FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The air was still. Too still. No wind or birds carried sound across the empty spaces, no chatter of voices or milling of hooves. It was too still. This was Bart's first inkling that something was amiss.

Bart, now a newly-minted Paladin and Queen's Champion among other, more intimate titles, was also now a veteran of these dreary not-quite-there demesnes in between. It wasn't even the third time he'd awoken either consciously or not to being somewhere not-quite-here. Somewhere else.

The big Paladin slowly turned his head, his helmet obscured his field of view to the edges, its visor closed. He was alone on the road, even the dull clopping of his mount's hooves was muted by the stasis that seemed to take the place whole and true. Before him, stood the yawning ruins of Lachheim -- routed and crushed, laid to waste in a myriad of ways so multifarious that Bart found his mind unable to focus on them, unable to discern specifics -- the details wriggled and writhed away from his gaze as he attempted to narrow his attention on them. Unreal and ephemeral, he looked skywards.

The Ossuary stood tall and baleful beyond, the skies unnaturally clear, its details stark and crisp despite the impossible distance, resolving beneath his gaze far, far too readily -- the opposite of the ruins so close beneath it. Forward still he marched on this dead, still road. Ever forward.

"You are aware this isn't real," came a familiar voice to his side, and from nowhere the warmth of love bloomed in his heart. He smiled and raised his visor.

Cithara the Unicorn, Queen of Love, and Holy Beast of Our Lord In Ivory trotted alongside him on the alien landscape, her figure was startlingly real, the same as the Ossuary. Beautiful golden eyes and iridescently white pelt wholly intact, every single curve of flesh, fold of mane, and swirl of horn as perfect as he remembered it. She smiled at him. It was devastating.

"I've been such places before, I assume I'm asleep," He answered honestly, and she tittered at him.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, you dozed off in your saddle again. We will have a talk about you overextending yourself later."

"A talk where I will nod in all the right places and do it anyways," Bart agreed blithely, getting a roll of the eyes from the tiny cosmic mare.

"Men," she sighed resignedly, but with a warm throb of affection in the tone and cast of her features as she trotted closer to her lover and his torpid mount, "However, yes you dozed off and I peeked in just a moment to make sure all was well," she said, looking around with a haunted expression, "... It seems you have much on your mind, my love."

"Watching over my dreams, are we?" he chuckled dryly, and she turned that cosmic golden gaze upon him without hesitation.

"Yes, always."

Bart smiled and pulled his helmet free, looking out across the increasingly abstract surroundings, behind him loomed Crownspeak and the Glade, seemingly almost comically overgrown and massive. Yet around him, there were no names or places of such he could recognize; the middle distance was a smear of green hills and brown woods of no particular shape or import, and beyond... well beyond had been well covered.

"I suppose I do, but this feels wrong," he said, giving her a pleasant if crooked smile, "My dreams as of late have been far more enjoyable."

Cithara's muzzle colored with a mixture of coquettish embarrassment and genuine desire at that; her long, sinuous tongue rolling across her lower lip, "Oh, I know," she purred at him, a shiver running through her.

Nevertheless, she drew herself up proper, her face serene but serious, "Mine own enjoyment of your mind aside, this isn't its halls, not entirely," she agreed as they walked on the road that seemed to pass beneath their feet but never carry them closer nor further away from either fixture, neither Glade nor Ruin growing closer or more distant.

"It's the Wendigo, isn't it?" Bart guessed, and Cithara nodded.

"It is. Perhaps unintentionally, as you dreamed you crossed into its own demesne -- or rather we did. I felt us slip into range of its orbit earlier this day," she explained, and Bart nodded, gathering the facts as she continued.

"When you dream, you stride the Astral, just a bit. All humans do, really, it's quite magical." she said as she ranged ahead of him a bit, swishing that long, leonine tail and its long silken broom of glistening white silken mane at the end, seeming to simply dance across the ground as if it were air, weightless and impossible as she always was, "We of the Astral Tapestry get to glimpse into your dreams as you cross our domains in that great, stretching realm. When you dream of love, lust, and soft touches, you touch mine own ever so slightly." she said, turning her gaze onto him with a smile.

"I treasure those dreams, the human heart is a wonderful thing." Bart smiled at her, gnawing a lip shyly at the compliment, yet she continued, looking up at the Ossuary.

"When you dream of darker things, you cross into darker places. It is how we all influence you, good and ill. Dreams are a catalyst, the yearnings of the heart and mind."

"So my worries and the proximity of the Wendigo..." he ventured, feeling out the idea, Cithara picking up the thread effortlessly.

"... And your connection to its dark place still on your soul brought you here, awake and aware, unlike the others." she confirmed with a nod, gesturing with her horn, "The Ossuary and I are quite clear, but the rest is... off, wrong, incomplete, no?" she said and Bart nodded.

"Yes, you are... very vivid, and the Ossuary is impossibly crisp for something I have never seen, but the rest... the rest is hazy, misshapen, and amorphous, if I stare too long it simply refuses to resolve to shapes and concepts as I know them."

"That is because both of us have a mark on your soul, beloved." She said, sadly. The tiny creature trotted back to him, pushing her small frame up against his somnambulant mount, laying her glittering head in his lap, "I and the Empty Queen both have laid marks upon you, so our works are clear and crisp in your mind's eye. You have never seen the Ossuary, seen its walls breathe or its shapes twist and flex in the wind, but your spirit has."

"So in my dreams, it is clear as day," he stated, and she nodded gently, pressing against him -- her warmth the only truly real thing he could cling to, yet he was unafraid. Strangely unafraid.

"It doesn't know I'm here, does it?" he asked, and she shook her head.

"It does, but I am simply too close, it cannot precisely perceive or interact with you as I shield you. I thought to use such a moment as a teaching point, to instruct you on such things, as you will interact with the Astral differently now, marked by my love and the Queen's hatred as you are."

Bart's hand tousled the little unicorn's mane, threading along her cheek in a way that drew a satisfied sigh from her, Bart looked up at the abstract nightmare ahead of them.

"It's going to be bad, isn't it," it was more of a statement than a question. Cithara nodded.

"It is. Your mind already prepares you," She said, gently tapping her horn to his armored breastplate. He supposed that made sense, he dreamed himself as such both for his real-world state -- and because he felt safe, secure in armor. Steel comforted him in times of danger. He caressed her cheek and stared off at the distance -- at that dread tower and its impossible height.

He felt it stare back. He didn't blink. In a way, neither did it.

"Now, now," Cithara chided him gently, her lips kissing his knuckles as she leaned up tall as she could to his face; "This is all quite serious, but I fear I must cut it short," she said to him, he turned his gaze to her sharply.

"Why? Am I in danger here as I was before?" he asked, his eyes and mind alert. She laughed at him and shook her head.

"No my dear, you are about to fall out of your saddle. Wake up darling, wake up." she purred -- and placed her soft mouth against his, kissing him with a lurid, promising passion.

~ ~ ~

Bart's eyes snapped open, and he caught his reins, swaying dangerously in his saddle. It was late morning, he had ridden once again through the night, as many of them had chosen to continue to do so in the wake of their first glimpse some days back of Lachheim proper. The memory caused him to shudder involuntarily.

Lachheim. God in his heaven, what an atrocity.

Bart shook himself totally awake, his eyes met Cithara's where she trotted some distance away at the head of their little column, and she smiled at him with an exaggerated wink of one golden eye before resuming her quiet pace. Bart scrubbed a hand over his face as he emptied his mind of the strangely unfinished dream, and instead cast thoughts back to the last several days of riding.

The days had gone by in a blur in the wake of their revelations at the crest of the hill, that pace had put Lachheim a mere half day's march from them now. They'd cut a considerable amount of time from the first trip; largely owed, Bart realized with a touch of resentment, to him not being a semi-comatose invalid in the back of a wagon. Perhaps a tenday had passed total, easily bringing them within the sight of the walls, within a spirited march even. In the present, things continued apace.

Later in the afternoon, the men had taken to rest at the insistence of Naima, and eventually Cithara -- no matter how close their goal was, both steely women had demanded all of them rest, recuperate, and prepare. Multiple campfires sprang up in the leeward side of the hillock along the side of the Espree River, its deep, lazy waters an inky blue as the night had fallen, and the stars bullied their way past the smoke to glitter and twinkle their way across the Astral Tapestry, dancing in time with the Twin Maiden Moons. The sounds of singing and laughter filtered down -- men-at-arms drinking and feasting on what they had on hand, dining together in solidarity -- for tomorrow they may well die.

