalech.”

The Church of the Tower believed that the Mother Goddess created everything but she had the help of her ‘Apostles’. Fifteen powerful beings, often called ‘Seraphs’, that each embodied one of the elements. Adramalech was known as the Seraph of Fire and his emblem was that of the six-winged bird with six fiery tails. According to the Church, when all of creation was solidified, the Mother Goddess blessed humanity with the Illuminus Weizar, the power to control all of creation. The Apostles took opposition to this, outwardly wondering why the Mother Goddess’ creations, the humans, deserved the Weizar where their own creations were deprived of the honor if they were all created equally. They rebelled and there was a War in Heaven that eventually led to the banishment of the Apostles.

Of course, this was the tale told by the human-centric Church of the Tower. Despite being the dominant religion, they were far from being the only religion in Tower Thirteen. Many other faiths existed and many of them directly contradicted the Church’s doctrine. One of the main arguments against the Church’s sole genesis story being the truth was that it did not explain the presence of the God of Time, Haamiah.

The Cult of Adramalech posited that the Apostles were not subservient deities to Athena but they all formed a singular pantheon. Each of the gods gave something to creation. Adramalech gave the world fire and Athena gave the world magic. There never was War in Heaven. However, it was Athena’s foolish choice to give humanity the Illuminus Weizar that caused the shattering of Tower Thirteen and her sacrifice to hold the world together and keep it from drifting into the Void was her penance for such a careless mistake. The other gods still exist and Haamiah was part of said pantheon.

Over time, however, each of the religions eventually came to blows with the Church. The Cult of Adramalech was particularly notorious for the grotesque ways that they manifested Pyromancy in worship of their god. They focused on ‘materializing the concepts of fire’. Practitioners infused parts of their body with fire magic to the point where their flesh would blacken and their veins would look like fire. They would copy the forms of natural Pyromancy from creatures such as Red Wyverns, Red Draconians, Salamanders and Fire Elementals through genetic manipulation, twisted rituals and cybernetic implants.

Memories of fighting a particularly nasty branch of the Cult came rushing back, filling his heart with both grief and despair. They called themselves The Bacon as they were or Porcinians. Death he could deal with. After living for three thousand years, he was used to watching the people he cared about fading away or even dying senselessly in a war. What he couldn’t shake was the levels of brainwashing The Bacon performed on… and all the death that came from it.

“Harm!”

He jolted upright and suddenly found himself surrounded by Aria and Kaiver.

“Thank Apollia’s smoking hot ass,” sighed Kaiver. “You’re alright. What happened?”

Harm rubbed the side of his head and grimaced. “Got lost in another dream.”

“The Bacon?” asked Aria grimly, her eyes filled with sorrow.

Harm’s eyes fell to his paw. “Yeah… Especially the kids.”

Kaiver regarded Aria questioningly but she merely shook her head, ordering him not to press the issue. Harm noticed and he rose to his feet, waving a paw through the air.

“It’s better to talk about it,” he grunted, rolling a shoulder and tossing his scarf over his shoulder. “About fourteen years ago, there was a nasty branch of the Cult of Adramalech that reared its ugly head here on Incendius. They called themselves The Bacon.”

“That’s a stupid name,” Kaiver grunted.

“I thought so too until I realized it was symbolic of how all of these Procinians considered themselves to be ‘cooked’.” Harm strode out of the room, storming through the hallways with a captivated Kaiver right behind him and Aria bringing up the rear. “The Bacon considered anyone that wasn’t a Procinian as an inferior species. They thought that because humanity destroyed the One World with their selfishness and greed, they would be the next logical inheritors of the Illuminus Weizar. Completely ignoring the fact that humanity is more genetically similar to Kongalans. Any Procinian that wasn’t part of their Cult they called ‘Fresh’. Anyone that was inducted and brainwashed to believe what they believed were called the ‘Cured’. Then, those that underwent the procedures to grant them the ability to cast Pyromancy naturally were called the ‘Cooked’.”

“That’s fucked up!”

“That’s what we thought as well,” Harm replied, grinding his fangs together. “It all began when Incendian authorities began complaining about poachers stealing a lot of their local wildlife. On a whim, I decided to investigate it alongside with Aria. We caught the poachers only for one of them - a member of the Cult - to start shooting fire at us from his fingertips. Like there were holes in his fingers that shot out lava. We kept investigating and found out about The Bacon.”

He stormed up into the main laboratory and immediately began heading up the steps. Kaiver was right behind him, likely assuming that he was leading them up to Solholme’s office. Shadows of the battle against The Bacon danced in front of his eyes.

The fire.

The horrible mutations.

The children…

“Things spiraled from there…”

?

******

?

The fortress looked more like a cathedral than any sort of defensive facility for a cult of insane body-modifying pigs. In the dim twilight just before dawn, Harm stood quietly on the edge of a dropship’s open hatch looking down upon the twisted monument The Bacon had created to their dark cult. Behind him were the shock troops allocated by the Church’s military to raid this facility.

Funny how Haven wasn’t willing to help until they realized that these terrorists were living right in their midst.

When news broke that this branch of the Cult of Adramalech - these half-mad, monstrous abominations that had a Porcinian-superiority complex that underwent illegal body modifications, poaching and kidnapping - was based in a mote on Haven, everyone was suddenly very concerned. The heads of state even had the gall to ignore Lumire when he presented the evidence that The Bacon was a threat. The Apex Clericus Solis, the Church’s head representative on Incendius, had even dismissed the Cult when Harm and Aria brought the evidence to them.

It had to be the name.

I still don’t know if they chose that name because they’re half-insane from all the modifications they’ve done to themselves or it was a stroke of genius.

The mote itself - Tantalus Spark - was one of the smaller motes of Haven. A small, floating piece of rock perhaps about three miles wide. Amongst the other floating islands of Haven, it was barely a speck. But now, with the revelation of The Bacon, it burned brightly. Dozens of dropships were approaching the island with three Havenese starships approaching, the HHD Annihilating Crimson and its two escort vessels. A single command from Lumire and the starships could bombard the cathedral and obliterate it off the face of the Station.

But…

“You know the plan,” Aria said, standing right beside Harm but with her back turned to him. She was addressing the crack team of soldiers armed with body armor, personal shields, machinery and magic. “We drop down and scour the cathedral floor to floor. Stay close. Find any civilians or kidnap victims and get them out ASAP. If there are any wildlife still there, sedate them and tag them with these.” She held up a small spider-like device. “It’ll transport them out of danger. If anyone sees any of the cultists, do not let them use their abilities. Moreover, do not let any of the fire spread.”

“What about Bellios?” Harm asked.

She nodded grimly. “If you see Biriath Bellios, do what you can to subdue him. Do not be the hero. Report his location immediately. Harm and I will handle him.” She drew Gungnir from over her shoulder, slamming the butt of the spear on the floor. “Now get ready! For the Tower! For the Church! For the Mother Goddess!”

“Hoo aah!” roared the soldiers.

Harm exchanged glances with Aria and released his grip on the edges of the dropship. Slowly, he extended a leg out into the air.

“Beginning the operation,” he announced softly. Then he took that step forward, plunging through the air down onto the spires of the cathedral-like fortress, paws in his pockets. As he fell, golden light erupted from around his feet and he steered himself towards the front entrance of the fortress while his fall slowed to a gentle descent. From a distance and with his white scarf’s two tails fluttering out from behind him, he must have seemed like an angel descending from the skies.

He landed on the steps of the fortress, the large, black doors of the cathedral stretching out in front of him. Aria and her troops would just be circling around the back to make their descent to strike from the rear.

Time to put on a hell of a show.

The white Wulfun flicked out the folded Timekeeper and made a show of unfurling it. If anyone was watching, they saw him spin it through the air a few times before making a sharp, slashing motion through the air. There was a moment of silence before the doors in front of him suddenly shuddered. A dozen cuts appeared against the frame, the two-foot thick, metal doors groaning in protest as they crumbled in large chunks. One of the cathedral’s spires slipped down on the slant of a clean cut and crashed to the ground.

“Heathen!”

The roar came from beyond the door. Members of the Cult were arrayed just past the shattered door. Each of them were dressed in the flame-red robes trimmed with gold that hid the terrible mutations they had inflicted upon themselves. All off them were Procinians. Pigs, boars and warthogs of different variations. Men and women alike.

“Burn the Church’s lapdog!” shouted their apparent leader. “Send him to the Holy Fire!”

“Come on guys,” Harm shouted back with a smile. “Can’t I at least partake in some communion wafers and booze before I get turned into an extra crispy hot dog?”

The tusks of some of the Porcinians were engulfed in flames, rage filling their eyes. That rage immediately vanished when Harm appeared beside them, leaning against the leader casually.

“I’m sorry, was mentioning hot dogs culturally insensitive?” The man let out a little snort of derision and pulled away from him. Despite no longer having the physical support of the man, Harm remained standing as if he was still leaning. “I mean, I know Xaosian hot dogs are almost exclusively pig meat but Haven has dozens of variations. God knows most of our livestock aren’t even genetically porcine. I mean, have you tasted Vinelash hot dogs? So fresh! It’s like eating meat that’s been well seasoned already!”

The leader roared in frustration, drew his head back and then belched a curtain of fire right at Harm.

An ability ‘borrowed’ from Red Draconians.

But fire really is just energy… energy caused by the over-excitement of molecules in the air. So if I slow down those molecules…

The temperature around him suddenly dropped and before the flames could even reach him, they dissipated. The breath of the cultist around him condensed in front of their snouts. Another of them screamed in anger and she charged at him. Bony spikes exploded from her wrists, sparks igniting from the tips and setting the whole limb on fire. The incompatibility of these mutations were clear as the flames started spreading up her entire forearm and burning her already injured flesh. The chitinous flesh of the Fire Spiders that this ability normally came from was immune to fire but hers clearly was not.

Harm danced back a few steps, ducking and weaving away from the flailing, fiery spikes. She was clearly not trained in combat.

Pity.

After one, particular wide swipe, he ducked under her guard and slammed the heel of his free paw into her chin. The shock and impact caused blood to explode from her jaw as it shattered. He was a blur of movement, his form vanishing into multiple golden silhouettes. Two of those ghostly forms slammed their fists into her kidneys and diaphragm. The other three kicked her knees out from beneath her and the fifth unleashed a roundhouse kick to her face. All of these occurred at the same second.

She slumped to the ground, completely unconscious.

“You know,” he said, swinging his sword casually against his shoulder. “If you really want a better chance of beating me, you should stop with this whole thing of fighting me one at a time crap and come at me all at once. I mean, do I have a sign over my head that says ‘line up for an ass kicking?’”

He glanced over his shoulder. “Wait? Do I have one on my back?” He turned his back to them. “Seriously. Do I have one? You’ll tell me if I have one, right?”

It was an opening too good to take and, as expected, a handful of the cultists charged at him, flashing their grotesque mutations. Fire burned away their robes, revealing glowing, red pustules of condensed fire magic that fueled the likes of their lava-spewing fingers, fire-breathing or flame-generating limbs.

Somewhere off in the distance, there was an explosion.

“That’d be Aria.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the charging cultists. “Playtime is over.”

Ghostly, golden silhouettes of himself sprang up beside each cultist, swinging the image of Timekeeper at them. Blood exploded from the impact. The Porcinians charging at him stumbled to his feet, their blood literally boiling right in front of them. They were infused with so much fire magic that their body couldn’t handle that it was tearing them apart.

The cultist closest to him grit her teeth together and seized his ankle while trying to hold in her guts which was spilling out in a steaming pile before her.

He looked down at her in disdain. “I honestly don’t know if I should heal you, kill you or leave you to be processed by the Inquisition when they come barging through the door.” The heavy footsteps of the Inquisition in their power armor could already be heard charging up the stone steps of the fortress. “You were given this body by the gods and you squandered in a fit of envy for what other creatures naturally possessed.” His features softened and golden light surrounded her failing body. Her injuries healed though the grotesque mutations remained. “Though I can’t really can’t preach.”

Wham!

Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, his shoe print already forming a rather nasty bruise on the side of her head. Confident that the rest of the cultists would be apprehended by the Inquisition, Harm stormed through the fortress. Cultists sprang up from behind doors or barricaded hallways in an attempt to stall him. One man he flung to the wall and encased in ice, freezing the very air around him with a flick of a paw. Golden lightning sprang from his fingertips and electrocuted a whole group. For the barricades, he simply jumped forward in time to the point where he had already passed it, turned around and crippled the cultists with Timekeeper.

A fire started somewhere and he could hear the sounds of fighting quickly spreading throughout the entire fortress. He hurried his pace, charging through the cathedral. The leader of The Bacon, Biriath Bellios could not escape.

He burst through large, double doors into what had to be the central area for worship. It looked like any normal chapel with pews set up to flank a central aisle. Crimson banners hung from the walls with a black bird possessing six tails and six wings emblazoned upon it. An altar was poised at the far end of the chapel where an immense, ruby statue depicting a towering, muscled Avios possessing six wings sprouting from his back stood while clutching an enormous greatsword in both hands pointed down.

In front of the altar stood the towering figure of Biriath Bellios. The boar’s black fur was tinged crimson and his body was grotesquely modified to the point that he would almost look like he was overly muscular were it not for the fact that his head looked ridiculously small against the rest of his body. The tusks on his muzzle were constantly on fire and similar bony protrusions exploded from the back of his head to form a fiery, circular halo behind his head.

The beast’s appearance did not surprise him. They had already clashed blades down on Incendius.

What horrified Harm were the children standing in front of Bellios.

Harm’s paws tightened around Timekeeper’s grip as he strode down the aisle. Each of the children were dressed in the same robes are the rest of the cultists. Upon closed inspection, they had to be little more than teenagers, eighteen at most. But he knew better. He could see the cybernetics implanted on the sides of their heads. These creatures appeared like young men and women but they were clones; purposefully grown in test tubes. Cloning was common practice on Haven. For those people who didn’t want to find a partner to bear children or even those couples that could not conceive, cloning was the best option. Experts in the field could even offer variances in the genetic sequence so that the child wasn’t completely a clone of their parent.

But Bellios took that a step further.

“You are seriously fucked up, Bellios,” he snarled. “Cloning your cultists so that their clones grow up with the same genetic defects that you introduced to their ‘parents’ from onset. Then you stunt their growth just so that they appear like children? Seriously, what the fuck?”

The boar huffed at him. “I don’t expect you to understand, Wulfun. We are the chosen children of Adramalech! We deserve all the Fire has to give! We will take it all!” He pressed a hand against his chest. “Even I am imperfect. I am merely the prophet to the next generation’s ascension! My work is yet incomplete.” He gestured at the ‘children’ in front of him. “These imperfect specimens are flawed. They failed. But they still have their uses. The Fire does not waste. It turns all to ash to be burned anew. One day soon, I will usher in the perfect generation that truly embodies the flames!”

Harm growled. “Fuck, you sound like Pyrannos.” He lifted his sword towards the madman. “Just tell me one thing, Bellios. Just how old are these ‘kids’. Really?”

The fiery Porcinian shrugged. “What do I care? They are flawed. Incapable of containing the Fire. I created them over thirty years ago. I don’t know exactly how old they are.”

“That’s all I wanted to hear.”

Harm crossed the distance between himself and the line of clones. The closest child looked up at him with bright, red eyes. For a moment, he could see his own reflection in those crimson irises.

And he faltered.

“Mister…?” whispered the clone. “… it hurts.”

Harm froze.

Then, the child’s eyes rolled up into the back of his head. “It hurts!”

Flames exploded from between the boy’s lips, burning the insides of his mouth and charring his lips. Harm shut his eyes and took the full blast of flame to the face. The pain was unbearable. More so when he dropped to his knees and the flames charred away his flesh, leaving only his blackened skull while the rest of his body remained moderately untouched.

Bellios laughed even as the one clone stopped belching flames, tears running down his eyes as his lips peeled away as charred flakes.

Imperfect. Unable to contain the flames they were cursed with.

… reminds me a lot of those Initiates that were too ambitious for their own good and died…

The cultist leader’s mad laughter faded, however, when he noticed Harm - still with his skull blackened and charred - raise his spare paw and gently rest it against the clone’s head. As this happened, the flakes of charcoal flew off his skull. Flesh grew back, veins, blood vessels and organs seeping up from his burnt neck and knitting itself back together. White fur quickly sprang back up from the bare flesh and, for a moment, Harm’s original bright, green eyes were visible before the power of a Chronomancer once again shone through them, turning them gold.

Harm never stopped looking at the child in front of him.

“I am… so sorry,” he croaked, his voice box still repairing itself.

The clone’s tears stopped. Slowly, the flesh around Harm’s paw darkened, turning into a black-red rust-like dust that crumbled against the weight of his fingers. This ‘infection’ quickly spread over the clone’s body, a look of relief crossing his features as he dissolved into the flakes.

Bellios retreated a step. “What are you waiting for!?” barked the monstrous beast. “Kill him!”

None of the other clones moved. One by one, each of them began dissolving into the same cloud of black rust; the cloud of particles slowly orbiting Harm and disappearing into his white fur. Harm, the Destroyer of Time, rose from his kneeling position, finally turning his piercing stare to the mad cultist.

“Back on Temporal,” he intoned darkly. “The greatest sin anyone, Initiate, Chronomancer or even a member of the Thirteen, could commit was the loss of potential. Every person makes a choice. That choice branches off into different realities based on the outcomes. Those outcomes generates more choices and those choices, even more. It splits off, propagating Time infinitely. But when choice is taken away, when an individual is forced down a road, those outcomes are limited and we lose potential. We lose Time.”

Harm took a step forward, forcing Bellios to retreat.

“What you did here, to these people, to these clones, was rob them of their potential. You brainwashed them, twisted their minds to follow your fucked up ideology and then warp their bodies to keep them in line! You kept kids from growing up just so you could control them!”

Golden flames exploded from Harm’s fingertips, dripping down to the ground like liquid fire and spreading all over the chapel. Bellios stared in awe at the fire before him, fear fading from his eyes.

“What… what is this glorious flame? This aureate warmth and resplendent glow?”

The flames, Chronomancer’s Fire, were no ordinary flame. Harm was literally stimulating the atoms within every object in his vicinity, causing internal friction and thus fire. He was turning the matter around him into energy on an atomic level.

“Aria would want you arrested and tried for your crimes,” continued the golden-eyed Wulfun. “I have no doubt you would be found guilty. Haven doesn’t execute and you could be extradited to Incendius where public executions are still common practice. There would be thousands out there that would want to tear at your flesh for what you did to their husbands and brothers, sons and daughters, wives and sisters. But justice is more than you deserve. I don’t want to give your ‘movement’ the opportunity to gain steam and rise again in the future. You will not become a martyr.”

Harm’s paw lashed out, seizing Bellios’ neck and lifting the much bigger man off his feet. Golden flames burned the Porcinian who was squealing, partially in delight and partially in pain.

“I condemn you to the rust deserts of the Machine,” Harm snarled, fangs bared. “Just another grain of sand in the eternal sea of Time, doomed to look up to the Golden Gears without ever feeling the ebb and flow of Time’s currents. You will be forgotten. You will be nothing.” Harm’s anger faded, replaced by disgust. “Take comfort, at least, that I’m willing to carry the burden of the choices you have taken from this world.”

Bellios screamed, his whole body engulfed in the golden fire.

“Now fade into nothing and know that this is the last time your name will ever be uttered, Biriath Bellios.”

The man cried out, maybe out of ecstasy, maybe out of fear. His form crumbled into rusty dust in Harm’s paws, the golden fire consuming him and leaving nothing to fall on the ground. Harm stared at his paw for a long moment, watching the last flecks of Bellios vanishing into nothingness, consumed by the Machine.

Then he closed his paw.

The footsteps of Aria and her troop cut through the chapel.

“Where’s their leader?” she demanded. No mention of Bellios’ name. As he had designed. Soon, everyone would forget the madman’s name. He had removed it from time. Slowly. It would linger. They would recall he existed but as the days turned to weeks and weeks to months, that name as well as the man’s image would vanish. His deeds would remain, a lesson to future generations, but in the end, he would be nothing more than a conspiracy, a ghost and eventually… nothing.

“Gone,” Harm responded, opening his paw once more. In his palm was a glowing blue orb with several golden cogs spinning within it. He turned enough so that she could see the Time Bomb. Aria immediately took a step back in horror.

“Harm…” she cautioned.

“I’m going to destroy this place, Aria,” he announced. “You have thirty seconds to get out.”

“Harm…!” she repeated.

“Thirty…” he warned. “Twenty-nine… Twenty-eight…”

Aria immediately spun around, pushing her men back out of the chapel. “Out! Out now! Sound the retreat! He’s going to bomb this place!”

“Twenty-seven…. Twenty-six…”

Harm closed his eyes, listening to the hurried footsteps of his allies speeding out of the chapel. At the same time, those footsteps were echoed with children’s laughter. He could almost imagine those kids whose Time he had absorbed playing and laughing amongst the pews. It was just a trick of his imagination, of course, but he could just still imagine their futures if they hadn’t been twisted by Bellios’ ambition.

“Fuck…” he mumbled to himself. “There I go, mentioning his name…” He shook his head, suddenly aware of a light wetness on his cheek. Surprised at the tear, he smiled at himself as the little bit of salty water slipped back up his fur and disappeared into his tear ducts.

“Twenty…” he whispered to himself. “Nineteen. Eighteen. Seventeen.”

With each number, he grew more and more determined. Tower Thirteen needed to be rid of lunatics like the man that had started The Bacon.

“You’re partially to blame for this as well, Adramalech,” he growled, staring at the ruby statue in front of him. “Haamiah is the lazy god. You should have done something. I know you don’t condone this. What would your wife say of all of this?”

He could swear the flames around him actually flared up in anger.

“Yeah,” he laughed bitterly. “I thought so.” He shrugged off the god’s fury. “Ten… Nine… Eight… Seven…”

He turned, facing the entrance once more as the Time Bomb began to float off his palm and glow more brightly.

“…Six… Five…”

He cast one last look around him.

“…Four… Three…”

Then he lifted the middle finger of his paws into the air.

Two…

“Fuck you, Adramalech.”

… One…

?

*******

?

Harm lifted his gaze at the enormous, metal door sitting that could have rivaled the blast door leading into the main laboratory. They had to easily be five feet thick, reinforced with dozens of automated turrets currently aimed at him. Magical runes were likewise drawn all over its surface with its central emblem being that of a six-winged, six-tailed bird. His fury immediately mounted but he forced it to calm. Even then, the anger that simmered below the surface was so intense that he had to consciously start using Final Hour on the ammunition of the turrets currently pointed at him and Aria. It would take a few minutes yet before they were completely depleted but he needed something to take his anger out on.

Behind him stood Aria, turned to face Kaiver and the gathered heads of staff. As he came out of his memories, he began registering their arguments.

“… secure research,” Edith said as calmly as ever. “Surely you would not discriminate against someone who holds different beliefs to your own.”

“That is the emblem of the Cult of Adramalech,” Aria snapped sharply. “They are on the cusp of being called terrorists for their practices.”

“And what practices are those, Lady Valkyrie,” responded Valdin with that condescending tone. “To genetically manipulate ourselves with fire-producing gifts? Consenting adults performing acts upon themselves that Havenese socialites do all the time? Was there not some Angel who infused herself with literal feathery wings once? What is so wrong with what we do and believe?”

“Harm was talking about some sort of Cult branch that they encountered before,” supplied Kaiver. “The Bacon was it?”

“Terrorists and poachers,” hissed Aria. “They stole native animals from Incendius and kidnapped children from orphanages that they owned to create troops for their own army! They were species-supremacists that launched raids on zoos and museums just to get the samples that they wanted! Worse yet, they cloned themselves just to add more to their congregation. Those that failed to pass their tests had their minds and bodies completely controlled by their leader!”

A leader whose name has been wiped out from history but whose acts remain a warning to all.

“The Cult, like the Church, has many facets,” Edith supplied calmly. “There are extremists just like there are those who would abuse their power amongst the Church. Our worship is wholly peaceful and while we do practice the concept of genetically modifying ourselves so that we may be closer to the One True Flame, we also do so in moderation. In fact, our belief is what drives us find a cure to the Molting Disease.”

Aria balked. The Church did allow everyone and anyone to worship whatever and whoever they wanted so long as it wasn’t demons or brought hard to others. Harm could already see her struggling against the her old Inquisitor training and her role as a Templar. Inquisitors would have arrested everyone here and questioned them, leaving them broken and too scared of the Church to ever do anything but spurt platitudes - empty or otherwise - of the Mother Goddess. But Templars were the truest representation of the Church’s welcoming arms, envoys of peace and living bridges to the rest of the world.

Harm had no such ties.

“Open it,” he commanded.

Edith, again without missing a beat, didn’t hesitate to respond. “As I mentioned to Lady Valkyrie, the experiments beyond those doors are highly sensitive and must be kept in a very secure and sterilized environment. They cannot be opened or we risk compromising years of research. If you are curious, they are directly tied to Ulerian’s work.” She gestured at the Cervitian standing right next to her. “Think of it as the repository where we are scanning the Illuminus Weizar. Beyond that door is a vacuum-sealed, sterilized environment where we know the exact composition of every object within its walls. Ulerian’s research is constantly scanning the contents for the name of the Molting Disease. So you see, we cannot open the door or we will contaminate the sample.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, his smile returning to his muzzle.

“That’s all fine and all but I’ve got this running bet with the esteemed Lady Valkyrie.” He turned towards the ground, holding up his left paw. Golden runes appeared around his wrist. The markings on the door began to glow with the same color. “I bet her that this place is hiding a secret. Either some sort of ancient secret, a superweapon or illegal genetic research. So I really can’t take you on your word without confirming what every inch of this place does.”

“You’ll compromise our research for a bet!?” screamed Valdin. “Are you insane!?”

He tilted his head at the parrot and shrugged as if his answer was common knowledge. “Unequivocally.”

Harm snapped his fingers. The markings all over the doors suddenly exploded outwards in a shower of golden sparks like glass shattering.

“No!” Edith cried, shattering her icy veneer for the first time.

The door hissed, gears grinding loudly as they swung open. Harm spread his arms wide.

“Taking all bets!” he cried loudly. “What’s behind the one and only door! Is it illegal genetic research?” He pointed his fingers at Valdin in the shape of finger guns. “Is it a superweapon?” He turned those guns at Kaiver. “What about an ancient secret?” That one was directed at a horrified Ulerian. Then he spread his arms as he bowed towards Solholme. “Or is it actually what you said it is and it’s all just part of your research?”

He closed his eyes and spun around to face the newly exposed room.

Here we go.

Harm opened his eyes…

… and his face instantly fell.

What the fuck…?

His jaw dropped. He could hear Aria’s hit the floor… or perhaps that was her droping Gungnir. It took a lot to have a Templar drop her Valor.

This was not what he was expecting at all. Not in his wildest imagination or even anything he would have thought was possible in his entire, long existence. Even with all his experience, he still had to rub his eyes in a cartoon-like fashion just to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. Not an illusion. Not a hallucination either.

This was real.

He slowly turned around to face the terrified scientists and lone Viperion security guard that looked like he was just about to meet the firing squad. He hiked a thumb over his shoulder, his left eye twitching in disbelief.

“Is that a fucking Phoenix!?”

The Tomb, the Guardian and the Champion

Sealed within a large crystal of what appeared to be solidified fire was a Phoenix. The physical differences between Avios and a Phoenix were few. Outwardly, they were both avian in nature and generally varied in build. Their features were mostly predatory with hooked, sharp beaks. The major difference, however, is that where Avios’ wings were technically their arms, Phoenixes had actual working wings jutting out of their lower back.

This specimen was clearly a warrior of some sort. He was well-built, dressed in fiery red armor trimmed with gold. Muscles that would have put a Wulfun to shame were hidden beneath plates of crimson but it was clear even he could hold his own in a fight. His wings were tucked quietly beside him and his eyes were closed like he was merely sleeping. The Phoenix’s feathers were a myriad of colors. Starting off yellow at the base of his beak, it turned to a deep, ruby crimson over his head, forming a crown of almost blood-red feathers around his head that could be mistaken for backward swept hair. The feathers on his arms were surprisingly blue in color even turning into a deep purple at the edges. His wings embodied the rainbow going from red to indigo and acting as a stark contrast to his mostly monochromatic armor. Perhaps it was the clear, red crystal that he was embedded within but it almost looked like he was constantly emitting heat.

“An intact specimen of a Phoenix?” Aria breathed, reaching down and picking up Gungnir. “This… This is unprecedented!”

That was a euphemism. Phoenixes were long extinct before even the Purge of Time. Tens of thousands of years ago during the War of the Wings, every last Phoenix was killed by the Avios in a bloody revolution. The Chronomancers hadn’t even been formed back then nor had the Church. It was supposed to be a dark age right after the Shattering when Tower Thirteen were lost and had to rely on their pagan gods for guidance. The Phoenixes were supposed to be the chosen children of the God of Fire, Adramalech.

The pieces started falling into place.

“This is why you were hesitant to leave this place,” Aria concluded, turning to face Edith. “You found something of great importance that you just can’t leave. A Phoenix!”

“Woooo!” Harm cried, pumping his fist into the air. He danced up beside Aria and pointed at her. “Told you! Ancient secret! Pay up!”

She gave him a sour look. “We didn’t put a monetary value on that bet.”

He looked crushed though she knew him well enough that when he had no other course of action, he resorted to humor. It was his default setting; a mischievous imp. If he ever started cracking jokes or acting like a jester, it was because his brain had shutdown and was in the process of rebooting itself.

“Damnit! You’d think I’d learn by now.”

She turned back towards Edith. “You couldn’t abandon this find. The entire world would be upon you if they found out. Avios all over the world would be divided between destroying him or keeping him around. Similarly, you’d already dug out this place. If you abandoned this location, someone would have found him eventually. So your only option against the mounting attack of the Wyrmriders was to either evacuate and hope you could ship him quietly with the rest of your equipment or secure this place against incursion.”