Bart found himself alone again. The big Paladin had never been one to particularly enjoy solitude, but neither had he much access to it. A boy in a small village, and then a novice in among the many others in the Abbey, he'd gotten used to the constant crush of humanity, the din of chatter, and the warmth of fire, bodies, and friendship. Yet and still... the quiet appealed to him now, a place to center himself. To look up at the stars, knowing now what dwelled there, and wondering what dwelled beyond.

He sat on a smooth, flat stone overlooking the water on a small shelf, fireflies darted to and fro -- glowing as they sought their mates, the first life he'd truly seen this close to the devastation. They alighted around him, landing on his arms and nose, and bringing a smile to the tall man's scarred face. His gauntlets sat aside in his helmet, and he ran his hands across his face, feeling the scars and touching his new, golden eye gently. It was warm, smooth, and still clean. Daedolon's claims were it carried no magic... and yet, he had felt no pain, no discomfort, and even the hollowness he'd felt was gone. He may not have been given sight, but he felt the brusque, bristly old Goblin had wrought some minor mysticism into it, something to make him feel whole. He smiled at the thought... he never thought at the beginning of that year he would miss the alien soldier -- but he had grown fond of him in their time together, a respect hard-earned on both accounts.

Bart had changed, here again at the end of his road -- where it had truly begun. He felt as if more than just a year and spare weeks had passed. Across the horizon, he could barely make out the outlines of windmills just past the smoldering plumes of smoke in the gathering twilight.

Home. Just a stone's throw away.

Yet, it felt further, he was not the fresh-faced, bright-eyed youth that had left a year ago by his own time. He didn't even look the same, so told his reflection in the water as he looked down, the serene surface glimmering like a mirror beneath the bright moonlight. More than scars and the loss of his eye, his whole demeanor was different. His face was stern and resolute, thinner, drawn with lines that had not been there. His eyes, or rather eye -- looked older, wiser; and even without grasping for it, now and again a faint glimmer of gold shone across its surface, like Absolute Iron. Cithara's mark on him visible in more ways than one. He stared down at himself, for once not feeling fear, revulsion, or anxiety at his changes; he looked at his close-cropped hair, his touch of beard, and the now full, curling mustache that had become the trademark feature of his broken-nosed visage... and he liked the man looking back at him. He was a good man, a man of quality. Peace flowed through him, a serenity even on the eve of battle that was a cool wash of comfort. The water's mirror sheen wavered, and suddenly there were two faces in the water, his scarred, rugged visage, and staring down next to it -- a golden-eyed, white-maned image of cosmic perfection -- her soft lips smiling.

"There he is, the man I love." she breathed, eyes on their twinned reflections, leaning her cheek into his, his hand coming up to slide along her short muzzle, stroking up into her mane and causing her body to shiver, eyes lidding slightly. "So dashing and handsome, even the Twin Maiden Moons gaze upon him with longing." she breathed huskily in his ear, making it his turn to quiver a little.

"You flatter me." he protested halfheartedly, even as she buried her face in his neck, breathing in his scent boldly, eyes two slits of aurum staring back at him from the pond like glimmering embers.

"Flattery suggests I don't believe it to be true, nay my love. I desire you every time I lay eyes upon you, your form is pleasing to me in all ways, in construction and character." she purred, her mouth touching the base of his ear.

"Surely I am not so exotic and standout among my fellows, we are all burly, craggy men hewn from battle," he said, smiling at her through the reflection.

"It is not a judgment of quality, but value dear one. You are as I would have my husband be," she purred, her orbit flaring, taking his hands in the iridescent outline and raising them to her face, pressing her cheeks into them; "Strong and true, full of the light of life. Powerful. Muscular. Masculine." she said, her voice lowering to a sultry, chocolaty timbre that slid through his mind like sweet, welcome numbwine. "I cannot help my nature, I am a woman, and in that respect I crave the strong, powerful companionship of a man. You feared your strength and size, and I relish it. Treasure it." she purred, eyes open to just slivers of hungry gold.

"Treasure you."

"Are there no male counterparts in the Astral Tapestry? No unicorns to love and cherish?" he asked honestly, and she laughed.

"No... not as you would understand my love. I wed myself to your people, to humanity at the dawn of our mutual creation. My heart belongs to Men, faithful and true," she cooed to him. "I cannot love another race any more than you could a fish nor a bird."

"Yet I can a Unicorn?" he challenged her playfully, and she laughed softly, devilishly.

"Your kind wedded I as well, beloved. My form is alien and yet mine own heart speaks to thine through the primal thread of passion. Our souls yearn for one another, for the cosmos are a primal place themselves, red in tooth and claw -- and earnest about its passions." she breathed in his ear.

"Our passions."

A tremble struck him, as she once more soothed away doubts and questions... her form truly mattered not, nay he could not love a fish nor bird, nor common mare -- nor would he ever countenance the idea, even in direct contrast. Her shape was something that bypassed his mind, slipped through his instincts, and twined its needs 'round his spirit. He felt his own ardor rising as she bit her lower lip, those fangs glinting in the light.

"Our friends?" he asked quietly, and she nuzzled his ear, staring into their paired reflections, a perfect cameo of lovers caught in the water's surface.

"Well, and with friends newly made," she said, "I graced them with my aura, and my blessings each and every one. My beautiful boys, and wonderful companions all."

"Lidia?" he asked, concern on the edge of his voice that itself, barely was a whisper.

"Gram has seen to her, if you listen carefully -- he sings still," she breathed, turning her head upriver.

Bart canted his head, eyes on the middle distance as he listened... and then, like the babble of the waters below, the faint strains of a strong tenor voice came. A voice of angels, raised in hymnal to God and Heaven. Bart could not help but fall silent and listen.

"He sings to her, as a minstrel to his lover, a songbird to his mate," she sighed, eyes full of desire and approval. "He sings to her heart, a kindred spirit. It is beautiful."

Bart nodded, turning his head slightly, no longer did he gaze at the Unicorn through the glimmering mirror, but now they did across the bare distance between them. Her eyes were full of a hunger he knew, a desire he felt himself sharing.

"You have made me your wife in front of Men... I would have you make me yours again, before God and Astral Tapestry," she said, her voice a quaver of lust. "I first called you to mine own embrace on a night like this a year past," she said, her lips drawing his eyes to them, "In a place not unlike this... the water and moons our bedding and blanket."

"Is it so special?" he asked her, and she laughed at him, softly with just a touch of haughtiness.

"My dear... one thing you will learn about women very, very soon... we have a very, very special relationship with our dear Maidens above," she said, and pressed in between his arms, standing between his braced thighs so they were breast to breast, face to face.

"What of the others?" Bart asked, though as she drifted closer he knew that his mind was already made up.

"They will know naught, tonight is a night of lovers and loved ones," she said, breathing softly against his lips; "We are not the only husband and wife who seek each other's arms away from prying eyes this night," she said, Bart's mind going to of course Naima and Rashid, their exchanges earlier. The Twin Maidens crested their orbit above the horizon, the Older and Younger both full, bright discs casting cool, welcoming light upon them... the moons and women... perhaps he would ask as she meant another time...

"Love me Bart..." she gasped, her mouth closing the distance; "Fill me, fill in all my deepest places with your love..."

Their lips met, her tongue danced with his, his arms slid around her form, and her forelegs around his -- her wondrous alien anatomy allowing her to embrace him as if she were a woman born. Her horn brushed his brow, tousling his forelock as they danced a slow dance of mouths and moans, soft touches bringing them together all over. Hands, flesh, eyes, and hearts.

They tumbled softly to his bedroll, faint giggles of bliss leaving her mouth as she sprawled with him, rolling atop him in an eager desire to devour him anew. Mouths melding and that sinuous, delicate tongue sliding into his lips like a seeking serpent, and he welcomed her with strong hands threading through her mane, pulling her close, crushing her to him like he was trying to squeeze her through his breastplate into his very heart. She drew back slowly, languidly, letting her lips leave his before her tongue, the lengthy organ sliding free before slipping back into her lips. Her eyes glittered, and her orbit flared.