Edith sighed heavily, her icy expression melting. “Yes. Our entire research was based on this specimen.” She strode past Aria and gazed up at the crystal that contained the Phoenix. “You see, Phoenixes had this unique property to them. When they died, their bodies would go up in flames and they would reconstitute themselves back into similarly constructed bodies with their minds intact. There would be some differences like feather color, beak shape or height and size but they were genetically the same. Doctor Ulerian theorized that this could be a unique genetic encoding within their bodies that manipulated their Spirit and Force energies through the Illuminus Weizar. He hypothesized that there is a sort of ‘self-destruct’ spell woven into their very being that transforms their physical bodies into raw magical energies that is then reforged into repaired forms. Naturally this is not without consequence as any spell requires energy so he believes that the spell erases memories of pain.”

“But if you could copy that effect to be applied to the Avios,” Aria concluded, “particularly around the Molting Disease, you could potentially cure it. That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it? Three approaches to your research. You’re trying to identify how the spell works to create a self-sustaining cycle of rebirth from the Phoenix, learning the name of the Molting Disease and finding ways to encode your eventual spell into the genetics of the Avios.”

“We were!” shouted Valdin, throwing his hands into the air again in frustration. “But now you fanatical Church-goers are going to blab to your Propheticus Primoris and get us hauled off by the Inquisition!”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Valdin,” said Ulerian, waving him down. He pressed his hands together as if praying to Aria. “I’m sure the great and mighty Lady Templar understands that this could be the discovery and work of our generation! We are doing the work of the Sun Goddess! In her infinite mercy and light, she guided our esteemed administrator here and set us on the path to curing the Avios of this frightful disease. We truly didn’t mean anything malicious.”

“Then why were you using the emblem of the Cult of Adramalech on your door?” she asked. “You’re not truly Cultists, are you?”

Edith shook her head. “I am not. Those under Valdin are. Unconventional, I know, but no one knows more about merging the genetics of true creatures of fire than the Cultists. Religious belief is quite a powerful shield when employed well. Then again, I suppose it was too much to expect we could hide behind religion when we have a living heretic standing in front of us.”

“Edith!” Ulerian exclaimed. He bowed respectfully towards Aria. “She didn’t mean that, Lady Templar.”

“He’s talking about me, prongs,” Harm said with a bright grin. “Chronomancer, remember?”

Valdin, who was the only one that hadn’t realized Harm was a Chronomancer, went rigid. “What? Are you telling me that you’re an actual Chronomancer? A Master of Time?” He gripped the sides of his head, digging into his gray hair. “Why are we wasting time with a Phoenix when we could literally reverse time!?”

“Because then you’d be the heretic,” Aria warned. “And as useful as Harm’s abilities are, I will not whore him out to others simply because it is convenient. We cannot be reliant on Chronomancy.”

Harm flung his arms around her waist and rested his head against her shoulder. “Awww. My she-pimp is so nice.”

He was still processing this information. Usually, Harm would have come to terms with this revelation by now. Then again, it wasn’t every day that they discovered the last living specimen of an ancient species was being kept in the dark expanse of the Sunless Lands for experimentation.

“Is he… alive?” she asked.

“In a form of stasis, yes,” Valdin answered. “We cannot tell you exactly how that stasis works. It merely does. All I can say is that if that crystal were shattered, he would awake. In what state, I would not know. If you intend to wake him, however, keep me as far away as possible.” He turned his back to them. “Our systems identified this man to have been alive during the War of the Wings. I doubt he harbors charitable intentions towards Avios.”

That would be problematic. There were enough scenarios in fiction of ancient beings waking up to a new world that they did not know or understand. She was unfamiliar with the power of a Phoenix but there was little doubt in her mind that she wanted this one awake.

“Hey…” Harm began. “Why are there two chunks taken out of the crystal?”

She turned her gaze to where the golden-eyed Wulfun was pointing. At the base of the crystal, there looked like there were two, large slabs extracted from the crystal. These were not haphazard pieces taken out using simple mining equipment either. The edges were sharp, precise and accurate. Advanced equipment was used to take something out of them.

“No lies this time, Solholme,” she warned.

The professor sighed and turned towards Aria. “There were two artifacts that seemed to be preserved with the Phoenix. An unknown weapon. They appeared to be two…”

“Chakram launchers,” provided Ulerian, adjusting his glasses. “They kind of looked like crossbows but instead of launching bolts, they seemed to be mounted by these two, chakrams that were quite intricately designed. Appeared to be used for both melee and ranged combat while being infused with an immense amount of Pyromancy. They are impractical but seem to function through some great blessing of the gods during the Age of the Divine.” He absently scratched at his antlers. “It honestly defies logic. Pyromancy requires Force or Spirit energy to be cast and yet, devoid of any fuel, the weapons continue to output incredible amounts of fire. In fact, we are using them to actually power the very generator at the center of the lab.”

Aria whirled around to face the Cervitian incredulously. “You’re what!?”

“Wooooo!”

Harm came sliding into view, face bright and tail wagging as he pointed triumphant at her. “Superweapon! That’s two!”

She grabbed the side of his head and threw him to the ground, storming over his body and coming nose-to-nose with the doctor. “Are you telling me you are using an ancient weapon that you have little understanding of to power the very generator that is providing light and heat to this entire facility? Have you even measured the potential power of this weapon?”

Edith Solholme stepped in, gently squeezing between them and pushing them away. “We were well aware of the risks,” said the Avios calmly. “In fact, the weapon grew incredibly unstable the moment we extracted it from the crystal. We feared that if the Phoenix ever woke up with the weapon in his possession, he would wreak havoc upon us all. So our objective was to isolate it.”

“And it became so hot and produced so much heat that we couldn’t just store it anywhere,” Ulerian stammered. “W - we had to do our holy duty and keep the weapon safe for the sake of the Avios so we shielded it. The energy it produced was still too much so we had to start thinking of ways to siphon out that power elsewhere. That’s when we started using the power to keep the facility running.”

Points had to be given for ingenuity but it seemed her assessment that the generator was a potential disaster was not far from the mark. It just so happened that the reason for that was different than a simple reactor going into meltdown.

“And the second piece?” she asked.

Ulerian sighed softly, glad that the heat was taken off him. “It was an egg.”

Her face fell.

“A… Phoenix egg?”

“Why yes. It was actually the basis of Doctor Valdin’s research. The egg has embryonic cells that could be extracted and studied, after all. Much easier to look into how it could be adapted for the modern Avios than from a full-grown Phoenix.”

Aria lifted her gaze only to find that Valdin was nowhere to be seen. The rude and abrasive Avios had left. Hopefully not to do anything problematic. She would have to interrogate him later. A living Phoenix was one thing but a Phoenix egg was another. Something told her that this Phoenix was put into stasis to protect his egg and if he were ever to wake up with it missing…

“The ethics of this facility is being put further and further into question…” she sighed. “Experimenting or even studying the cells of an unborn Phoenix, even if it is for a cure is debatable at best.”

“So…” Harm said, springing up to his feet and jabbing her side lightly. “Illegal genetic research…?”

She sighed, realizing what he meant. “Yes…”

Harm threw his fists into the air. “Woooo! Hat trick! How often does that happen!?” Still bearing a grin and keeping his eyes fixated on Aria, he pointed one finger at Edith. “Also, Professor Solholme, take off your top!”

Everyone remaining in the room spun towards him in shock.

“Harm!” Aria exclaimed. “I know you’re running high on your victory but that’s inappropriate!”

“Oh, trust me, I think it’s absolutely appropriate!” Harm said, a predatory edge entering his grin. He twisted his head towards Edith who was now retreating a few steps, crossing her arms across her chest. “Come on, Professor. Don’t leave me hanging. I’m already at half-chub here!”

Kaiver stepped in front of Edith, holding out his arms. “Chronos, that’s enough!”

Harm gave him a shake of his head. “Oh Kaiver. Really. You just saw me open this door without breaking a sweat. What makes you think you can stop me?”

Then he was gone, his form vanishing in a blur of golden light. Aria barely had enough time to try and grab him only for her hands to pass through thin air. Edith Solholme let out a scream as Harm appeared several feet behind her, holding her labcoat and shirt in one paw.

“Goodness!” Ulerian cried, shielding his eyes as Edith did her best to cover her breasts.

“Harm!” Aria cried. “What in the name of the Good Goddess has gotten into you!?”

In low, even and utterly serious tones, Harm glanced over his shoulder while regarding the clothes in his paw. “Kaiver… Would you kindly look at Professor Solholme’s lower back and tell me if you can find any scars? Particularly vertical scars running perpendicular to one another near her spine.”

Aria’s brow furrowed… then it slowly dawned on her.

“Solholme has been here since the start of this facility…” she whispered.

Ulerian threw her a confused glance. “What?”

“It was something we saw in the personnel files of the facility’s director,” answered the Templar. “Every person that has been watching over this facility has always been a female Avios. Admittedly their feather color was different but they always had similar features. I assumed it was because they were related but now…” She locked gazes with a defiant Edith Solholme. “Professor. Show us your lower back, please.”

Solholme let out a bitter chuckle then lowered her arms from around her chest. Ulerian whimpered and turned away. She then turned defiantly to Harm, exposing her back to Aria.

Just as Harm had expected. Two vertical scars on her lower back.

“Congratulations, Chronomancer,” she said with dark, venomous words. “You discovered what I am. Extra points if you know who I am.”

She was a Phoenix. A Phoenix who had severed her own wings to hide amongst the Avios. It was a non-fatal wound so it didn’t force her to reconstitute herself but that would explain why she could keep coming back to this facility over and over again under different names and slightly different appearances. Before she would leave, she would likely set up her next identity before killing herself so that she would be reborn as her new form and then enter the facility again as the new lead.

Harm tossed the clothes back to her, eyes narrowed. “You are the Champion’s Custodian, aren’t you?”

Aria gave Harm a puzzled look. “A what?”

Never taking his eyes off Edith, Harm said, “Depending on which mythology you subscribe to, the gods supposedly retreated from the world after the Shattering. They still didn’t want to leave the mortal races they created high and dry, though, so they imbued one person each with great power. Their representatives on the world, so to speak. Their Champions. Each Champion was basically a demigod. Ageless. Near immortal. Above any average mortal and with a direct link to their god. Basically the Angels and Chronomancers for each different deity. But they weren’t alone. Each Champion chose companions to stand by them, their Custodians.”

Harm bared his fangs and slowly drew Timekeeper. “Edith Solholme or whoever she really is created this research facility because she was searching for her lost Champion. Over decades, she was looking for him until she finally had enough technology to bury deep into these mountains and unearth him. Under the pretense of looking for a cure for the Molting Disease, she’s tricked everyone here by telling them that the Champion is their savior when, I’m willing to bet, she’s going to wake him up and either fuck him until they repopulate the Phoenix race or take vengeance on the Avios.” He gave Edith a sardonic smile. “I’m willing to wager that you’d even go so far as to twist the cure that Valdin is working on into some sort of super virus that’ll kill every Avios that contracts the Molting Disease.”

“You would lose that bet,” Edith responded darkly.

“You sure? I’ve got a pretty good track record right now. Figured out you’re the Custodian and even found this place.”

Solholme lifted her chin at him defiantly. “That Phoenix, the Champion, is named Hal-Seth. He was the greatest Phoenix to have ever existed. The true embodiment of fire and Adramalech’s right hand. However, he has a crippling messiah complex. He thought only he could save the world. It made him careless. His actions doomed my race and would have doomed the Avios as well. Call it what you will. Genocide is still genocide. I couldn’t abide by it.”

Her eyes turned towards the sleeping Champion. “I put him into stasis with the intention of never waking him. He slumbered with his weapons, Crossfire. And I went on with my life. Until this day.”

“Then why did you even come back here?” Aria asked. “If your intention was to let him sleep forever, why build this facility?”

Solholme let out a bitter laugh and shook her head while her eyes remained glued to the Champion. “Because someone would have eventually found him. I was studying what must have been my thousandth degree in Glasterah when this young, stupid man decided to secure funding in this very location because it was far away from all rules and regulations and many Wyrmriders didn’t actually cross its path. I feared that, one day, someone would stumble upon Hal-Seth’s tomb and do the unspeakable and wake him up. So I decided to keep a close eye on the development. I worked my way up to the leadership role of this facility. I sabotaged every effort to get to Hal-Seth as much as I could for the past fifty years. Even killed myself so that the constant changing hands of management could be used as an excuse to disrupt productivity.”

She let out a bitter laugh and cupped her eyes in a hand. “But no matter what I did… curiosity eventually led to this. Perhaps Adramalech has guided you. Maybe Haamiah. Maybe Athena. Who knows? Either way. Here we stand.”

The wingless Phoenix turned to them, spreading her arms wide to expose her chest to them. “So what now, Lady Valkyrie?” She nodded towards Harm with a scowl on her face. “Chronos? What will you do with me?”

Kaiver stepped forward, his eyes contracting into slits. “Answer me one thing, Professor. Yer command to not kill the Wyrmriders. Was that you tryin’ ta sabotage us again?”

“Yes,” came the immediate and cold response. She held her head high, chest puffed out and ever-defiant. “I’ve lived long enough to know how the Wyrmriders work. I even lived amongst them more than once. I know that they love a challenge and I hoped that their constant raids and the fact that we kept letting them go mostly unharmed would spread the word of this facility.” She lifted one hand, crushing an imaginary foe between her fingers. “I could have milked that scenario for decades. Maybe key facilities would have been destroyed to hamper productivity. Personnel killed. Resignations over safety concerns. Eventually, maybe this whole place would have been abandoned. I could have orchestrated the facility going into self-destruct, killed everyone where and obliterated the Wyrmriders all at once. Buried everyone, even Hal-Seth, again. Radiation from Crossfire would have kept everyone away. If anyone tried to come back, I would be right there, to do it all over again.”

The burly Viperion’s features twisted into a scowl and he stormed over, seizing Solholme’s hand and forcing it behind her back. “Fuck you. Yer under arrest.”

“Do your worst,” she growled. “Execute me. Imprison me. It won’t matter. I am a Phoenix. I will come back.”

Aria narrowed her gaze at the traitor. “Make sure she doesn’t have any way to kill herself,” she warned. “She just admitted that she can always reconstitute herself but she never said where it will be done.”

“Yes, ma’am,” answered Kaiver, shoving Solholme forward. “I’m gonna make sure this bitch doesn’t get a chance ta see her precious Champion again.”

Ulerian gave way for the green-scaled Viperion to force the wingless Phoenix out of the chamber. The Cervitian cast one last look at Harm before bowing respectfully towards Aria and excusing himself quickly. That left them alone with the slumbering Phoenix, Hal-seth the Champion of Adramalech. She turned towards this creature of legend. There was no denying the aura this beast exuded. The fact that his weapon alone could produce enough energy to fuel the entire facility spoke volumes of Hal-Seth’s power and control.

“Tell me something, Harm,” she began, “if the Champion is here does that mean his Crest or Creed is nearby?”