A click came to his ears, then another -- the buckles of his armor came free and he sat forwards -- leaning towards to meet her lips as she undressed him, slowly peeling his armor away, one buckle at a time she worked them free, their mouths meeting between each one, her kisses drowning him of all pain, all worry, filling his mind with peace. The cuirass slid away, and her invisible golden fingers laid it aside, going to work on the rest, vambraces, greaves and all joined it -- and he had never felt so... wonderful in all his life, each plate lifting away from him as if she was peeling away his hurts and suffering, his guard and his fears; shedding his emotional armor as much as physical.

She bared him to herself, one buckle, lace, and drawstring at a time. He felt more naked than he ever had in his life as she bared his chest, his gambeson falling away to reveal the scar-strewn bulk of his torso. The cool air drew a gasp from him as she let her eyes crawl over him, trailing over his new map of hurts and feats of heroism. He had new scars it seemed, each time she bared him to her gaze... and she seemed to take a purposeful mind to cataloging them all.

Thus she did, her mouth descending to his bare breastbone, starting with the white circle where her horn had touched his heart, kissing it softly and drawing just a whisper of his power out against his will, his eye flashing golden as she touched his mantle directly, sending a shock of pleasure through not his body... but somewhere else, something he had never felt before. He had no words, no way to describe the sensation of her very essence melding, mating to his own as such; she poured her power into him, and it drew back through to her -- an invisible golden thread tangled to their hearts.

She went to work then, her lips found every single mark, new and old. She kissed each hurt, and in them he felt the thrill of that connection, wordless praise filling him as she drew her way down. Her eyes glowed anew, and soon his trousers and boots joined his neatly stacked armor near the bedroll -- his arousal springing up tall and proud, and her eyes looking down at it with hunger and approval. She said naught to him, sliding her body up close to his once more. His arms encircled her and their mouths and bodies met, and all four of her limbs wound around him -- a fifth joining as her tail coiled around one leg whilst they joined lips and tongues once more. Electric sensation filled him and her alike, each body quivering in time as her bare teats and tummy pressed to his scarred, hairy chest -- his erect member sandwiched between the former as she seemed intent on driving herself through his body, pressing them together into a single being of eternal, undying love.

His hands slid down her body, tracing the lines of her sleek form, he could think of her as nothing but a woman -- his woman, and he as her man. The path of his calloused fingers drew gasps of delight from her, electric impulses of power flowing between them like a river's bend, the lap of the energies on their earthly shores only adding to the sensation of flowing love and lust as one hand reached her face, tilting her mouth to his once more, and the other found her tail's leonine base. She gave a little chirp of surprised delight as he grasped it, squeezing the sensitive spot with gentle pressure that caused her to arch into a pretty crescent of glimmering ivory pleasure. His hand sought the pale column of her throat, sliding along it, feeling her windpipe and muscles dance beneath it, feeling her breath exhale in delight and surprising need as his right hand went further beneath her raised tail, brushing her swollen pink loins, getting a coo of delight as her pink bud flexed outward to meet his smooth, firm fingertips.

He pleased her like that, fingers stroking those swollen petals, taking time on each flex to touch and caress her engorged pink pearl, coaxing it out of hiding again and again, each touch causing her to arc anew, raising her foreleg to her lips as he caught it on one gushing contraction and squeezed it ever so gently, forcing her to bite down on the hock of her dainty hoof to stifle the nigh-scream of pleasure it caused, her face flushed and drunk with delight -- her body aflame, shaking with her wants. His hand slid up her trembling throat to her face, caressing it, turning her visage to his so she gazed into him once more, golden eyes so full of love he felt as if he were falling into a gleaming heaven as he stared into them. He almost didn't realize when he delved his digits within her clenching folds, the warmth of her insides and their powerful, rippling texture lost in the sound of her lustful moan and those impossibly deep, devoted eyes...

Down she came, her mouth sought his again, and they locked together, his tongue and hers danced, his fingers stroked and probed now-familiar places within her, seeking the spots that filled her with joy, she bucked and shuddered, and her mouth broke from his in a low cry, her lips still trembling against his as a tiny peak rushed through her, her eyes opening as she begged him with them, begged for more than just what he had given her. He met her lips again, his powerful hands grasping her hips, her tail raising reflexively above her like some glimmering ivory scorpion as he lined his aching, throbbing erection with her passage -- he had all but forgotten his own arousal, swimming as he was in her private pool of sensation -- but the brush of her silken intimate parts against his glistening tip was like a lightening rod struck with the fury of a thunderstorm.

He could not tell which of them initiated truly, whether he plunged up into her or she drove herself down on him, but soon he was sheathed in her root to tip, the tight grasp of her insides peeling his foreskin back and kissing the bare tip of his glans firmly to her innermost barrier in but a single movement, an almost violent, desperate union that froze them together; buried in one another, flesh to flesh, heart to heart -- and this time, soul to soul. The thready connection of energy between them blazed like a star, lighting up Bart's nerves like a thousand, thousand tiny candles.

Her body arched again, her glimmering golden hooves pressed to his chest, their tips sharp enough to dash a skull, and yet even in the throes of passion she could not so much as mark him with them, bending herself into a perfect circle of pleasure, tail connecting to horn as her mouth parted, silhouetted against the darkness by the moon's bright glow, her mane spilling down across his chest as he slid hands back up to her face, stroking up that marble-white neck, until her held her glorious visage in both of his tanned, scarred hands, her eyes turning down to gaze at him with such love that he thought he would burst right then, chest heaving as she once more took the lead, the pressure of her delicate hooves like the palms of hands, bearing him down beneath her as she began to move atop him.

The sound of their union was a wet, slippery symphony of flesh on flesh as she rolled her hips with preternatural agility, her cosmic form flexing and roiling in ways only a thing of the Astral could, gliding him in and out, sheathing and unsheathing him time and again -- yet making sure he kissed her womb on each insertion, drawing a new quiver from her as her winking bulb ground to his hipbones, sending little sparks of lust through her eyes. Her orbit flared erratically on the increasing strokes, drawing his hands to places on her body as she rocked astride him, her insides suddenly clenching tenfold.

She felt... different, better. A wonderful, hot, yielding sensation encompassed him, and her body seemed to be afire with a need he had not known of her since they had first lain together. She took the lead, took him for her own... but her eyes invited him to do the same, her orbit laying his hands on her flanks. He did as he was bid, grasping her and pulling her tight to him, rolling with her in tow until she lay beneath him, a pool of her mane spreading beneath them like a bridal bed, and he drove himself into her as her hind legs entwined around him, lacing together, locking at her ankles, dainty hooves clicking together as she drew him down close, coaxing him to plunge into her harder, deeper, her teeth clenching as she gasped, silently begging him for more. He felt them both near their peak, a final release, the passion between them so intense that he could not imagine any greater pleasure were they to join together a dozen more times that night, he shuddered as she squeezed around him, and her voice finally raised as he passed the brink, the point of no return a distant memory.

"Inside my love," she gasped, pleaded. Eyes were full of want, need, a desire so intense that it bordered on madness glinting through that golden gaze; "Finish inside me, husband mine..." she pleaded at last... and he could not hold back at that desperate request, driving into her with enough force that she dropped her mouth open in a silent scream, eyes squeezing shut as each of them arched up in an intense climax of which neither could remember the like of -- Bart's mind was blank but for the face of his lover, the feel of her flesh and fair mane as he emptied himself into her, again and again. He felt as if she were pulling, milking from within him a continuous rope of hot, liquid pleasure, and his vision went black as he stifled a cry to the heavens that would have woken every sleeping soul, damned and saved in ten miles, instead, it came out as a blasting hiss of delight between his teeth, her own voice cracking in a quiet needy mewl as the two rode their mutual peak, throbbing, clenching, pulsing together -- hearts and souls beating as one.

He felt something... give, inside of him. Inside of her. The power between them broke, as the last tremor of climax faded. The two lovers dragged themselves to one another, wrapping themselves in arms, legs, and sweet, whispered words of love.

"I love you Bart..." she breathed to him, eyes on his. "Thank you... for freeing me." "Freeing you... from what?" he asked, panting as they were entwined together, laying on their sides, she lay her beautiful face on his open palm, gazing into him.

"From myself. My loneliness. My sorrow. If we die on the morrow, if I am unmade... it was a worthy existence, to have walked its end with you."

"If we die on the morrow, I will find you in the Astral," He said, stroking her cheek with scarred knuckles. "I will smash wide the gates of Heaven itself, the yawning chasm of Hell would not stay my feet. I will find you if it takes eternity itself," he told her with absolute conviction, absolute devotion.