“I doubt it,” Harm answered dismissively. “Even Adramalech wouldn’t be stupid enough to keep the symbol of his authority and the anchor of his influence in the same location.” He kept his eyes on Hal-Seth as well. “Solholme would have known what they were if they were kept nearby and she seems opposed to enabling anyone or anything from freeing the Champion.”

Only then did she turn to face him. “But what gave you the idea that she was a Custodian and that…” She pointed at the slumbering Phoenix. “… is a Champion.”

He locked gazes with her, his features caught in a mix of fear and humor like he was desperately trying to keep himself from reverting to cracking jokes again. “Can’t you feel it, Aria? That crippling sensation that makes you want to bend your knees and press your forehead against the ground? An overwhelming compulsion to start babbling about the gods? A thousand fiery claws raking at your skin from inside just trying to get out and the only way to make them stop is to start praising Adramalech?”

Aria shook her head. “No…”

Harm let out a bitter laugh and hugged himself, still clutching Timekeeper in one paw. “Might just be me then. Kind of makes me regret all the blasphemies I spouted about the God of Fire. I’m pretty sure the only think keeping me from spontaneously combusting is the fact that I’m Time Locked.”

She gently gripped his shoulder, offering her stern support. “I’m sure it’s all in your head. You are a man of science…”

“Yeah, no,” Harm responded, brushing her hand away. “I was never in any doubt that the gods exist. One of them interfered in my own exam to be a Chronomancer and gave me my goddamn name.” He grunted and turned his back to Hal-Seth. “We’ve danced around their divine will for millennia. Hell, our campaign here on Incendius during the Purge of Time began with us chasing Pyrannos around to keep FireFeather away from him.”

He glanced towards her. “This place is just one spark from exploding, Aria. I fear that our innate curiosity might have just been that spark.”

“Agreed,” she responded, crossing her arms. “Did you manage to get a message off to Lumire?”

He shook his head in a negative. “A Chaos Storm is preventing all communication. There’s a sandstorm that’ll come in after that. So best case, we’ll have an opening early tomorrow.” A bitter laugh escaped his muzzle as he glanced over at where Edith had been taken. “She planned this really well.”

Of that, she could agree. With all forms of communication currently blocked, even if the Church had sent a full compliment to evacuate the scientists, the revelation of a Phoenix would have sent them arguing about what to do. They wouldn’t be able to talk to their superiors either until the storm was over. This would have given her ample time to sabotage the entire effort. Maybe recruit some loyalists to take weapons from the Church military and turn them against the scientists to purge it.

“We need to control the situation,” Aria announced. “I’ll talk to Kaiver. Perhaps get some more information about those loyal to Edith and keep them under watch. I’ll check on Valdin and Ulerian as well to make see what they think and if they can pull their weight to keep this place stable. Without a clear leader, this place could become a warzone of competing priorities.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Harm said with a nod. “What do you want me to do?”

“Keep an eye on Solholme or whomever she is. Perhaps the ear of another immortal would loosen her tongue. Then when you find the opportunity, call Lumire. This is definitely something the Propheticus Primoris needs to know.”

Harm nodded and started for the door. Then he paused and turned back towards Hal-Seth.

“Hang on, feels like I should make some sort of holy gesture or something as a sign of respect to a Champion of the Gods.”

He paused for a second and she was fairly sure he would raise his middle finger to Hal-Seth. Then, he turned around, lifted his tail and shook his ass disrespectfully towards the slumbering Champion.

“Eat my ass and suck my balls.”

?

******

?

Phoenixes were meant to be the original inheritors of Pyromancy. When the mortal races were being created, Adramalech created the Phoenixes first and foremost and modeled them after himself. Avios came later and were either created as a subservient race by Adramalech or genetically defective Phoenixes caused by interbreeding with humans or just part of their evolution. Either way, having an ancient Phoenix like Edith Solholme meant that she needed to be contained somewhere that dampened Pyromancy.

Flareclaw didn’t really have any holding cells or prisons. This place was built for research not as a detention center. Solholme was confined to her office with the anti-fire mechanisms activated. Originally designed to keep fires from spreading throughout the facility in case of an emergency, these runes now kept her office very damp and purposefully made it difficult to cast any form of Pyromancy. While it would still be possible to conjure a fireball or a firestorm, it would take significant amount of power to do so.

Kaiver had posted two of his guards at her door and both looked upon Harm nervously as he approached. Neither of them protested or even tried to stop him as he approached the door and stepped through. Edith stood quietly with her back to him, hands wrapped behind her back and peering out the window into the dark expanse of the exterior facilities. Harm set down the glass of fine brandy onto her desk and began pouring the crystal-clear, brown liquid into the two glasses.

“If you’re going for the whole brooding villain thing, you’re pulling it off quite well,” he commented. “All you need is a little cat to stroke while you deliver some menacing monologue about ‘how the worst is yet to come’ or telling me how I’ve made some ‘grave mistake’.”

“You have made a grave mistake,” answered Edith without turning around.

Harm pushed the glass he had filled over to her. “Care to elaborate?”

The clinking of crystal caught her attention and she turned to regard the offered drink. Features as unreadable as ever, she stepped over and picked up the glass, tipping it to her beak and giving it a light taste. With a reluctant nod of acknowledgment, she said, “Not bad.”

“Would you believe it was only made three years ago?”

Her eyebrows rose. “Really?” She reached over and plucked the bottle where the brew came from. “Fascinating. I didn’t think brandy could taste good without at least five years of aging.”

A golden ring of magical runes appeared around Harm’s right index finger which he spun absently like a toy. “That’s because I used my Chronomancy to age it a good fifteen years. Admittedly, I just threw the brew into a wooden casket I found in the warehouse but it had the same effect.”

Solholme let out a soft chuckle and sat down in her high-backed chair, sipping from the glass before sitting back down. “You could make a killing as a purveyor of liqueur. Did you ever consider that instead of becoming the attack dog of the Church?”

“I would have,” he responded curtly, “if I didn’t have to kill a once promising student-turned-insane-Chronomancer on a vineyard that had been given to me as a means to keep me occupied and to ignore my constant pleas to start teaching.” He picked up the remaining glass and took a gulp from it, swallowing with a soft gasp. “You might know the aftermath of that battle. The Shelandian Divide?”

Solholme eyed him warily. “I recall. During the Purge of Time, Prismaticia the Chronomancer of Colors made her base of operations on what had been the Malderine Family Vineyard. It was owned by Chronomancers, afforded to them a while ago as a financial venture. Chronomancers would study the effects of their magic on wine.” She twisted the crystal glass in her hand. The way the light danced off the edges almost made it possible to see those colorful leaves that Prismaticia had twisted with her magic. “During the Purge, Prismaticia took over the Vineyard and used her power to manipulate the light of the leaves from the grapevines. They would shine and glow even in the middle of the night.” She inclined her head slightly. “Are you saying that your battle with your former pupil caused the Divide?”

“Not so much the battle. More like she caused it.” He took another gulp from the glass and set it down on the table. “I may have said some things that triggered her. Her reaction was a little excessive. At the very least, I gave the Red Wyverns a nice place to roost. One thing to remember, though, is that I beat the Chronomancer that made the Divide.”

The Phoenix leaned forward, tenting her hands in front of her. “So are you here to flex, Master Chronos?”

He flicked his ears at her, the smile on his muzzle growing slightly. “I feel like I have to given I’m standing in front of not only a fellow ageless entity but also a legendary Custodian. I’m sure what little I’ve done doesn’t hold a candle to what you have accomplished in your… what…? Five thousand years?”

She shook her head absently in disgust. “Such ignorance. You Chronomancers. Think you know everything. It’s what led to your downfall.” Her piercing, red eyes leveled at him. “The Phoenix Empire started in these very lands and we stood strong for five thousand years. Even though that empire crumbled to dust thirty-thousand years ago, it was far longer than your pretentious Collective.”

He never stopped smiling. “I appreciate your honesty. To be frank, the Collective was extremely pretentious. They thought they could make better use of everyone’s Time. We can see how well that turned out for them.” Again, he took his time taking a sip of the brandy. “But I know why I stood up against the Chronomancers. You were there, weren’t you?”

There was no verbal reply but it was just the way she narrowed her gaze at him ever so slightly that confirmed his suspicions.

“When was our first meeting?” he asked.

“Is your memory failing you?” she mocked.

“Not at all. Which leads me to believe that we never actually met but you watched from a distance.” He tilted his head to the side. “When was it?”

With a soft sigh, he slumped into her chair and regarded him with disdain. “Arrogance. Once again, you Chronomancers think of nothing but yourselves.” With a wave of her feathered hand, she said, “Very well. It was on these plains, in fact. When you joined the fight against one of your own.

He let out a soft ‘ah’ of understanding. “Evaryn. Were you defending this tomb even then?”

“Yes. In fact, if you Chronomancers would think beyond yourselves for once, you’d realize the the reason these black sands are so absorbent of light and indeed the very reason for these Sunless Lands is because of the Phoenix race.”

Harm’s brow furrowed in confusion. “What do you mean?”

She threw her head back and let out a soft trill, a musical, mocking laugh. “Ah, that look of utter bewilderment on your face is priceless.” A cruel smile touched her beak. “The War of the Wings, Chronos. The entirety of the Phoenix Empire was built on these lands.”

“In the dark? Did you use your mastery over Pyromancy to illuminate the whole place?”

“Don’t be so foolish. We are nothing like those barbarians beyond Chillfarn where your Sun Spire does not reach.” She shook her head. “No. This entire landmass once was positioned far closer to the shard of Chrysalis that illuminates station. This was the Incendian mainland.” Her smile gained an edge of arrogance. “We Phoenixes were so adept with our magic and the Fire that we melted the very land itself and caused it to travel the oceans. When we ran out of space, we physically moved the land so that we were much closer to the admittedly bigger landmass that you now call the ‘Incendian mainland’. In fact, the Searanti Islands between here and Incendius did not exist! We churned the fire beneath the earth to create the islands.”

Such a show of magic, while far from impossible, it would have required an immense amount of power. But in the times before the War of the Wings, the gods were supposedly far more active. If a Champion was amongst the Phoenixes, it was possible that they could have cast such a spell… maybe. There was no evidence of such a spell but then again, no one had actually looked.

Some Geomancers may need to be involved.

“Say that I believe you,” he responded. “Are you saying that with the War of the Wings, the entire Phoenix civilization was reduced to the very sands we stand on?”

“Not sand. Ash.” Solholme stood once more and loomed over him. “The Avios moved to your mainland during our rule. These Sunless Lands was our crown jewel. Our capital. We were the singular most powerful force and Empire on Incendius. Everything we did, we did in honor of the Fire. We ruled for thousands of years, pushing the limits of Pyromancy.” He mood darkened and for a brief moment, her crimson eyes turned away. “Then we were betrayed.”

“A Phoenix turned against you?”

Solholme huffed. “No. Our god fell in love with a human. Adramalech was smitten by a human, mortal woman. She was doomed to die because of your god’s meddling.”

Harm flicked an ear at her. “Haamiah is a notoriously lazy god that doesn’t interfere with mortal affairs. Even when I got my name, he took the laziest route. He would never have -” Then his eyes widened. “Oh… you mean the whole thing where he started Time for everyone and introduced death to the world.”

“You are growing slow in your old age,” Solholme said, straightened. “Perhaps a consequence of you short-lived species not being built to live so long.” The wingless Phoenix shrugged and turned her back to him, wandering once more to her windows. “The woman died as is natural. But Adramalech was driven my grief. A weeping god is a dangerous one and he ripped her back to life, tying her to the very same mechanic as we Phoenixes. However, she was still human. She was not built of the Fire like us. So when she died next, a Phoenix would take her place instead.”

“A Phoenix would die in her place?” Harm’s jaw dropped slowly. “And that’s how you lost the War of the Wings…”

“Indeed.” The researcher glanced over her shoulder. “This woman was horrified by what her lover had done and could not bear the guilt of having one of the majestic Phoenixes die in her place. So what did she do?” Solholme’s hands formed into furious fists. “She joined a civil war that was already raging between Avios and Phoenix, desperate to end the lives of my race so that she could have her final death.” Then her hands slowly unclenched. “But I don’t blame her. The blame rests solely on the selfish deity who could not let her rest in peace. Our Empire had lived long enough and our arrogance had led the Avios to rebel. In fact, the only reason the Empire didn’t wipe out the Avios was because it entertained them.” She turned to him, waving a hand absently. “Do you have any idea how simple it would have been for the Empire to take their ships ships and burn all of Incendius to the ground? In fact, I’m curious why your people didn’t do that. They had the power to consume all Time yet they didn’t. Why?” She pointed an accusing finger at him. “And don’t bother giving me a cock-and-bull story about you stalling them.”

Harm shrugged as he sipped from his glass again. “They were ultimately divided. Each Chronomancer pursued their own research and they were warring amongst each other to see their personal objectives met. If they had acted like a single, unified front, then maybe they could have totally taken over but they didn’t. They fought amongst themselves more than they fought the rest of the world.” He set his glass down with a loud clink. “So the Phoenixes were amused by the Avios’ rebellion and kept the war going on as a form of entertainment. Then this Bride of Adramalech died, was reborn and joined the Avios to end the war once and for all. What does this have to do with the black sands of the Sunless Lands?”

“Every time a Phoenix died in the place of this woman,” Solholme said, “that Phoenix was reduced to black dust.”

Harm flinched. “Wait… so you’re saying this entire land… is literally built on the ashes of your civilization? But no matter how many people you guys had under your Empire, it surely wasn’t big enough to fill this whole place with sand.”

Solholme laughed at him derisively. “And they say you Chronomancers are so clever.” She tapped the side of her head with two fingers. “Think of it, Chronos. A Phoenix took the place of the Bride in death but the Phoenix themselves are incapable of dying.”

That made more sense… albeit the conclusion being grim.

The Bride would suffer a mortal wound and a Phoenix would ‘die’ in her place. However, a Phoenix couldn’t die permanently and would instead self-immolate with the magical energies being used to reconstitute their bodies much like how Solholme had been coming back over and over again after each ‘death’. With each death caused by this mechanism, black sand was left. So a Phoenix could die millions of times to produce tonnes of sand before finally expiring.

“I never got how that whole resurrection thing worked,” Harm admitted. “I remember reading theories that it consumed the memories and sensation of the pain of dying to fuel the magic of resurrection. Is that true?”

Solholme nodded. “The Fire consumed all pain and suffering. For a Phoenix, to suffer a fatal wound was inconsequential as you would simply return without those memories or the sensation of pain. But in this case, there was no pain to suffer, no memories to wipe. When the Bride died, she remembered everything but because she was not us…”

“The Phoenix died,” Harm concluded. “And was resurrected but there was no pain to consume. So something else needed to be consumed.”

The Phoenix nodded grimly. “It was subtle at first. An hour or two of missing memory. Nothing to be concerned about. Most of my people dismissed it as a lapse in memory after a long life. When you live long enough, days just blur together. But then it grew. Days would go missing from our memory. Then years. A madness set in. Many Phoenixes would see mementos of their past lives and not remember them. Then people would start spontaneously combusting in the streets as the Avios rapidly and quickly began killing the Bride over and over again almost ten times a minute. Panic set in and fear quickly drove my people into finally taking the war seriously. But that was our own undoing.”

“What happened?”

Her eyes grew distant like she was lost in a memory.

“Hal-Seth happened. He grew to pity the Bride and his soft-hearted naiveté drove him to convince us to join the side of the Avios as a means to parlay and end the war.” The same cold ferocity that she had borne this entire time returned to her eyes and she directed it at Harm. “The greatest power amongst the Phoenix Empire had turned his back on them and was now aiding their attackers. We never killed any Phoenixes. Just stopped their assault. But the Bride continued to commit suicide over and over again despite Hal-Seth’s pleas. He was convinced he would talk her off that ledge that she was growing accustomed to jumping off. Do you know how terrifying it was to try and talk to a woman while she constantly slit her own throat only to come back again and do it all over?”

“I can only imagine,” he answered dryly. “The Age of the Divine was very dark.”

She huffed and glanced away. “The Empire’s offensive crumbled and they were forced to retreat. The Avios pushed them to their outposts in the Searanti Islands and eventually, they came to the doorstep of the Empire. It was at that point that Hal-Seth had a breakthrough. He convinced the Bride to talks with the Emperor. Then our god had to intervene again.” A scowl entered her beak. “At the negotiations, Adramalech offered her the final death in exchange for a single request. Hal’Seth would perform a ritual that would end the war once and for all. Death would never come for the Avios or Phoenixes ever again.” Her eyes narrowed at Harm. “Those were his exact words.”

Oh… I have a bad feeling about that.

Solholme made a slicing motion through the air. “She accepted and Hal-Seth went to work believing that he would bring equality to the two species and ending the war once and for all. But it was a lie. The ritual was designed to kill the Bride once and for all but it would also kill every Phoenix and Avios in Tower Thirteen.”

There it is…

“Which begs the question,” Harm responded. “What happened?”

Solholme let out a bitter chuckle. “Your God intervened. Haamiah secretly told me the truth. I didn’t believe him. I blamed him still for the one constant in this world. But when Hal-Seth began and I watched my fellow Custodians die and each and every Phoenix perish, I knew he was right. I wove the Fire around us into a crystal, throwing Hal-Seth into stasis alongside his weapon and the fertilized egg that he was using alongside the Bride for his Ritual. I was too late to stop the Phoenixes from dying but at least some Avios remained.”

Harm slowly rose from his seat. “That sounds suspiciously like Chronomancy.”

She shrugged at him. “Maybe it is. Semantics really. I couldn’t stop the ritual entirely. It is the act of a god, after all and your divine sponsor did little more than inform me of the God of Fire’s duplicity.” The smile on her face twisted into one of mockery. “Then again, what is the difference when it comes to the gods themselves?”

“Adralamech or Haamiah?”

“Both.” She cupped the side of her head delicately with her hand, mocking him with an illusion of a dainty researcher. “Either way. That is how our story ended. I trapped Hal-Seth in this tomb and I have been watching over it ever since to ensure no one ever wakes him.”

I guess that adds up… but there is still something missing…

“Adralamech would’ve been pissed at you considering how his plan was to kill everyone and yet the Avios lived. There had to be consequences.”

Solholme’s bitter smile returned. “Oh there was. Take a guess.”

Harm glanced away from her briefly and then let out a dejected sigh. “The Molting Disease.”

“Correct. Adramalech’s ritual could not be fully stopped. It’s effects are still felt. Avios have their feathers plucked from them by cruel mysteries they can never understand.”

“How long ago was this?”

She gave him a dark smile. “Long enough that the Chronomancers had yet to be established.” Solholme reached for her glass, swiping it from the desk and draining half of it. “I’ve spent millennia learning about this new world. I watched nations rise and fall. I watched the Chronomancers go mad with power. I even tried applying to their Academy once but had to flee when they drew far too close to my identity.” She took another sip, this time catching an ice cube in her mouth before spitting it out harshly against the glass. “As I said, you Chronomancers are far too curious and far too arrogant for your own good.”

“And as I’ve said. I don’t deny that,” Harm responded coolly.

“I’ve watched over this tomb for millennia.” Her eyes fell to the glass wistfully. “Well, that’s not true. There were times when I abandoned my post, thinking I was done. But someone, somewhere always came back and came dangerously close to awakening the manifestation of the Fire. More than once, they grew ambitious enough to have some grand delusion that I simply could not allow.”

“The delusion of waking Hal-Seth and starting the Phoenix Empire again.”

Those burning red eyes turned to him. “So clever. Now tell me, if you’re so smart, why do you think I did not want to wake up Hal-Seth? People have gone mad for less and there is so much fiction about former eternal guardians turning on their charges for self-gratification after an eternity of no thanks.”

Harm gave the question a moment of thought. “Because you saw what the world had become and didn’t want a repeat of the mistakes that the Phoenix Empire had done?”

She huffed and drained the rest of her glass, slamming it onto the table. “No,” she answered after a protracted swallow. “Imagine if you suddenly woke to a world far more different from your own. A world where you failed and were manipulated and abandoned by your god to be the catalyst for an apocalypse. What would you do then?”

Harm went rigid. “You’re afraid Hal-Seth would go insane…”

A sadness entered her expression. “He is a child. A child with the powers of a demigod. And yet, I loved him. Our union even produced a child… even though his heart still bled for the Bride.” Her hand went to her stomach. “I would have been satisfied with raising the child on my own. But he always had these dreams of grandeur. Of changing the world. His charm and natural charisma drew others to him. Despite the obvious flaws in his ideas, people still went along with his idea. It was only when his beak was finally shut that I realized the extent of his madness.”

Wait… She’s thinking he wants to restart the Phoenix Empire!

“You believe he wants to hatch that egg and then… restart the entire Phoenix race? With just… you three?”

Solholme shook her head. “Maybe. It’s hard to tell when he has been asleep for thousands of years. But it’s a possibility. He was willing to go along with a god’s genocidal plan. Perhaps he would be susceptible to another idea of fucking his own daughter and seeding the world with his own malformed children.”

Harm recoiled in disgust. “So you think he wants to…” He gagged. “With his own child!?”

She shook her head and threw the empty glass on the ground, shattering it. “Maybe I’m just jealous. Maybe I would have preferred to be his queen and we could have sired the next generation of Phoenixes. Maybe I’m just bitter that he chose the Bride over me, the woman who gave him a child.”

Assumptions were not something Harm liked to dabble in but the evidence was quite clear. Hal-Seth was dangerous; noble but dangerous. Waking him up could unleash an ancient force unseen in modern history. That kind of power could wreak absolute havoc upon the world especially when it was wielded by someone who was so easily swayed by a bleeding heart and tragic back story.

“Assuming I believe you,” he said, “where do we go from here?”

There, she let out a scoff. “Honestly, when you told me you were a Chronomancer, I had so much hope for you. I would have revealed Hal-Seth to you in time. Maybe pinned the blame on Ulerian or Valdin for the betrayal.” She sat back down in her seat, curling one leg over the other. “You know I purposefully stoked the animosity between the two just so that they would eventually come to blows and send this facility into a civil war?”

“Thereby destroying all the research but also hiding Hal-Seth once again. Clever. But I thought you came here to make sure he remains hidden and yet you drove your team to finding him.”

“They would have found him eventually,” she said dismissively. “The teams were growing desperate to find any cure to the Molting Disease and with their research into Geomancy, they would have uncovered his tomb. Regardless, I would have liked to build this rumor or myth around this facility. Spun some tale about hauntings or genetic research gone awry. Rumor and speculation is a far greater deterrent than guns and walls.”

Don’t I know it…

“So you worked for the past fifty years to build up the reputation of this place with the intention of bringing it all down in some mysterious but catastrophic accident. What? You would have stalked the ruins, scaring people away and if they got too close, killed them?”

“Killed. Sent them away. Done whatever it took to keep them away from Hal-Seth. Maybe I would have let a few of them actually see him and then killed them far from here just to continue to build the mystery.” She shrugged dismissively. “Again, your presence would have helped. I could have used you to destroy Hal-Seth entirely with your powers. That’s all Chronomancers are good for, apparently.” She leaned forward, a dark smile on her face. “The first time I saw you was over three thousand years ago. You were turning against your own kind. I joined the fight against Evaryn because I feared she would find Hal-Seth. You were just as insufferable back then.”

Harm cocked his head slightly. “What can I say? I’m anything if not consistent.”

“Clearly.” She turned her beak upwards, looking down upon him. “I recall watching as your little group of elite soldiers led the coalition to stand up against Evaryn. Many died at the base of her flower. You faced her alone. Even I must admit, I rejoiced when I saw that monstrous thing fall. I recall thinking to myself that ‘here was someone who could destroy Hal-Seth’. Sadly, I never could get in contact with you. I almost thought it an act of the gods when you waltzed right up to my doorstep.”

“I have been very busy,” Harm responded. “Between these missions for Lumire, I’ve actually started teaching.”

“How quaint,” came the bored response. “I’ve told you my tale. My motivations. Why don’t you do us all a favor and destroy Hal-Seth and we can avoid further complications. Unravel my plans to pitch Ulerian and Valdin against one another. You know they are vying for Hal-Seth’s powers. Ulerian believed him to be some divine savior sent by the Sun Goddess while Valdin just wants to use his genetic data for his own research to outdo Ulerian.”

So that’s what she’s after. That’s why she’s told me everything. She’s stacked the deck, set up the pieces and now she wants me to pull the trigger.

“I’m honestly a little disappointed in you, Solholme,” he said rising to his feet. “Throughout this entire conversation, I’ve been dropping hints that I didn’t just come here to get your side of the story.” He took one a sip from his glass and set it down.

She watched him carefully but didn’t respond.

“We may be ageless,” he continued, “but we can’t be driven by the past nor can we lament a future that never will be. Those of us that do never grow choose stagnation over progress. Despite being killed and reborn over and over again, you just keep coming back to this one goal, a vendetta you imposed upon yourself. Maybe if you had chosen to evolve, this whole thing would have resolved itself.”

A bitter laugh left her. “You honestly think that the short-lived would have known how better to handle the situation if I had not intervened?”

“We’ll never know now that you basically pointed them directly to his tomb, now will we?” he mocked.

She scoffed at him. “High praise from one who has been the Church’s lapdog for millennia since the Purge of Time. How is that collar around your neck, Chronos? Tight as ever?”

There he gave her a smirk. “I hardly feel it anymore.” He picked up the glass and drained the rest of it. “Helps my drink go down smoothly.”

Her eyes watched him swallow… and then it clicked.

“Chronomancers can’t eat or drink…” she whispered. “Anything they ingest is violently ejected moments later. But all this time…?”

“Now you’re catching on,” he said with a grin. He tapped the bottle of brandy. “I’m going to leave this right here as a reminder of that little lesson, Professor. Keep it in mind.” Turning away with his scarf fluttering behind him, he added, “Use it to fuel your own evolution. Maybe then we can talk again about a collaboration on how to deal with this Hal-Seth situation.”

The door shut behind him and he gave the two guards a salute before he headed back to the sleeping quarters. It took him a good fifteen minutes to finally reach Aria’s door where he quickly knocked. She answered almost immediately.

“How did it go?” she asked, clearly a little agitated.

His tone completely serious and filled with concern, he said, “She’s basically set up this whole place to implode. Not literally, of course. Valdin and Ulerian are pitched against one another. I’m willing to wager they’re just itching for a reason to flick the switch and try to get the one up. She hates Hal-Seth and wants to either keep him imprisoned or find a way to destroy him without waking him up. Ultimately, she fears him.” He lifted a finger. “But above all else, we need to get a call out to Lumire. This cannot go another minute without letting him know.”

Aria nodded in agreement. “I gathered as much for Kaiver. I reviewed the security reports from him. Valdin has been siphoning a lot of power from Ulerian’s research. At first it was dismissed as petty, white-collar aggression but Kaiver started suspecting something and he’s traced the power drains to the outer facilities. Similarly, Ulerian has been keeping all of Valdin’s people from his research almost possessively. Kaiver is afraid that while he can hold back one of them, he can’t keep them both back. If war were to break out between the two…”

“He’d have Valdin outside knocking down his door and Ulerian inside wrecking up the place.” Harm cursed softly and but his lower lip. “Damn… This place is just one attack from the Wyrmriders from a catastrophe.” His brow furrowed. “Which still begs the question… Would Solholme actually encourage the Wyrmriders to attack this facility or is it something else?”

“Given how she could possibly have been around since the Purge of Time and the Wyrmriders were birthed after?” Aria shrugged. “Perhaps she is their hidden queen or something related.”

Harm ran over everything that Solholme had confessed to and everything that she had said before the revelation of her identity.

“No… Something tells me that the Wyrmriders weren’t part of her plan. She wouldn’t trust them to destroy Hal-Seth. I doubt they’d know how. She seemed genuinely concerned about anyone else freeing Hal-Seth that wasn’t under her supervision. So they must be something else…” He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “There’s still something missing here, Aria. But we’ll need to sort it out afterwards. There’s a break in the storms tomorrow after the sandstorm abates. Then maybe we can reach out to Lumire and get some reinforcements.”

The Templar nodded in agreement.

“Very well. Let’s see what he has to say.”

Freedom FIre

‘Dawn’ in the Sunless Lands was entirely different from anywhere else. The lights in the Flareclaw Bunker slowly began to brighten from the deep twilight that it had fallen when ‘nighttime’ had hit. Beyond the windows, everything was still pitch-black save for the little pieces of light from what few lamps and spotlights that were positioned around the exterior facilities could illuminate. It was impossible to tell that a tremendous sandstorm was on its way.

Harm headed up the red, metal steps of the communications tower, watching the horizon closely. There was nothing to see beyond a few yards past the walls. Utter darkness without a break.

I wonder if it was this dark back when the Phoenixes were around.

Somehow, he could just imagine the Phoenixes being so arrogant that they actually lit up the pitch-black land with their Pyromancy and took great pride in the fact that they were able to push back the darkness with their power. The Empire was this glistening jewel of light in the darkness, a true beacon of civilization that stood in defiance to the natural order.

He had to wonder exactly how Solholme felt as she watched her home reduced to literal ashes. In many ways, they were the same. In others, they were completely different.

I don’t think I can really relate. She was betrayed and when she woke up, her whole world was replaced with one that was without the Phoenixes.

I was the one that brought the end of my race.

But we both don’t want to see a return of the old empire.

“Lord Chronos?”

He perked his ears and turned his head. Rachel, that penguin Avios that manned the comms tower poked her head out from the other side of the door into the tower control center. As always, she was perched on her little rolling chair. Her little, pear-shaped form perched on that roost was both endearing and a little concerning.

If things go to shit… what will happen to her?

“We’ve got our window,” she announced.

“Thank you,” he responded, pushing off the railings of the comms tower and heading into the control center. “Out of curiosity, Rachel, I haven’t seen you around the rest of the Bunker. Where do you sleep?”

She shrugged absently as she wheeled herself back to her console. “Here. We’re basically blind out here. It’s almost impossible to see anything in the darkness without special equipment and even then, with sandstorms and Wyrmriders, it’s often hard to get advanced warning of anything coming. Even if we do get warning, it’ll be hard for anyone get here and help us.”