"Never again will you be alone, not in this reality, nor any other." Her face crumbled, and she wept again joyous tears as she pressed to him closely. Her orbit flared, pulling his blanket around them.

"Hold me... my love. My Husband. Hold me, and never let go." His arms pulled her close as they lay together, warmth inside and out spreading through quivering limbs on man and Unicorn alike, he stared into her eyes for a moment, and she drew his head down to her chest, where he could hear her heart thumping away.

Then, she began to sing.

There were no words to her song, none he nor any mortal man could discern -- but there was tone, there was melody. There was emotion, feeling. Heart. She sang to him her love, deep and pure and full, it needed no words, no specifics -- she sang her heart and soul, full-throated and joyous. In the distance, men and beast alike looked up. They heard the song. They felt her love. For Him. For them all, through him. For her husband. For her children.

Her love, unfettered and true.

Not a single man nor woman that night slept unsoundly. Not a nightmare nor woe plagued their dreams, shortened their rest, or bore down on them with anxiety or stress.

She sang to the heart of the world, to the love of men.

To her love of a man. Pure. Simple. True.

~ ~ ~

The morning broke slowly, to a hazy dawn. The smoke and ash of the city still burning contrasted with the bright blue sky as the sun climbed above the horizon, and the dreamy contentment of the previous night faded into the grim, stark reality of the day's work.

Bart busied himself with a cookfire -- a half dozen or so of them guttering merrily up and down the riverside with the company's morning rituals, all a bit muted. Everyone knew that today was the last day for someone. There was a sober mood overall, even as Cithara's eyes came to him as he poured her a little cup of coffee from his kettle over the fire.

"It isn't imported from Al-Reza..." he said ruefully as he offered her the small, steaming tin cup, and she chuckled at him, sitting heavily by the fire, her orbit catching the cup and bringing it beneath her nose.

"It is made with love, that is rare enough an ingredient," she said, sipping it gently and blinking a few times. "O-oh... that is... strong," she said mutely, smacking her lips at the bitterness as Bart grinned over his own cup.

"Like you said, I've only ever had soldier's coffee, and now -- so have you." The unicorn laughed softly, sipping a bit more reservedly at her cup as Bart dished out some simple bacon and porridge seasoned with fruit and nuts, Cithara sipped in silence as he ate, her eyes on him and his food -- as was their ritual, the Lady need not eat, but seemed to take some pleasure in sharing the act and scents of his meals with him -- and of course, her delight in beverages. Water gleamed in his hair, and he'd scraped his beard clean with the new razor he'd been provided by Daedolon's craft -- the pair had been a fright after their union on the shores, and the early morning had seen them rise with the dawn to wash private places and groom as proper, and as always -- Bart felt more focused after the rituals of grooming, his mind and body both in order.

"He will test your will, beloved," Cithara said, sipping at her battered tin cup. There was something amusing about her shimmering, perfect form and his second-hand mess kit's beaten and battered surfaces clashing with one another. She met his eyes directly; "Mihai is going to attempt to unmake you, more than just death -- he will want to break you to his will. You will need to prepare yourself for horrors beyond that of flesh and bone."

"Wonderful," Bart mused, taking a slug of the bitter, stout coffee again, sucking thoughtfully at his teeth as he did. "I was holding out hope he'd just want to murder me and be done with it," he said, and Cithara sighed.

"If only, but this has become a matter of cosmic forces. An accidental prophecy," she said, shaking her head; "It is the way these things happen. Fate isn't specific, but it does have a tendency to make sure certain things are always accounted for," she said, shrugging her little shoulders and folding her forelegs across each other at the hock.

"The cosmos loathe imbalance. Chaos. Order is the natural way of things, just... in a scale too vast for most mortals to grasp," she said with a flippant little smile, Bart chuckled.

"Mysterious ways and all of that?" he asked, and she smiled.

"Something like that."

The companionable silence resumed as they watched the soldiers assemble. It took little time really, even at the steady pace everyone seemed to be moving. No rushing, a purposeful feel to everything, even Bart felt it, the familiar cadence of motion. He dressed and armored with that same steady purpose, Cithara helping with the latter with surprising aplomb.

"What?" she asked as her orbit tightened yet another buckle as he worked, her invisible energy in no way tangling up with him, her expression smug. "I do have experience with this armor, you are not the first man I have put it on," she said archly, that challenging little grin on her lips.

"Or taken it off of," Bart responded with mock acidity, but she pursed her lips as if wounded still. Tsking at him.

"Nay, but you are the best by far," she shot back, settling his cloak with a flourish, tossing her mane as the half-cape settled across his 'shield arm'. He'd done some practice with what Daedolon had called 'cloak fighting', which this armor seemed keenly built for. Perhaps it would be an edge he needed, perhaps not. Another tool.

"Flatterer," Bart accused her, settling himself into his full harness with a firm shake of his cuirass by its raised gorget, settling all of the plates into place.

"How do you think I have such a history of undressing handsome men?" she teased, sticking her tongue out at him... but perhaps a_touch_ more lewdly than the silly gesture required, a brief wink of one golden eye so subtle he almost missed it before her imperious poise resumed.

His friends filtered in, one at a time. Nazir was the first, looking up as he showed up girded for battle, his dandy attire gone, over his wiry frame he wore a hauberk of mail, it fit him closely, likely sized for him during the long siege, with a matching gambeson, greaves, bracers, and vambraces. A small buckler hung from his belt along with his oddly-curved sword. His face had been painted in its usual kohl, but his head was wrapped tightly in a covering not unlike Rashid's, the same blue color as well. A similar sash of wound material wrapped his waist and draped down his loose breeches before they tucked into his boots, it gave him a very... tightly wound appearance, making his usually bouncy and joyous friend seem very much like a coiled serpent.

"Seeing you under arms is still something of a shock," Bart observed, belting on his own sword as Cithara settled back down near the fire.

"Trust me Brother Bart, it is quite a mutual sentiment," he responded, Nazir's eyes were on her as Bart took his hand in greet, the southerner shaking his head and gesturing at the creature.

"How can you just..." he gestured at her again, and she smiled at him beatifically "... be, with all of that happening?" he asked incredulously, Cithara tittering softly as Bart shrugged. Nazir's eyes were a little wild as he turned to the Lady in White, bowing slightly.

"No offense intended, Lady. Your presence is simply..." Nazir trailed off, giving her a sweeping dramatic gesture.

"A lot," Cithara finished for him, leaning forward to gently kiss the tip of his nose. "I am aware, Bart is somewhat shielded from my presence by my mantle."

"I am also merely accustomed to it, mantle or no -- she is overwhelming," he said, pausing as he raised his coffee mug mid-drink; "It is a bit like becoming accustomed to a particularly strong smell," At that, Nazir burst into laughter, his bright, straight teeth a sharp contrast to his dark mustache and bronzed skin.

"Divine odor! There's a phrase only a country lad would invent!" he wheezed, Cithara bristled a bit at Bart as Nazir sat down heavily on a flat stone, his laughter having died down to a soft chuckle.

"A strong smell?" she challenged him. The big Paladin grinned over the rim of his cup, handing a freshly poured one to Nazir, who took it happily.

"You are a bit of an experience, my love," Bart said mildly. "Walking in sight of you even now is a bit like how that first taste of coffee hit you earlier," he said, and it was her turn to laugh, tittering softly as Nazir's eyes popped open at his first sip.

"I'll say. God's Teeth, man -- this stuff is practically_solid._" the Southerner rasped, smacking his own lips.

"I like strong coffee," Bart said nonplussed, pointedly taking a long drink.

"Language," Cithara added idly, sipping her own cup lightly.

Nazir grinned and took another mouthful, the bracing drink clearly welcome in focusing his thoughts. "Everyone is saying their piece, the important things before one takes fate in his hands like this," he said, turning the coffee cup in his hand, free of its usual parliament of rings, his gloved hands somehow seemed under-dressed.

"Didn't take me all that long, my sister knows my heart," he said, thumping his fist against his chest, eyes locked on the flames as he spoke. "She and I shared beats for nine months. Some things don't need saying," He smiled, and looked up to his friend.

"You though, I still need to use words for. Though I suppose I could have prayed to the Lady..." "I don't hear prayers outside my order, Little Lion. Those go directly to God," Cithara murmured pleasantly, the man perking up a bit, eyes contemplative.

"Oh. That's good to know. I assumed he had a... functionary for that." "No, what else would he do with the fullness of his existence, if not hear your prayers?" "That is oddly reassuring," Nazir said, propping his head in his hands. "Even if they go unanswered." "Yet never unheard, know that it hurts him as it does you to be asked and be unable to give." "God... hurts?" the southerner asked, Cithara's attention turning fully to him, her body angled towards the mustering men-at-arms, watching them gather in the distance, she smiled at the dark-skinned man, her eyes touched with sadness at the memory.

"God does, Little Lion. He hurts, and he loves, and he does little else but wring his hands and pace the divine realm like a nervous hen," she said, pausing before adding; "Figuratively speaking, that is. God loves us deeply, and he frets as all parents do."

"Oh," was all Nazir said for a spell, sitting there, chin in his hands, staring off into the distance. "That... I. Huh," the southerner sat back a moment, his face blank as he shook his head. "I'm sorry Holy One I appear to have had yet another existential moment all over you and your gallant champion," he said, shrugging his shoulders with a wild-eyed, incredulous grin spreading across his face. "I have a lot of those around you, Bart," he added, and the Paladin grimaced slightly.

"I have noticed we attract that kind of attention." "It's been quite an adventure," Nazir agreed, his eyes distant, flickering over far places and further times. "I'm no blushing lamb, I've been on a few adventures, I've been to just about every part of the Northsea Confederation, or close. Yet and still..." he trailed off, looking back down the hill towards the ruins, his eyes hard. "It has been an adventure the same. It has hurt, and it has opened my eyes... and honestly, it has scared the God-blessed piss out of me," he said, meeting Bart's gaze with a wild-eyed sort of expression.

"I have never been more terrified in my life than I have on this journey. I did not know such fear was possible."

"I am sorry Nazir, I did not mean to visit such thi-," Bart began, leaning forward to comfort his friend, and the wiry southerner sat up straight, cutting his hand through the air like a knife.

"Hey!" he interjected, "I was not finished."

Cithara's eyes widened a bit at that, her raised mug concealing her expression, Bart's dual-colored gaze mirroring it. The bronzed man's kohl-lined eyes were hard, two chips of amber as he settled back down slowly, eyes never wavering.

"I have often allowed others to assuage me too easily. It was good fear. I learned things about myself, things I would not have discovered on my own," he said, laying his palms flat on his chest; "I do not like the person I was when we met any longer, Brother Bart. He was a vain, foolish man of much knowledge but little wisdom. I don't know who I will become, but I know that he will be a good man. Strong of heart, good of character," he said and settled back with a smile.

"Little Lion grows into his mane," Cithara mused quietly, Nazir raised an eyebrow at that and gave a bit of a smile.

"Yet and still -- yes, I am glad I went on this journey, with you. Glad for the opportunity to..." he looked down at his hands and arms, groping about in his heart. "... die better, I suppose."

"Come now Nazir, you'll never die," Bart said with a lopsided grin. "You're too pretty to die." "God's own truth," Nazir said with a genuine grin, laughing and taking a fortifying sip of his coffee, sucking his teeth at its bitterness as Bart chuckled, the import of his friend's journey not lost in the humor.

"Who's dyin'?" came a worried voice, and from down the embankment Lidia and Gram ascended, both also girded for battle, Lidia in a similar gambeson and coat of mail as Nazir, though it seemed her weapons of choice had also changed, a short 'messer' of her own as the Reiklanders called it rested on her hip. It was a utilitarian blade, unaltered and unadorned -- the kind his father carried: an overgrown, clip-pointed knife by all accounts more than a sword. It fit well with the rest of her unassuming garb on her hip next to an equally nondescript poniard.

"Nobody we know, God willing," Bart said, holding out the pot. "Coffee?" "Oh God yes, cannae believe it but the willow tree here drinks tea," she said, giving him a bit of a look as Bart filled another tin cup from the mess kit with the heady brew, handing it off to her.

"I prefer something mild in the mornings," the tall Darrowmite said nonplussed, and Lidia grinned at him wickedly.

"I cannae recall you sayin' that earlier this morn' when ye woke me," she said, causing the stoic man to give her a bit of an admonishing smile as she grinned smugly, and took a long swig of the cup. Her eyes promptly turned to pinpoints and she pursed her lips around the mouthful. Bart's eyes raised expectantly as he sipped his own. Cithara and Nazir did the same. She swallowed.

"Lady's White Teats that's stouter'n lamp oil!" she hissed, sucking at the roof of her palate in a decidedly unladylike fashion, before she paused -- everyone at the fireside having suddenly stopped, staring at her. Cithara simply tipped her head up with a bemused smile.

"Language."

"Oh. Right," She murmured, turning a color of red nigh to match her hair and hood as she looked back up to Gram, who simply smiled at her. "Sorry 'bout that," she said, meekly turning her gaze back to Cithara, whose expression had remained mild. "S'habit, I'm workin' on it."

"You've worked very hard, dear one. I appreciate it," the Unicorn said warmly.

"She is astonishingly resilient," Gram said softly from where he stood, leaning heavily on his spear, the shaft at an angle, his body braced against it, hands negligently balancing the polearm against him like a lover, casual and close.

"Bart told me of your adventures in the dark places below ground," the unicorn said, eyes flicking over the little changeling, gaze warming in kind, "A place of nightmares, and yet you stand here still. Resilient? Pish-posh, heroic is the word I would use."

Lidia couldn't seem to decide if she wanted to puff up at the praise or wither under all of the attention. Her usual flinty banter failed her in the face of the Unicorn, and instead, she just sat down near Gram's feet, the tall cavalier clearly content to stand. She folded her hands around the coffee cup.

"My friends needed me," she murmured softly. "S'what I'm supposed tae do, innit?" she asked, shrugging her shoulders. "I nae could run away 'cause I was scared o' the things in the dark. They'd have just chased me... an'... well," she swallowed a bit, looking across the fire in the morning light.

"Bart wasn't scared. So... iffin' the Tinman thought there was a chance, there had to be one." "Oh, I was terrified," Bart murmured shyly, swirling his coffee. Lidia gave him a rueful look.

"I know ye were, dope. But ye dinnae show it... ye were brave." Bart shrugged, nodding. She looked at Cithara. "I dinnae really believe in anythin'. Nae bit o' church services, prayer, or piety. But bein' down in the dark wit' naught but a torn dress, a stolen knife an' little else?" she looked away, down into the murky black depths of her coffee, pondering its darkness as if it were Dagan-Baal's lair again, festooned in spoor, blood, and bones.

"It was inspirin' I guess. Seein' this dumb hayseed from the country bleedin', spittin', and shouting. Had nothin' special 'bout him but steel in his hands an' his spine. Ye... sort o' stop believin' in heroes when ye live like I do." she said in a small voice, face red. "Then ye meet one."

Bart felt uncomfortable as he was lauded by his adopted sister, his mouth worked in half-formed denials as he tried to downplay it, but even as his eyes flicked around, to his attire, his surroundings, his companions... he couldn't deny that at the very least, he_looked_ very heroic. The mantle fit ill on his shoulders, and he struggled against its weight. Cithara's gaze met his in sympathy as he finally managed to speak.

"It... was what I was trained to do, that is all," he said honestly, spreading his hands. "I am not some valorous saint, I was simply... doing what I was taught, in the circumstances I was given," he said in a slightly pained voice, leaning heavily on his knees. "I was terrified, but also who else was there if I ran? The doctrine of battle dictated that to retreat was to die, and worse forsake the field -- the girl, and Lidia as well -- I was brave, but that's because I was given no option not to be," he said, and Cithara leaned close to him, gently nuzzling his temple.

"Darling... that is heroism," she said quietly, and Bart huffed out a defeated sigh.

"... I know, but I don't like being called a hero," he lamented, and Lidia frowned at him ferociously.

"Past heroism aside," Gram added as Lidia's visible irritation grew; "He was not there, in the limestone caves beneath Fort Ivory. He was not there in the undercrofts when the Ghuls tore open the earth and poured in. He did not leap to the fray, fire and steel in either hand against eldritch horrors," Gram said, meeting her gaze. "You did."

"Indeed, and as Bart told it, your courage bore out against many other foes that night, and even on to matters of the heart." Cithara agreed and lowered her voice. "It is a terrifying thing to admit another to one's heart, and yet you've done it no less than twice in this adventure," she said, turning her golden gaze from Bart to Gram.

"Astonishingly resilient," Gram said softly with finality, not even turning his gaze from the horizon as the wind picked up, swirling the leaves around him.