“So someone needs to watch for openings and potential threats at all hours?” he asked, regarding the various equipment around them. “Couldn’t you take shifts? Why does it always have to be you?”

She turned away bashfully, the light glinting off her glasses to hide her eyes. “This isn’t a meteorological station, Lord Chronos. We’re not here to study the weather. I’m basically just an extension of Kaiver’s unit even though I have no combat expertise. I’m really more of a scientist.”

I see…

If he were betting man, he would have guessed that this Avios had been brought here alongside Solholme’s latest incarnation to bring Havense technology to the facility. Kaiver as well. They were both recruited to secure the facility and inadvertently help Solholme’s plot to bury the tomb forever.

“How did you land this job?” Harm asked, leaning over the console and tapping in the numbers to Lumire’s private channel.

“College intern,” she sighed with a shrug. “I’m a meteorology student. This is actually my first and only job. I’m only meant to be here for three months. Been stuck here for almost three years now.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “That can’t be good for your studies.”

She shrugged again. “Professor Solholme pulled some strings. My studies are suspended and she pays me in full. By the time I finish my internship, I won’t have any debt at all.”

Harm grunted softly and shook his head. “I can’t believe how Xaos’ education system is designed to throw you into debt the moment you leave college. You should move to Haven. There, the only currency really is reputation. Just make a name for yourself and you’ll be golden. No debts. No credit. Just do your best and you’ll get everything you need.”

Rachel began tapping away at the console. “Maybe. But as you can see, Lord Chronos, I’m not exactly someone to be looked up to.” Her eyes dropped a little. “I’ve seen all the people in Haven. They’re so… pretty. Professor Solholme is so… dignified and beautiful. If she weren’t a Phoenix, I swear she’d be perfect. Honestly, I don’t see why she kept her scars if she can just modify herself to look like anyone up in Haven.”

Harm froze for a second.

That’s right…

He shook his head free of the thought and began to call to Lumire.

It only took a moment before his adoptive brother’s face appeared on a screen.

“Harm!” exclaimed the Propheticus Primoris. Rachel respectfully shrunk away from view while making a sign often used by supplicants to the most powerful man in the world. “I was growing worried when I didn’t hear from you. How have you been? Where’s Aria?”

“Here in Flareclaw with me,” he responded curtly.

“Flareclaw? Where?”

“Incendius,” Harm supplied, crossing his arms. “We’re here investigating a distress call from the research facility. It’s meant to find a cure for the Molting Disease that plague Avios but it turns out they’ve got a secret that I think you need to be sitting down for.”

Lumire’s youthful features were marred by a frown. He leaned back and Harm could see he was in his office given the high-backed, gilded chair. “Alright… What’s the issue?”

“They’ve got a Phoenix here. Two, in fact. A dormant one that I suspect to be the Champion of Adramalech that was put into stasis with a catastrophic weapon and a fertilized Phoenix egg. The other just so happens to be the head of this facility that cut of her wings and has been masquerading as a researcher to keep this place hidden from everyone. I think she’s been plotting to turn everyone against one another and even antagonized the Wyrmriders so that this place would be destroyed.”

Lumire blinked slowly a few times as he took in his words. Then the Primoris shook his head and waved his hands through the air. “Hang on. Slow down. Did you say a ‘Phoenix’? As in those legendary immortal avian species with mastery over fire? They’re extinct!”

“I thought so too. There was an entire department back on Temporal dedicated to studying their culture and abilities.” Harm crossed his arms, leaning back on the soles of his feet. “Chronomancers were unnaturally obsessed with anyway to circumvent Time and even though all that had earned the Mantle were already ageless because of being Time Locked, they were still obsessed with all forms of immortality. The Phoenixes’ resurrection was just one of the many topics explored.”

Lumire stared at him for a long moment. “You’re serious.” Harm just stared at his brother with a deadpan look. The Primoris leaned back in his chair and clamped a hand against his forehead. “Fuck me.”

Rachel gasped.

“Don’t worry. He swears more often than you think,” Harm said, glancing at her briefly. Turning his gaze back to Lumire, he said, “Aria and I think that this place is just one disaster away from blowing up. Solholme has purposefully fostered animosity and I have this eerie feeling that she wanted to be discovered. She’s been toying with everyone here, bouncing back and forth between evacuation and hunkering down.”

Lumire straightened, regarding Harm with a fierce stare. “So what do you need from me?”

Harm lifted a finger. “First, we need reinforcements. Havenese or Incendian, I don’t think it’ll matter. We need to secure the site and I don’t think Aria and I will be enough.”

“Done. It might take a day or so but I’ll get some ships down there to help clean things up. Anything else?”

“Yeah. Look up everything you can about this facility. When it was first started. All of its capabilities. Any security reports or staff movement. This place has been around for supposedly fifty years and people have come in and out. I want to know why. Not from the official files here. From what you, as the Propheticus Primoris can find out. If Solholme has been able to twist and manipulate people to this level, something tells me that she might have agents out there. You do not survive the extinction of your race without having some contacts.”

“You can attest to that,” Lumire chuckled. “I can do that. What else?”

“Last thing.” Harm’s eyes narrowed. “Did you actually send us here?”

There, the Primoris gave him a puzzled look. “No. I didn’t even know that place existed until the official reports of your departure arrived.”

Harm recalled what Solholme had mentioned the previous night. She had wanted to contact him since the Purge of Time but never could. What if… what if…?

This was a trap to force my hand.

“Shit…” he growled, glancing away. “Thanks Lumire. That’s all I need.”

The Primoris nodded and ended the call. Harm turned to leave only for Rachel to let out a sudden, surprised squeak.

“Is everything okay?” he asked, turning back to her.

Her eyes were wide and she was hurriedly tapping away at the console. “I… I don’t know,” she stammered, eyes racing across the crystal screen. “When the call ended, I noticed that we just received a response from somewhere.”

“A response?” he repeated, returning to her side. “Was someone expecting a call?”

“No,” she responded. “Kaiver ordered all communications to be shutdown except for anything you or Lady Valkyrie requested. I made a log of all requests yesterday and gave it to Kaiver. We weren’t expecting any calls…”

Harm’s heart was beating hard in his chest. Someone or something had sent out a signal before Kaiver’s lock down. Then something out there had just sent a response. “What is it responding to? What does it say?”

Rachel let out another squeak and placed her hands over her beak. “Oh no…”

“What?” he pressed. “What is it?”

“It’s… it’s coming from the desert… And it’s Wyrmian.”

Harm’s heart froze and he regarded the screen. Only a single sentence was placed on the screen, one translated by their systems.

‘We’re coming for you.’

?

*******

?

Aria found Ulerian in the theological research facility outside of the Bunker. Alongside several of his other researchers, they had convened in silent prayer. After all that had happened and all that had been revealed, it was only natural to look for some sort of guidance from a higher power. Many times, Aria had filled that role but this did not feel appropriate.

The facility itself was half cathedral and half grand library. The walls were lined with the gothic architecture adorned with emblems of the sun and wings that was dominant over Incendian art. Each wall doubled as a shelf where illuminated manuscripts copied from ancient libraries sat. The first half of the facility was populated by desks where people could grab scripture and examine them. Theological runes were placed around each desk to contain and magical experimentation within the confines of the circles.

Beyond that was what one would expect from a typical cathedral. Pews flanked a central aisle with an altar positioned on a raised dais. A ruby statue of the Sun Goddess Apollia was positioned just behind the altar while another statue of the Mother Goddess jutted out from the back wall between two stained glass windows. The contrast between the two could not be more evident. Apollia held the Scorium Axis and was dressed like a warrior Angel while the Mother Goddess had her arms wide open and was welcoming.

Aria decided not to go down the winding path of theological ruminating and strode down the aisle. She sat down next to Ulerian who was perched near the front of the altar, hands folded in silent prayer. Respecting his reverence, she closed her own eyes and quietly prayed.

She prayed for wisdom in these trying times and for guidance to do what was right. Even in the dark land, she could see blood on the horizon.

“I trusted Professor Solholme, you know.”

She kept her eyes closed but allowed Ulerian to continue. “We all did,” she responded.

“When she first asked me to spearhead her research into the Molting Disease, I thought it was a sign from the Sun Goddess.” A sigh came from the Cervitian. “You see, after my doctorate, I was straining to find my purpose. The reforms under His Holiness, Lumire, has expanded technology and modernized much of Incendius but there is hardly a place for an academic doctor here.”

Only then did she open her eyes and regard Ulerian. The stag had his eyes cast down, hands still closely clasped. “But your field is in the application of theological theories to medicine, is it not? People constantly get sick. You must have an abundance of work.”

Her words were just one step away from implying that Incendius was far less advanced than Haven.

“Perhaps but it is not what I wanted,” Ulerian responded. “I stepped into my field not to simply repeat the same mundane rituals and cast the same spells over and over again.” He turned his soft, brown eyes towards her. “I want to revolutionize the world. I want to contribute something. I am a researcher. I want to search for answers not just apply the same answers someone has already discovered.”

She lifted a finger at him, a gentle smile on her lips. “I caution against such ambitions, doctor. Many times in history, such ambition has led people down dark paths.”

With a nod, he turned away from her again. “I know, I know. The Chronomancers.”

The Templar let out a soft chuckle and looked out towards one of the stained glass windows. It depicted a scene in history where the Sun Goddess blessed a simple farmer with her light. The Brave Farmer subsequently drove the Darkened beyond the icy southern mountains of the Incendian Mainland.

“There was one particular Chronomancer that comes to mind,” she said at length. “His name was Varanour the Black Fire Chronomancer. He was an Incendian native. Human. He was incredibly ambitious. He created the Black Fire Chronomancy. A sort of curse that destroyed matter indiscriminately. The curse appeared like a seething black flame.”

“Thus his name,” concluded Ulerian. “I admit, I am not well versed in the history of the Purge of Time. Many in my field consider it heretical knowledge. The Church teaches us that even the curiosity of Chronomancy could ultimately lead one down the path of heresy.” His brow furrowed. “Which leads me to question how you could associate yourself with someone like Chronos.”

There she chuckled and gently clapped his shoulder. “The Church also teaches us not to judge people by their name, species or profession. One’s worth in the Mother Goddess’ eyes is determined by one’s deeds and Harm saved Tower Thirteen with his defection from the Chronomancers.”

“So you are well-versed in betrayal, then.” Ulerian immediately grimaced. “I apologize, Lady Templar. That came out far harsher than I intended.”

“I understand,” she said gently. “Solholme’s betrayal is fresh in your mind and it still stings.” She paused as she pulled her hand away and rested them on her lap. “I am not saying that her actions are justified. Only that she has her reasons and we should understand those reasons before we cast judgment upon her.”

“Wise words,” Ulerian sighed. “But it does not shake this feeling of abandonment I have.” The bespectacled Cervitian pressed a hand against his chest. “Solholme gave me a purpose. As I mentioned, after getting my doctorate, I found myself without a goal. It excited me to be tasked with this opportunity.”

Aria offered him a gentle smile. “Because you would ultimately be doing good for all the Avios or because it would take decades to accomplish and the research could take your entire lifetime to complete?”

A bitter smile appeared on his muzzle, mirroring hers. “Is this insight something you gleaned from Varanour?”

She nodded as she recounted how the young Varanour was obsessed with making a name for himself, of constantly being busy and never being caught complacent. He was constantly unsatisfied with his achievements which was reflected in the technique that propelled him to earn the Chronomancer’s Mantle.

“Varanour suffered from the same sense of being adrift or without direction after he became a Chronomancer. He strove so hard to become one that when he was finally given the power of eternity, he realized he was now trapped with all time at his hands but nothing to fill it with.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Then the Purge of Time happened and Varanour sought one of the most impossible tasks on Incendius in a desperate attempt to forever fight for something.”

“What was that?” Ulerian asked.

“He wanted to wipe out the Darkened.”

The entire cathedral seemed to fall silent upon. Ulerian just stared at her in disbelief and she could feel the glares of others around her. She remembered giving Harm that very stare when the Traitor Chronomancer had come to the same conclusion.

The Darkened, the race of light-hating ‘monsters’ who lived beyond the southern mountains of Incendius, trapped in a frigid land without the Sun Spire’s light. They were a constant threat on Incendius and the Custodia Lupus were purposefully tasked with being the guardians to keep them at bay. Even with all their technology, no one on Haven had ever mounted a successful assault upon the Darkened. Any that tried were always lost to the darkness.

“I remember telling Harm to let Varanour pursue this fruitless quest,” she sighed. “Either the Black Fire Chronomancer died in the frozen wastes or he destroyed the Darkened. One way or another, a great threat would be eliminated. But Harm was insistent, fearful of how much Time Varanour could obtain from the Darkened. I tried to stop him but when he sets his mind on something, nothing can stop him. Harm chased down Varanour and disappeared into the Darkened Lands. It was about ten days before he returned, dragging Varanour’s Mantle behind him.”

Ulerian had held his breath and finally released it when Aria turned to face him.

“Do not fall into the same trap, my friend,” she said gently. “The Mother Goddess put us here for a reason. Even if that purpose is simply to enjoy our lives or those around us, trust in her judgment.”

A soft beeping emerged from Ulerian’s breast pocket and he shook himself from his reverie to pluck a small disc-shaped communicator from his coat. “Yes? Hello?”

“Ulerian?” It was Kaiver. “Is Lady Valkyrie there with ya?”

The Cervitian regarded her curiously. “Yes, she is. Why?”

“Tell her that Chronos needs her at th’ Bunker immediately. We’ve gots a probl’m.”

Aria took the device from the scientist. “This is Templar Valkyrie. What’s the issue, Kaiver?”

There was a bit of a scuffle on the other side of the communicator. Harm’s voice emerged a moment later.

“Hey Aria, so you know how this whole mess started because Wyrmriders attacked this facility?”

“Yes…?” she answered warily.

“Yeah well… they’re back and they’re pissed_._”

?

*******

?

According to what Rachel could get from her scans, there were four Slaughterships and their escorts currently on their way to Flareclaw. They were coming in from different directions to prevent escape. Lumbering behind them, however was the dreaded Wyrmroost-class ship. That accounted for a fourteen immense Wyrmrider ships currently on their way, five capital ships and nine smaller escort vessels. Not quite on the levels of an Ahl’Zhamiid especially since they all seemed to be coming from one clan. Kaiver sent out a drone to scan the ships and they appeared to bear the markings of the Bruunkhaman clan. According to Rachel - who was a Wyrmian expert - that translated to ‘Blood Kings’.

It wasn’t hard to see why.

Kaiver had his drones flying next to approaching fleets, showing their approach from the multitude of screens in the security nerve center of the facility. A call had been sent out to evacuate the outer facilities and for everyone able and willing to fight to get ready. Aria was in the hanger section, casting spells to create weapons, armor and artillery against the approaching ships. It seemed that the clan was approaching just ahead of the sandstorm.

“They’ll have the advantage,” Kaiver snarled, fangs bared. The security office bathed in red, emergency lights. Screens were blinking with each officer trying to organize their defenses. “They’ll begin their assault ‘n then as we’re defendin’, the sandstorm’ll hit. They’re used ta fighting in storms. We’ll be blind as fuck.”