"Suppose ye're right..." Lidia admitted, Nazir meeting her gaze over his coffee cup, golden hazel eyes narrowing a bit with mischief.

"Of course they are, you and Bart are so alike I am not entirely sure I won't find a fae in his kitchen when we go calling for sweet rolls and tea later," he said cheekily, and she gave him a pouty little frown, her lower lip sticking out as she did. Bart's face was similarly moody, Cithara kissed him again on the cheek, and in similar timing, Gram leaned down and kissed the top of the girl's head. Both motions were in perfect sync, both bleeding off their recipient's ire visibly.

"You both are brave, valorous souls. I am the divine being here, so I will brook no argument," Cithara said in an imperious tone, looking between Paladin and Thief alike; "You have made each other stronger in turn, as true siblings of the heart should. Your love gladdens me, and your growth apart as well." she concluded, and then with a slightly mocking tone she added at the end: "So, there."

"The Lady has spoken," Gram said in a mild tone, causing Nazir to give a snort of laughter.

"D'ye ever get used to how... bright, she is?" Lidia asked nobody in particular, Cithara tittered softly at that as Nazir made an uncertain gesture with his hand.

"Apparently that's a thing of degrees," he answered, and Lidia made a disappointed sound into the cup of coffee. Bitterness or no, she clearly relished the jolt of energy it offered, looking up to Cithara.

"Not fer nothin' Lady, but all ye... bigness, is really hard on me senses," she said, sniffing a bit. "Ye're so... bright and sharp tae me eyes and nose, its a mite overbearin' at times," Cithara tilted her head at that.

"Curious... none have mentioned my scent before," she inquired, and Lidia colored a bit.

"Oh... I notice it. I notice when it... changes."

There was a moment as Cithara considered when her scent might change, and it was then the Unicorn's turn to blush, ears laying back as her eyes and Lidia's both moved to Bart for a moment, the little thief raising an eyebrow and Cithara casting her eyes down demurely.

"I see. You are quite kind with your forbearance," she said in a small voice, her smile returning after a breath. "I will stay downwind of you in... future circumstances."

"Does any of this make sense to you?" Bart asked Nazir, who looked at him with incredulous eyes.

"Manasa's Pinions, you were a virgin," he exhaled with a teasing chuckle, and Bart blushed hotly as he looked to Gram for some kind lifeline, but the tall Darrowmite simply shook his head, raising a hand in a warding gesture. Bart slumped his shoulders, feeling defeated -- and a bit picked on.

The conversation mercifully shifted away to the idle chatter of friends, nervous ones. Quiet, important unimportances until Lidia sat near Bart and Cithara as Nazir engaged Gram in an idle discussion of musical styles; Darrowmite vs. Rezarian hymns were the topic of the moment.

"Bart, Lady," She said softly, drawing their attention from the conversation, the two almost lazily watching their friends interact. Savoring those moments.

"Yeah?" Bart asked, Cithara simply smiling and perking her ears forward.

"I... I'm scared," she said softly, setting her teeth a bit. "There, I said it. It's real." "Dear one..." Cithara began, but she held up her hands.

"Nae, not yet. I'm scared... and I just need tae say it out loud tae ye," she said, bringing her hands back and kneading on her knuckles through her gloves, fidgeting to keep her eyes from the three golden ones before her. "I... am afraid tae die, I'm so scared tae die now," she said, eyes wide and large. "I wasn't... nae 'afore. I was just meself an' whatever risks it took tae get noticed, tae nae be alone. Dyin' free and fancy was like livin' forever, right?" she asked and swallowed hard.

"Ah'm nae like that now. I got ye, Bart and Gram... God in His Heaven is he tae good for the likes o' me, I've seen things an' God's Teeth I don't wanna die yet," she said, tucking her shoulders up around her head. Green eyes full of fear, worry, and a child-like anger.

"Nae yet, I just got tae the good part."

The discussion had died off, Gram and Nazir turning to their friend as she planted her hands firmly at her sides, her jaw set forward stubbornly.

"I like this... us," she said, looking around, her eyes alighting down the hill as she spied the last of the two, Naima and Rashid walking up towards them with purpose.

"I like my family, my friends," she continued, "I like havin' the same faces 'round the table in the mornin'. I like sleepin' in a bed," she said, looking warmly at Gram, "An' nae always alone anymore either," she added with a dreamy smile, the tall man mirroring the expression. She turned back to the other two as Naima and Rashid paused at the circle's edge, the tall man inquiring about what was occurring with a thick, angled eyebrow.

"I'm scared tae die, Lady. So... I'm gonna need tae lean on ye an' Bart a little... okay?" she asked, biting her lower lip. "I know I'm brave, and I can fight an' all that... but I need ye tae help me, I'm scared... an' for once I dinnae 'ave to bear it alone."

Bart had a single answer, and that was to fold the little changeling in a tight embrace, his armor giving a bit of a clatter and the half-cape partially burying her as he did. She gave a little squeak and leaned up into him, holding him tightly. Cithara as well pressing against the vulnerable little thief, Bart raising his arm to add her to the embrace. There was a quiet pause, the warmth of the scene flowing out all around the campfire, Lidia took a sharp breath.

"Alright, that's enough o' that," she said, pulling away, wiping her eyes with a thumb. "Thank ye," she said.

"You may simply ask if you desire a hug, little one," Cithara said softly, and Lidia bit her lip again.

"... That's not strange? Ye're the Lady." she hedged.

"Does your nose tell you that I am overly particular about touch?" she countered with an arch little look, Lidia paused and with a hot blush, wagged a finger at her pointedly

"Nae, point taken Lady..." she paused and looked around a moment at her friends before adding in a small voice. "... may I have a hug?"

"Of course, dear one."

The little thief walked forward shyly, put her arms around the Lady's neck carefully, and slid herself gently into an embrace, Cithara's eyes turning up at the ends with quiet joy as she leaned into the girl, her foreleg folding gently around the changeling's back. They held that for a moment, before Lidia slid away, eyes a little wide.

"You're...so warm," she said a bit dumbly, trembling a little. Bart remembered that -- the first time he'd had direct contact with the font of life that was Cithara, the Lady smiled and leaned in to kiss her little freckled nose.

"A mother must be, to care for all she will," was all she said, and smiled at her. "I would welcome you to my home as well, all of you. As would Bart, ne'er shall you find my doors nor heart closed to you," she said, dipping her head.

"My thanks, for your care of my Champion in his time of need. Thou art courageous." "We took care of each other," Naima said, her face its usual cool compassion. She'd abandoned her typical loose dress and robes for equally loose trousers and a knee-length utilitarian tunic of sorts with half-length sleeves, split up either side for movement, the tough silken cloth in the same vibrant blue as her brother and husband. Her healer's bag slung along with a belt heavy with pouches and pockets across her tiny, narrow frame; making her look even smaller than her same-height brother in comparison. Her long black hair was tied up in a snug coiled braid at the base of her skull, and her own khol-lined eyes were hard. Determined.

"It was our duty," Rashid offered, dressed as he was before, the older man's unchanging arms and armor giving the yellow-sashed_Akali_ an unmoving, stony sense of permanency; his fierce, bearded face serene as he offered a simple shrug. "What else were we to do? We are all children of God," he offered in that resonant basso, folding his thick fingers together at his waist. He didn't even stand as a warrior; stoic, calm, and steadfast -- a rock to which one could anchor themselves. They seemed content to stay, the seasoned couple resolute in their presence. It was hard to believe at times Naima and Nazir were twins. The weight of a mantle, he knew it well.

"I will thank you for your kindness regardless," Cithara said as the pair joined them, Lidia meekly sliding away, finding Gram, her hands clasping his as she sat near him. Bart looked up to his companions, fully arrayed before him, all ready for battle. Eyes expecting.

"How rich a man am I, to have such a wealth of friends," Bart said, leaning forward on his knees as he looked at his companions -- his friends. His family.

"No matter what happens, I am full glad to have known each of you," he continued, smiling at them with his scarred face. "The hurts feel lesser in your presence, and my sword arm all the stronger with you by my side," He raised his cup of coffee, Nazir having gone and poured two cups of the stout brew for Rashid and Naima.

"To my friends, my family. Together at the end of the world. Come what may, I will die happy knowing that you found my life worth being a part of."

"Hopefully, none too soon," Naima added, smiling at Bart "You're a bit of a bull, but I seem to have a penchant for such people in my life," she added, looking up to Rashid, who smiled broadly; the tin cup looking amusingly small in his massive, calloused fingers.

"Indeed," the burly warrior agreed, his gray eyes warm as he glanced down at the tiny woman, a now-familiar magnetism between the two of them. "I would not trade this time away blithely, its pains and triumphs alike have been quite a story. To see two men I have such pride in find themselves," he said, looking at Nazir and Bart -- both the most visibly changed by the ordeal, both strengthened. Tempered. The fires of conflict and hopelessness had passed over them both and burned away much of their former selves into something harder, purer, and more focused. "It has been a rare privilege to see such growth, even in so dark a time."

"I would agree with that," Cithara said approvingly. A divine edict, practically. Rashid raised his cup with a grin. Cithara's voice answered the toast, her own cup raising with the glimmering outline of her orbit.

"To Life, bittersweet as it is -- it is worth every moment," she said, tilting her head down to Gram and Lidia, caught gazing into each other's eyes, fingers enfolded. "To Love, new and old alike," she continued, getting Gram to smile with a rare display of white teeth, and Lidia to raise her cup. Naima and Rashid as well, their fingers linking closely, eyes on one another.

"To the struggle, for it bears both as its fruit," she continued, looking between Nazir and Bart, both battered men smiling and raising their cups.

"From the Lady's own lips," Nazir said in a rueful tone, laughing as he raised his cup to his lips "To Life! May it be long as it needs to stay interesting, and not a moment more!" he crowed and took a heavy sip -- as did everyone else, Rashid coughing roughly as the potent beverage hit his lips, Naima however perked her head up, looking down at the cup.

"Oh, that's lovely," she mused, taking another long sip to the goggle-eyed looks of her fellow companions. Bart grinned at her over his own cup as Rashid quite casually poured the remains of his own into hers, and Cithara descended into almost girlish giggles as the Alchemist looked between the others.

"What? I like strong coffee," she said, and Bart raised his cup to her in a salute, which only got an eyebrow up from her, she shrugged and sipped more.

"Coffee, Men, language. You do seem to have a preference," Nazir observed blithely, his sister giving him an arch little look over the rim of the glass, Rashid not bothering to cover his grin at that.

Cithara simply giggled all the harder.

~ ~ ~

They mounted and rode out with little fanfare, it wasn't a grand campaign of legend -- nay, this endeavor strongly reeked of the personal, even among the men-at-arms. The Spears each seemed to have an intimate stake in this, many were citizens of the city, if not simply the Heartlands themselves. The ride was mostly silent as they crested the hill, and traveled down into the yawning mouth of hell that awaited them.

The sky darkened as they grew closer, unnaturally so; the soldiers bristled uneasily as the grim pall seemed to pull the very light and color out of things the closer they grew. Bart, Cithara, and surprisingly -- Lidia, rode at the head of the pack. The rest of his companions were not far behind, Gram at the rearmost, leading the short column of soldiers.

The mood changed as they approached the walls, the oppressive pall growing heavier, the sounds of nature snuffing out to naught but the whistle of wind through shattered stones and the creak and groan of decaying infrastructure. The group reorganized as the gates loomed, Bart and Cithara still at the head, the Ivory Spears taking up ranging and flanking positions, building a line for a series of staggered charges as their doctrine dictated. They were ready for an attack, they had all read the reports. They knew the numbers and had heard Bart and his companions tell them of the horde besieging the city during their escape. They braced for it, visors shut, weapons at the ready as they rode up to the northern gate.

Yet it never came. Silence reigned, only broken by the clatter of hooves or the creak and groan of ruins settling. Nary a soul or soulless being to be seen. The portcullis was still a twisted, destroyed mess from where Humbaba simply walked through it, and ahead the crater where Naima's bound familiar had annihilated him with a thunderbolt stood out.

Bart paused his horse as the rest of the men filtered into the city through the shattered gates, burned and skinned corpses of defenders hung high from the crumbling walls -- sport or a message, it was hard to say. He looked at the shattered gatehouses, the old, dried smears of blood and gore telling the tale of the occupants. He had been waved the toll for passing through the city, but he had paid it all the same in blood. Absently he fished a remaining copper penny from his purse, looking down at it in his mailed palm. It was such a small thing, but it felt like it carried the weight of the world. The rest of his companions filtered past him. The tinny sound of the coin spinning through the air was almost swallowed up in the clatter of hooves and armor, clicking off the stones to land face-up on the gatehouse's floor. Bart was already moving before it stopped quivering. He had paid the toll and yet felt more was owed.

So it continued, the party moving through the ruined city. Unnatural twilight encompassed the ruins as they picked through, whole buildings flattered by what looked like main force, and others seemingly torn open as if they were bears getting at delectable beehives. More than a few heavy doors were simply ripped free from hinges and lay strewn across the cobblestones, the houses themselves wafting out a charnel reek that told the story of what had happened within.

"What is this gloom?" Bart asked after a while, looking to Cithara for answers. The Unicorn had been withdrawn and silent since they passed the gates, her expression was pained, dismal even as she looked at her beloved.

"The Queen is here," she stated simply. "Part of her, like the altar we destroyed near Fort Ivory -- but a far grander scale," She said, looking up at the dark, overcast skies and seeming... staleness of the air and stillness abound. "Her weight drags everything beneath it, even light cannot escape. The parts of the world fully beneath her power are dark indeed -- Lachheim is hers now. Time and reality grind to a halt," she said, and turned away, straightening her neck sternly.

"Be on guard, beloved. It will grow worse as we draw closer to the seat of her power here." The roads became in some places impassable, forcing them to wend around smoldering ruins, the stagnant time seemed to have frozen some parts of the wreckage in a perpetual burning; the charred innards of buildings, businesses, and homes pouring smoke when they should have long burnt to ash. In other places, so much of the buildings had been razed that no stone stood atop another, and the roads vanished into wide fields of rubble and destruction.

"Where are all the fell beasts?" Nazir asked, tension thick in his voice, his amber eyes flicking to and fro beneath the hem of his steel-capped turban. "They crawled across the very walls beneath Fort Ivory like great, gangly spiders."

"Dinnae remind me," Lidia complained in a hollow voice. The little changeling's face was a bleak, impassive mask, her skin pale and sallow as she looked about, beyond Bart -- Lidia was the one who most considered Lachheim her home. She looked up to Bart, eyes empty of emotion.

"It's all gone, forever, innit Bart?" she asked -- but the question was rhetorical at best. He looked around, the destruction, the sheer scale of the terror that had been visited upon this place, he shook his head, glad for his visor to hide his own hopeless, blank expression.

"I don't know, Lidia. God help me," he managed after a fashion, gripping the hilt of the First Blade tighter. He and the others had drawn naked steel early on, and even now it was a comfortable weight at the end of his arm, bracing against this grisly silence. Lidia nodded once, her wan face turning back to the road. Bart wished more than anything at that moment that he could take the hurt from her heart, selfish as it may be, he had come to love the young girl and would stand his body between her and all harm -- yet here he could do naught but watch.

Similar scenes and similar silence followed them across the river, which itself was clogged and bracketed at the bridges with wrecked and ruined barges and carts, Bart looked around, and he began to frown, turning his visored face to Rashid.

"No bodies," he stated plainly. The big Akali nodded.

"I have noticed that as well."

"I've seen blood, scarring, bits of gore here and there but aside from the atrocities at the wall, I haven't seen a single corpse," Bart continued, reining his horse around a collapsed section of bridge. Rashid drew in a deep breath, letting it out with a sigh as he looked towards the skyline of the ruined city.

"I fear we will find them elsewhere," he said, pointing his bearded chin towards the city center, where the plumes of white smoke rose unevenly from all around it. Bart didn't need to further question Rashid's meaning, the smell of the place told him all he needed to know without looking at the sooty white plumes.

The horror struck home for Bart as they passed the waterfront. The pathway to the northern drawbridge of the Order Militant fortress in the river was blocked by a massive, gouging rent through both the buildings and earth beneath it, as if the ground below had simply erupted, churned up by some massive subterranean force -- and thus they'd been forced to detour to the southern gate Bart had first entered a year and some days ago.

"Oh God, no," Bart breathed as he drew the reins up on his horse, a sudden stop making his harness clatter and rattle. Cithara came up short as he stared off the main road. This part of the city was mostly workman's homes, common folk's dwellings, and their needs, surrounding the Cathedral Quarter -- the center of the lived-in city proper.