None of their instruments were designed to scan or see through the storms. Not even the Havenese communications tower could pierce that veil. Lumire’s reinforcements wouldn’t arrive until after the Wyrmriders arrived.

“What are our chances?” Harm asked.

Kaiver shook his head grimly. “Otha’ raids had been small. Maybe a few skiffs. Worst wus a Stormreaver ship. That’s ‘bout a frigate-class starship. Fast ships that were good at doing raids. But look…” He pointed at the Slaughterships on his screen. “We’ve basically got destroyers comin’ at us. And then there’s that goddamn Wyrmroost…”

Bigger than even the Slaughterships, Wyrmroosts were the second-biggest class of ship that Wyrmriders fielded. They were on par with battleships and were simply enormous. Their power came from the fact that they housed dozens of well-trained Sand Dragons that they could unleash with their riders. Some compared them to carriers as they certainly had the size of one but their lack of firepower meant that they didn’t quite compare to starship carriers. Even a single Incendian frigate could take down a Wyrmroost not only because the frigate would be airborne but it had superior weaponry.

Why I wouldn’t give just for a single frigate right now…

“They’re serious then?” he asked.

“Little bit,” Kaiver answered with a shaky smile. “If they had actually sent their Cityship ‘gainst us, then yeah. I’d be scared. But they’re too fuckin’ chicken ta send their flamin’ goddamn Motherwyrm against a single research facility. It’s also just a single clan.” He grit his teeth together and cussed under his breath. “Solholme fucking set us up. She made sure we let all those Wyrmriders go so now they’re coming after us in force!”

Would she have done that? How would this serve her especially with me here now? How would all of these Wyrmriders attacking force me to destroy Hal-Seth?

Unless it isn’t about me.

“How much time do we have?” he asked.

Kaiver nodded to one of his subordinates and a countdown appeared on one of the screens; a big, imposing red display against a field of black. “Six hours.”

Not a lot of time. Aria could use her Deomancy to create automatic turrets and maybe even summon some friendly creatures to lend them a hand but ultimately, their defenses would be overwhelmed given time. Kaiver could weave metal into traps and defenses as well but none of that mattered if there was no one to man the defenses. Kaiver had a staff of perhaps twenty people who were well-versed in guard duty. Nothing as extreme as a siege. Between Aria and Harm, they could cause significant damage to the Wyrmriders but they would still be limited.

“Can we start shelling them with the Nebula cannon?” Harm asked.

“We could,” Kaiver responded with a great amount of trepidation. “But the Nebula cannon has a limited range and it gets more inaccurate the farther it is from us. It’s actually more effective closer to the walls than out there. It’s also got a long recharge time.”

And we don’t know exactly what the Wyrmriders are after.

Attacking them now will confirm hostilities. If Solholme tricked them into attacking us, maybe there is still time to diffuse the situation.

“Work with Aria to get the defenses set up,” Harm advised. “Evacuate all the non-combatants out of the outer facilities and get them locked inside the lab.” He turned to leave. “I’m going to see how this all fits into Solholme’s plans.”

Kaiver turned and seized his wrist. “Hey…”

Glancing over his shoulder, he asked, “What? Make it quick. We’ve only got six hours.”

The Viperion nodded. “Something doesn’t sit well with me on this. Solholme has had decades to plan this. Centuries even. I mean, you said it yourself. She’s been back here as different people over and over again. I don’t think she would’ve done all that to let it all fall apart just because you exposed her.” He finally let go of Harm’s wrist to hold up his hand. “No offense. Yer great. Sexy as fuck ‘n super strong ‘n I’m attracted ta power. But doesn’t it seem a little too easy that everythin’ got exposed?”

You’re absolutely right.

“You’re not wrong.” He glanced out of the security office into the tall, glowing pillar of orange light. “I honestly don’t know why Solholme even had that distress call sent out in the first place. Seems to me she could have kept this place a secret for as long as possible and just let everything boil over into chaos. She didn’t need us. She also couldn’t have guessed that we wouldn’t come with ships to immediately evacuate the facility either. There are far too many variables.”

Harm turned, flicking his scarf over his shoulder. “That’s why I’m going to go find out exactly what she’s after.”

He stormed out of the room rushed up the steps to Solholme’s office and personal quarters. Beneath him, the personnel of the facility were rushing to and from main labs. Many were working hard to backup their research or pack their belongings. If a hasty retreat was required, they would have to be ready the moment rescue came. If the worst happened, their research had to endure. He saw Ulerian barking orders at his fellow scientists. They were still continuing their task of scouring the Weizar for the name of the Molting Disease. If they didn’t, the generator could overload. Valdin momentarily appeared from his lab and bolted past others, pushing them away as he stormed out of the main laboratory and out into the hanger. Rude as ever even in the face of a crisis.

Who are the players in this game?

Valdin and Ulerian definitely. Solholme fostered the animosity between them. She clearly hoped that that their conflicting ideologies and research paths - one purely scientific and the other more theological in nature - would clash with one another. Forcing them to work together on a project would only cause friction to develop between them.

He stopped at the sixth floor, looking back down the steps at Kaiver’s perch before moving on.

There was Kaiver, of course, who seemed to be kept in the dark about most of this and was under Solholme’s leash for most of his tenure here. Clearly, he was inexperienced in truly leading a defense force and that was perhaps what played to her advantage. With little military experience and a more friendly approach, he seemed far less intimidating and couldn’t really be trusted to keep Valdin and Ulerian in line. His inferiority complex against people smarter than him probably didn’t help build his reputation amongst the scientists.

At the seventh floor, he stopped again and considered the remaining players.

Then there was himself and Aria. Setting aside personal pride, Lumire hadn’t been the one to send them on this mission. This suggested that someone wanted himself and Aria to go to Flareclaw. Solholme was the only likely candidate but it wasn’t clear exactly why she needed them there. A Chronomancer and an Angel could have the power to destroy the crystal encasing Hal-Seth and maybe even kill the Champion without waking him but there was no guarantee. But there was still a lot of questions and little certainty. Solholme just did not seem like the person to be leaving so many things to chance.

She’s risking a lot by exposing herself and Hal-Seth to the Church. This could go one of many ways.

The Church could imprison her and keep her alive, never to resurrect and study her.

Fanatics could similarly wake up Hal-Seth and use him as confirmation of the gods. The Cult of Adramalech were likely candidates and Valdin was a confirmed member of said Cult.

There was also the chance that the Wyrmriders could just kill them all and accidentally set Hal-Seth free.

He stopped on the eight floor just outside the door leading to the Professor’s offices. Running a paw down his muzzle in frustration, he decided to take a step back.

What was it that Longinus always told me? When faced with a problem, understand the ‘what’, ‘why’ and ‘how’ then you can get your answer. What is the problem? Why is it a problem? How is it a problem?

Harm took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Okay… What is the problem?”

I don’t know what Solholme wants.

“The Why…?”

Solholme remained a mystery. Her motivations were opaque at best and her movements were contradictory with one another. It wasn’t possible to stop her plots if he didn’t know exactly what she was after and how she was going to achieve it.

“The How…?”

All of these things are coming at us left, right and center. Solholme even told me she wanted Ulerian and Valdin to be at odds with one another and then vocally mentioned she’s afraid of Wyrmriders smashing the generator and destroying this place…

His eyes snapped open in surprise.

“But why…?” he breathed softly. “If this place is nuked, it could take out Hal-Seth. Not to mention it would wipe all evidence of the facility. People might eventually come investigating it and maybe they’ll find Hal-Seth but she could just easily lead that expedition and do more fuckery…”

The egg? Maybe she cares about the egg? Her unborn child?

No. That did not make sense. She had given the egg of Valdin to experiment upon. It was the basis of his research.

So why? Why was she afraid of this facility falling into the wrong hands and why does she want it to go down in such a way that Valdin and Ulerian are after each other.

He turned, glancing back at the glowing, orange pillar and all the energy it was providing to fuel Ulerian’s research.

Wait…

His eyes widened and he immediately spun towards the lead researcher’s office.

“Fuck no…” he breathed.

With an increased sense of urgency, he stormed through the doors, barged past Kaiver’s guards and charged right into Solhome’s office. The Phoenix was once again standing at her window, watching the dark distance.

“Hello again, Master Chronos,” she said with a mocking tone.

“Cut the bullshit, Solholme,” he snapped. “This isn’t about Hal-Seth is it? It isn’t even about his weapon or the egg, your egg.” He straightened, watching her closely. “It’s about the Molting Disease.”

She didn’t respond but at the same time, she didn’t move an inch.

“No one knows what the Molting Disease is,” he continued. “It’s not hereditary. It isn’t viral. It isn’t magical. It defies logic.” He pointed out the window. “But you know what it is. You said it was Adramalech’s failed ritual. The ritual you stopped by putting Hal-Seth into stasis. I thought you did that because it was the only way to stop the ritual but you could have killed him if it was.” He straightened, his eyes widening in horror. “It’s not the egg. It’s not his weapon. It’s him. Hal-Seth is the source of the disease and the reason you want me to destroy it without waking him up.”

The pieces were falling into place and he was mentally kicking himself for not seeing it sooner.

“You could have chosen any field of research. Anything at all. But you built this facility and dedicated it to the research of the Molting Disease because it’s the only thing that ties directly to Hal-Seth. Eventually, people could have drawn the same conclusion and they would have come here because Adramalech’s Champion is the cause of the Disease, isn’t he? That’s why you built this place. You wanted to both find a cure for the Disease to keep people from finding Hal-Seth and head off all research and sabotage if it they came to a particular conclusion!”

Harm made a slicing motion through the air. “And you purposefully began sabotaging Ulerian and Valdin because they’re approaching the conclusion you don’t want them to reach!” His jaw dropped. “The name… the name of the Molting Disease. It’ll do something, won’t it?”

Solholme let out a long, heavy sigh.

Without turning around, she said, “Do you know what happens to a person when their name is torn from the Illuminus Weizar?”

“Their name…?” Harm shook his head. “How is that even possible?”

“A person’s true name is a gateway to their true selves,” Solholme responded. “It is the very essence of their being. Learn someone’s true name and then you have power over their very being. You can turn them into anything or anyone you want. But then their true name changes as they are no longer the same person they once were Every second that passes, every person redefines themselves. Their true name constantly changes. Unless…”

Only then did she turned and stared at Harm with her blazing red eyes.

“… unless that person is trapped in stasis,” Harm concluded. “They are unchanging.”

“Exactly.” Solholme turned back around to face the darkness. “A single person is part of the great tapestry that is our reality. Trying to redefine someone abruptly, trying to change them against their will or manipulate them forcefully is like trying to pull one of the strings of that tapestry and twisting it into something else. It starts to cause a corruption in the entire tapestry and as time passes, this spreads and starts to cause damage to the ever-changing, ever-flowing weave.”

“We are all cogs in a greater machine,” Harm mumbled softly. “Hal-Seth was one such cog but then someone changed his cog. Changed the shape. He still sort of fits in the Machine but as the Machine kept turning, it started damaging the other cogs and gears around him. That’s what the Molting Disease is, isn’t it? It’s Hal-Seth merely existing.”

Solholme glanced over her shoulder sadly. “Yes. When Hal-Seth enacted his ritual, he tied himself to the Phoenixes and Avios. His debilitating curse that would have killed them all had already begun winding its roots into both species and had already killed the Phoenixes. I surmised that because he was a Phoenix and so close to Pyromancy, they were killed first. The Avios were next. When I trapped him and stopped the ritual, however, that connection never died. It lingered. It festered. With each passing generation, that connection spread.” She made a broad, sweeping gesture with her feathered hand. “Now he has become entwined with every Avios. Each of them has the potential to develop the Disease. Waking him? It’ll cause the curse to pick up where it left off. Not just a loss of feathers. But a purge. A blazing flame that will kill every Avios out there.”

“So why would you want to stop Ulerian from discovering it? Seems to me that if Hal-Seth’s true name can be manipulated, you can genuinely cure the Disease. Maybe even get rid of Hal-Seth entirely.”

She shook her head. “Because Ulerian has let his obsession with the divine cloud his judgment.” Turning to face him, her features were filled with sadness and a acted as a window to her heavy heart. “He considers Hal-Seth to be some form of divine messenger and somewhere, in the back of his mind, he wants to wake up. I have seen it in his eyes. The moment he obtains Hal-Seth’s name, he or his followers will free the Champion of Adramalech and before they even know what is happening, every Avios is going to suffer a painful death.”

And that’s why she started causing all this turmoil… To end Ulerian’s ambitions.

“Okay, fine,” he grunted, raising his paws. “That kind of makes sense.” He pointed past her out the window. “But then why even ask Ulerian to start this research? Why lead him down this path if you don’t want him using it?”

Solholme let out a dark chuckle. “Do you think Ulerian really is the first to start this research? You’ve seen the other facilities. Each of them has offered me a piece of the puzzle. I have parts of Hal-Seth’s true name already in hand. Ulerian is just the latest.”

Damn… That’s insane. Insane but also pretty damn smart…

And I’m starting to get the picture.

“Valdin,” he concluded. Judging by her cruel smile, she realized he had unearthed the truth. “He was your kill switch. Your foil to Ulerian. You never intended to use him to create a spell written into Avios genetics to protect them from the Molting Disease. You just wanted to keep him around, let him feel inferior and waiting for Ulerian to finish a task that could take decades so that he’ll eventually grow impatient and do something insane!”

She let out a snort at him. “You know how ridiculously easy it was to stroke his ego? Valdin is so self-obsessed with his own achievements that he will do anything to make sure he is the smartest man in the room and everyone knows it. You saw it. He was constantly pushing for evacuation. He would abandon all our work because it would mean Ulerian’s efforts would have been for nothing. ”

“Then what’s with the Wyrmrider armada coming down at us? How does that fit into your plan?”

A cruel but sad smile touched her features.

“Oh dear, ignorant Chronos. What makes you think it was part of my plan?”

His features fell.

What…?

Somewhere behind her, far into the exterior of the facility, an explosion erupted. Fire and smoke burst out near one of the walls. The glass of her office shook lightly from the dulled eruption. Harm rushed over to the window, gazing slack-jawed into the distance.

One of the walls had been shattered and a large section of the facility had caught on fire.

“What the hell…?”

Solholme chuckled softly. “Looks like Valdin has gotten impatient.”

He whirled around to face her. “What’s going on?”

She lifted a finger, signaling for silence. Suddenly, her entire office was bathed in red light as alarms began blaring. Ulerian’s voice started shouting about a full lock down. Thick, metal, blast shielding closed in in front of Solholme’s windows, causing Harm to step back in shock.

“And there’s Ulerain making his move,” she added.

“What the hell is happening?” he demanded.

She walked over to her chair and sat down. Pulling the large bottle of whiskey to herself, she poured some onto the remaining glass as she had shattered the other one in their last conversation. “Ulerian is obsessed with maintaining a sense of purpose, to always be busy. He constantly looks to the divine for his purpose and saw that in Hal-Seth. He knew that Valdin and myself would be against waking up our dear Champion so he has taken steps to ensure that he gets the last say in the matter. His mastery of the Illuminus Weizar has given him and his assistants great control over the Bunker. In fact, they have been secretly scribbling spells in key places all of the laboratory so that they can gain unprecedented control over it. If I were him…”

A loud sound akin to power being drained filled his ears. The red emergency lights faded for a moment before flickering back on.

‘Emergency power activated,’ bellowed a mechanical voice.

“And there it is,” Solholme sighed. “He’s taken Crossfire from its chamber and is probably going to try and use it to wake Hal-Seth or defend himself against Valdin. He will likely look for ways to charge the Nebula cannon with Crossfire to attack Valdin’s mutants.”

His what…?

She gave him a dark smile. “You didn’t think Valdin was the kind of man to just leave his genetic research to clones or simulations, did you?” She took a sip from her glass. “I gave him access to the Bunker and our resources but it still wasn’t enough. All I had to do was tell him not to do research on sentient beings and he immediately went off and made a deal with the Wyrmriders. They would bring him slaves they had captured and he would experiment on them in the abandoned outer facilities outside of everyone else’s sight. After all, having the genetic DNA of an unborn Phoenix was just too tempting not to toy around with.”

“That’s sick!” Harm exclaimed. “That’s your own unborn child!”

“Half mine. Half Hal-Seth’s. As far as I’m concerned, it deserves to die just for that reason alone.” She took another sip of her glass, smiling to herself. “Now, the Wyrmriders have come to collect on Valdin’s debt but he likely won’t pay. Similarly, he’ll try and use his mutants to come claim the Bunker for himself. Ulerian will attack him with Crossfire and the two will ultimately destroy each other. But without Crossfire being contained, it will likely overcharge and destroy everything around us. Hal-Seth might yet survive, trapped in his crystal, but so will I. I’ll just come back later as part of the investigation team and will start this process all over again.”

She gave him a cold stare matched with a cruel smile. “Of course, you could destroy Hal-Seth now if you wanted but it won’t end the bloodshed to come. You might be able to save some people from Crossfire’s overload if, say, someone who knows how to control its power were to seize it.”

That was her play!

“You bitch!” he snarled. “You want me to give you Crossfire!”

“Partially,” she responded. She lifted her glass, toasting to him. “You are my trump card, Master Chronos. Ulerian and Valdin will kill each other and everyone here. You and likely your Angel friend will survive. Even if you didn’t you’ve already told the Propheticus Primoris about this place. He will come, find Hal-Seth and after seeing his dear brother and most trusted friend perish, will likely look for ways to destroy him. If you live, you’ll carry my message because now you know the source of the Disease.”

She’s holding the whole facility and the innocents hostage! She played us!

“You’re willing to risk a hundreds of lives for this goddamn gambit!?”

Solholme slammed her fists into the table and stood up to stare at him furiously. “So many more have died for Hal-Seth’s madness and many more have suffered because of his mere existence! He needs to die!”

He stared back in defiance. “So you’ll be the judge, jury and executioner of the Champion without ever hearing his side of the story. You know who you remind me of?”

“Who?” she spat.

“Everyone who looked into my golden eyes and immediately labeled me a monster because of what I am without ever learning what I did to try and stop the Purge of Time.” Memories of the judgmental stares of the Church hierarchy and even the previous Propheticus Primoris as he knelt before them, telling them that he wanted to help them defeat the Chronomancers flashed before his eyes. Through the shadow of their bigotry was the light from Lumire that cut through the darkness and offered a hand.

He bumped his shoulder with Solholme’s as he strode towards the door. “If no one had given me a chance to defend myself, no one would have survived the Purge. Not you. Not Aria. Not Hal-Seth. But some were willing to hear me out. Some gave me the chance to explain myself.”

Her eyes widened in shock as she realized what he intended to do. “Chronos! Don’t you dare! He’s insane!”

Turning back to her but continuing to stride backwards towards the door, he said, “Everyone said the same about me. I was a Chronomancer. I was part of the race of people who was assaulting the world and draining all their Time. But I was given a chance to explain myself. And here we are.”

“No! This is different!” She threw her hands forward. Searing, blue fireballs flickering with bright, white edges erupted from her fingertips and lurched towards him.

Harm simply continued to stride backwards as golden rings of light appeared in front of him. The fireballs slammed into the shields, shattering into dozens of tiny, luminescent golden gears that disappeared before they hit the ground.

Even with all the fire-dampening effects in this room, she’s still able to use her Pyromancy to great effect.

No verbal or somatic components to her spell casting either.

Damn.

“Hal-Seth is like a dozen stars barely contained by a thin temper!” bellowed Solholme. “If you release him, he will destroy the entire facility and everyone in it! Worse! He’s bound to the Molting Disease! Anything that changes him will change the Disease! All our work will be for nothing!”

Or it could cure it.

“Not sure why I really should trust you in this regard,” Harm replied, reaching the door. “As far as I’m concerned, you’ve lied to me and Hal-Seth hasn’t.”

“I haven’t lied!” she snapped, thrusting her hand forward. A lance of searing blue-white flames launched from her palm and slammed into his shield, dissipating into transparent cogs as she tried to pierce the barrier. “I’ve just merely let you reach your own conclusions! You’re a teacher! Tell me you prefer to let your students come to their own conclusions instead of telling them the answer!”

Harm huffed as he stepped past the door. “True but I’ve also learned that you can’t teach students who are unwilling to learn. That the relationship between student and teacher is sacred and if a student can’t trust their mentor, they’ll never learn anything. I would’ve been willing to learn from you, Solholme. But after all this deception and callous disregard for life, I don’t think I want to learn.”

He took one last step past the door and it immediately sealed shut behind him, golden runes dancing across its surface and sealing it off. A few seconds passed and he lingered for a little longer just to make sure Solholme was contained. With a nod, he told the two guards to keep an eye on her but never to open the door and turned to leave. He grabbed one of the guard’s communicators as he left.

“Kaiver, you there?” he asked, speaking into the little disc.

“Harm? How’re ya on this frequency?”

“I borrowed a communicator. Can you patch me through to Aria?”

“Sure… What’s going on? I’ve suddenly lost control of everythin’. We’re trapped in here.”

He left the 8th level and began down the steps once more. The main laboratory was now bathed in crimson light, the central column having gone dark. Ulerian and his close associates were scrambling around the laboratories trying to secure the door as much as possible with their magic. None of them had made their way up to the Nebula cannon yet. He couldn’t see the Cervitian either.

“Get me Aria. I’ll explain.”

“Patching you through…”

A moment later, Aria’s voice cut through the panicked cries and alarms of the laboratory.

“Harm? What’s happening?”

“Where are you?” he asked.

“In the hanger. I’m here with a few of Kaiver’s men and some civilians. We’re trapped. I’m hesitant to destroy any of these doors for fear of weakening our defenses.”

“You may have to,” he answered, reaching the seventh floor.

BOOM!

Blue-white flames erupted from the side of the eighth floor. Flames and debris crumbled down the sides of the laboratory, causing those beneath to scream and flee. From the smoke, the silhouette of Solholme emerged. Blue flames jutted from her feet, suspending her in the air. Now that she was free from the Pyromancy-dampening effects of her room, she could use her full power.

Right… I should’ve barricaded every wall in her room and not just her door.

Oops.

“What was that!?” screamed Kaiver. “Is that Solholme!?”

The security officer was pressing his face up against the windows of the security office a few floors down.

“Yeah,” Harm sighed. “I may have pissed her off when I told her that I’m going to free Hal-Seth.”

“Yer what!?” Kaiver cried. “Why?”

Solholme spotted him and immediately angled herself towards him. A burst of flame exploded from her heels and she shot straight towards his position. Harm sidestepped through time, his form vanishing into a golden light and reappearing a second later just a few feet to his left. Solholme was stopped in the space where his silhouette vanished, golden rings of light encasing her.

Harm flicked an ear in her direction and she was suddenly hurled backwards in time, shooting back to her previous position and being flung back into her room. The debris of her broken wall jumped from where it had fallen on the ground, sliding back into position and seamlessly repairing itself. This time, gold runes barred her wall as well, ensuring that she wouldn’t burst through them either.

With that done, Harm shot down the floors again. “We only have Solholme’s word that the Champion is a bad guy and as far as I’m concerned, she’s the one that’s untrustworthy. She’s doing whatever she can to make sure we do not free him. She orchestrated Valdin going out and making a deal with the Wyrmriders for them to supply him with slaves to perform illegal genetic experiments on using the Phoenix egg as a basis.”

“He did what_?_” Aria hissed. “Is that the explosion that appeared near the walls?”

“You got it. She also stoked Ulerian’s paranoia and now he’s taken Crossfire with the full intention of using it to power the Nebula cannon.”

“Goddamnit!” Kaiver cried. “Apollia’s flaming tits! That much power inta th’ cannon? It’ll wipe out half the Bunker ‘n anyone still out there!”

BOOM!

Harm jerked back just as he reached the sixth floor. Solholme exploded from a wall on the seventh floor. It took him a second to realize that she had blasted her way down from her office and entered the seventh floor.

Goddamnit!

“He’ll wipe out Valdin as well,” he added, charging down the steps to reach the fifth floor. “All this so that she can either wipe the slate clean or we destroy Hal-Seth for her. That’s her bargain. Destroy Hal-Seth and she’ll make this all go away. She basically confirmed that he’s the cause of the Molting Disease. That his true name was manipulated in the Illuminus Weizar which is basically like the greatest heresy of them all. It’s against the natural order.”

“Wait… You can do that?”

“Chronos!” screamed Solholme, zooming towards him. Whips of sapphire flames erupted from her wrists which she immediately began swinging. The long, serpentine weapons cut right through metal, leaving oozing gashes of red-hot, molten steel where they passed. Harm threw himself forward, tucking his body into a roll and slipping forward through time. His motion passed as ghostly, golden silhouettes, sliding past the Phoenix’s attacks even as the whips slashed through where the images stood.

A fourth voice suddenly chiming in; a soft, chirpy female. “It’s a difficult thing to do. Spells we chant and use are created because people put their very beings into manipulating the Illuminus Weizar in a particular way. Something must _’ve happened that defined Hal-Seth’s name into the Molting Disease, making him part of the very magical network that holds our universe together! He has_ become a form of Pyromancy itself!_ ”_

“Rachel?” Harm asked. “What are you doing on this frequency?”

He flung his free paw in Solholme’s direction. Small blocks of ice appeared in front of him and flew towards her. The shards merely melted before they could even reach her.

“I’ve been monitoring all frequencies ever since the power shut down. I’ve been sending emergency calls out in all directions. I… I’ve been listening in on everything. I know that Doctor Valdin has started getting those that are loyal to him to line up in the old genetics lab on the eastern wall. That’s opposite of where the explosion occurred. He keeps calling them for an ‘ascension’.”

So the explosion Valdin caused was on the western wall. That weakness would have attracted the Wyrmriders. The slavers would likely attack through the hole and then charge straight for the main lab, assuming that the rest of the facilities were abandoned and leaving Valdin in relative peace.

Clever.

Solholme swung her whips over her head and then brought them crashing down upon him. Harm immediately drew Timekeeper and swung the golden blade through the air. A crescent of compressed air infused with Time sliced through the air, piercing her whip slicing it in half. She was momentarily surprised by the attack, giving him the opportunity to quickly slice through the walkway beneath him and drop down to the fifth floor. The moment he landed, he kicked up the slab of metal he had been standing on and punched it right into Solholme’s direction. Ice would have evaporated into air upon approaching her but metal melted into molten steel and that would not just evaporate.

This forced the Phoenix to retreat through the air to avoid being scalded and burned.

Harm used that opportunity to immediately speed forward in time, zooming towards the slumbering Hal-Seth.

“Listen to me,” he said, approaching the enormous doors that remained open. “Hal-Seth is the key to all of this. Solholme could have chosen any field of research to protect Hal-Seth’s secret. She could have enrolled in the military and made this place a lighthouse and never once let Hal-Seth’s tomb become known. But she didn’t. She chose the Molting Disease because I think she genuinely wants to find some way to cure it. However, when people come to the conclusion or get the inkling that they need to free Hal-Seth, she sabotaged the research and ended it. There’s something else we’re missing here and the only person we’re going to get that from is Hal-Seth.”

“Are you sure about this?” warned Kaiver. “I mean… one Phoenix is enough but another…?”

“Honestly, I’ve got my reservations as well but it’s worth a try.”

“I trust you, Lord Chronos,” squeaked Rachel.

“Thanks Rachel,” he answered with a reply. He stopped right in front of the glowering, orange crystal where Hal-Seth remained slumbering. “Aria?”

No reply came.

Uh-oh…

“Aria?” he repeated.

The roar of blue flames filled the chamber. Solholme arrived, still hovering in the air. “Not a step further!” she cried, her blue-fire whips once more recovered. “Unless you intend to destroy Hal-Seth here and now, you will not take a step further!”

Harm smirked at her. “You want to know what happened to the last person who told me what I can and cannot do?”

“What?” she scowled.

BOOM!

An enormous, white, crystal spear suddenly exploded from the ground beneath Solholme, catching her entirely by surprised. Aria came shooting up from the hole as Solholme was speared through the chest and pressed up against the ceiling. The Angel landed a short distance away just as searing, blue flames began consuming her crystal manifestation.

“If you’re going to free the Champion, do it now, Harm!” Aria shouted, swinging Gungnir through the air. “I’ll hold her back for as long as I can!”

Blue flames simply melted the enormous, crystal spear and Solholme dropped from the ceiling, blood seeping from her chest. Those same sapphire flames seeped into her wound, knitting flesh together and healing repairing damaged organs.

Aria grinned savagely through clenched teeth. “That’s some impressive Pyromancy.”

“If you believe that all the Fire can do is burn then you are sorely mistaken,” Solholme said, flicking her plume back and straightening. “Phoenixes are creatures of the Fire. We were born masters of Pyromancy. We are infused with it. I’ve spent millennia perfecting my art. I will not die to children such as yourself!”

Harm spun and charged towards Hal-Seth’s crystal. He heard Solholme charging towards him and Aria leaping to block the maddened Phoenix. The two crashed a short distance ahead of him, blue flames and shimmering crystals dancing through the air from where they struck. Harm swerved past them, swinging Timekeeper through the air. Pain suddenly exploded from his left foot and he toppled forward. A glance down showed one of Solholme’s fiery whips tightly clamped around his ankle, burning through his clothes, melting his flesh and charring the bone.

Gritting his teeth, he swung Timekeeper at his own leg, severing the limb from the ankle knee down. The pain was excruciating and the blood loss nearly made him lose contagiousness but the moment he managed to crawl just a few inches away, his flesh began repairing itself. Solholme’s whip burned through his severed ankle, leaving it with nothing to grip upon and allowing his foot to slide across the ground, reconnect with his calves and for the limb to shoot back towards his knee, fixing itself within a matter of seconds.

He was back on his feet with a feeling of pins and needles racing down his leg just twenty seconds later.

“No!” screamed Solholme.

Harm leapt through the air, swinging Timekeeper above his head…

… and brought it down on Hal-Seth’s crystal.