"Beloved?" the Unicorn inquired as he stared. It was a small, two-story building that was once whitewashed and doughty, with a shingled roof and a well-tended garden -- now a pile of crushed, pummeled ash, cinders, and rubble. He placed a hand over his belly, feeling a hollow sickness fill it as his eyes cast over a single glint of light in the pall and soot.

"Oh no," he breathed. A silvery mare, still perfect but for smudges and ash, peeked from the ruins and rubble. The remains of a sign. Parias' final words echoed in his mind like the screams of the damned:

I will kill everyone you ever loved, ever spoken to. I will bring ruin to your name, ruin upon your very mention in history.

"Bart, Bart please... speak to me," Cithara whispered, close to him now. He could not look away, he saw the sequence of events, the torn and gouged cobblestones, the door thrown clear with much of its frame and surrounding bricks still attached, wrenched free by main force to make way for horrors.

"Mila, Marie," Bart said in a dull tone. His shoulders went slack beneath his armor, which for a moment felt as if it weighed a thousand stone, the crown atop his helm with its draping veil felt as if it were made of lead, dragging at him.

"Oh no," Cithara gasped as understanding dawned on her. She pressed against him. "No Bart, do not let her darkness into your heart, remember you are vulnerable to it. Fight it, my love, for the lost if not yourself."

Bart heeded her words, his helm tilting with a weak nod. His one blue eye gleamed with unshed tears behind his visor.

"They were... friends. Of the family. Of my father," He said and slid from his saddle. His armor crunched down on the ash-caked cobblestones; the quicklime in the whitewash had cooked off in the heat and fury of the sweeping blazes and mixed with the settling ash into a crusty, eerie layer of gray-white film over everything, cracking and breaking like ice beneath his boots as he walked forwards.

"Bart..." Cithara breathed, but he paid her no heed. Kicking and crunching his way through the ruins, he thrust his gauntlet-clad hand down through the still-smoldering ashes, grasping the gleaming image of a rampant mare and pulling it free of the crust of soot and lime that covered it, shaking it free.

"Pyotor was so proud of this sign. Mila, too," he droned, driving the First Blade into the ground nearby so he could take the metal mare in both hands. "It should not be buried, dirty and unseen," he said, taking the hem of his white half-cape and scrubbing the silver -- Sidhe Silver, truly, he recognized it readily now from the Wild Hunt's fell blades -- clean and clear, the glimmering metal recapturing its shine with little effort. Cithara watched, saying nothing. The sadness in her eyes was old, familiar to her. Familiar to him now, as well.

"There," He said and took the sign, propping it up over the ruins of the inn. A headstone more fitting he could not imagine. He said nothing more, kneeling before it for a long moment. Silent prayers filled his mind, driving back the sorrow. Cithara simply stood by, not too far, but not too close either. She was present, and for that -- he was grateful.

"Come," He said quietly, standing. "It is unseemly for me to take such time, all of us here have lost ones in this place, better to use that time to punish those guilty of this... violation," he said, ripping the First Blade up from its interment. It was only then Bart realized he'd driven it straight down through solid cobblestones, from which it emerged unscathed. A fearsome edge indeed.

"Bart..." Cithara began and then seemed to think better of it. Merely drawing close to him, leaning her soft, warm weight against his side. He took but a moment, yet a needed one to draw his hand through her mane. He didn't have words for this yet, the enormity of the return to the razed city had yet to truly settle in his mind. It may not for some time. He would be patient. So would she.

Remounting, he rejoined the column of soldiers, his companions exchanging looks with him, but the withdrawn silence was contagious, each of them feeling the weight of the unnatural gloom and strangely vacant carnage keenly.

The ride through the southern side of town was much the same as before, the creeping crush of lime and ash spreading as they entered the parts of town more populated by commoners; wood and whitewashed houses out-populating the stone and masonry manors of the more affluent northern half and Merchant's quarter. The southern gates towards Fairharbour had been reinforced, barricaded by the city's men-at-arms and seemingly held for a time, the ground and masonry around them utterly savaged, the barriers themselves torn and shredded, cast about in ruin. A delaying action, a last stand fought for refugees to escape.

They arrived after some additional detours for collapsed buildings and still-burning fires at the avenue leading to the Order Militant fortress. It was a scene out of hell itself, when he had left they had packed the area with slain abominations, ghuls, plagued men and even an ogre or two had lain here -- now there were no bodies to count, but the cobbles and bricks were absolutely blackened with fire and the greasy, caked-on blood and gore of the unholy monsters. The walls of the fortress across the span were pockmarked by all manner of assaults, the raised drawbridge showing visible scars of fire, fang, and claw.

"Ho, the fortress!" Called Bart, his voice ringing out in an oddly muted fashion in the quiet. He stood at the head of the column, visor down, cape and crown gleaming along with the First Blade in his fist -- and alongside him stood the Lady in White, glimmering pelt as bright as a star in the preternatural pall. Atop the wall came a surprised call, and a yell backwards of unintelligible phrases. No doubt could remain for the defenders seeing this, and the sound of a clattering windlass came to the ears as the drawbridge lowered, and at the other end stood a familiar figure. Bart smiled and came down from his horse to cross the wooden span, Cithara at his side.

He paused before the figure, and pointedly saluted, visor down still. The armored figure seemed to be confused by that at first... and then a crooked smile crept across their face.

"Still outrank me, Ser," Commander Viconia said, clashing her own fist to her breastplate as Bart raised his visor. She was worse for wear, many new scars decorated her armor and flesh alike, but she stood strong and tall still. Unbroken.

"My apologies, I am but a provincial boy," Bart conceded with exaggerated piety, earning a fresh grin from the grim-faced, blonde woman. She stepped forward and clasped his wrist, perhaps too familiar but neither warrior was about to raise any considerations on ethics or rank.

"God's Blood, Ser Bart. You look like a figure of legend," she said, looking him up and down with a mixture of awe and approval.

"Language," Cithara chided her quietly from his side, the words seeming to jolt her out of her staring at Bart's changed frame.

"Oh by the Lord, the Lady in White." She breathed, dropping to one knee, crossing her fist over her heart as she had at Bart in mockery, this time in piety. "I meant no offense, I..." she raised her eyes, one blue, one milky white still. "... I prayed you would save us."

"God hears your prayers, my darling. He answers as he can." Cithara said with a beatific smile. "Rise, please. After such trials, I dare not ask you to kneel for anyone."

Viconia seemed stunned by the entire interaction and rose to her feet. Cithara smiled at that, the Commander caught Bart's gaze, noticing the scarred, golden eye.

"Seems we have more and more in common with every meeting," she remarked, and Bart couldn't help but chuckle a little, his armor clattering as he did.

"More than you think, Commander," He said, shooting Cithara a sidelong glance, before resuming a more serious bent. "I bring you reinforcements, a hundred-strong force of the Ivory Spears -- and with them, the Lady in White -- and a Paladin of the Radiant Order," he said... proudly. He felt that bit of pride at this point was earned. Viconia smiled.

"A valiant force indeed, and needed. We've been undermanned and overtaxed for months, almost a year," she said, and Bart rocked back at that, though Cithara merely sighed.

"The Queen's presence," She reminded them both; "She bends and breaks the flow of time." "How long has it been?" Viconia asked, she looked haggard and tired despite her readiness. Bart hesitated, his words stuck in his throat -- Cithara, however, took up the thread without a moment's wait.

"Three months give or take a week or two, dear one." Viconia fell back a step, seeming a bit unsteady. "Three months... to us, it has been at least ten. It became harder to track the days when this damnable twilight settled over the city." "How have you managed to hold out so well?" Bart asked, and she refocused on that like a hawk, thankful for the lifeline to cling to.

"They came up through the sewers everywhere else, but as before -- the Fortress has no underground access, the river is deep and feeds our cistern through sand filters," she said, hooking her fingers into her swordbelt. "Moreover we have plentiful reserves of fresh water barreled, and as much if not more provisions. It _is_a fortress, it was designed to weather a siege of years," she stated, her chin raising proudly.

"My men have sold their lives to the highest standard, not a single cursed monster has crossed this span and lived long enough to gloat about it," she stated... and then furrowed her brow.

"At least, until about a day or so ago. They all just... left," she said, clear confusion in her voice.

"Left?" Bart asked, looking around at the empty cobbles before the fortress, clearly showing recent signs of mayhem. Viconia nodded.

"Just up and pulled out. Vanished into the holes they crawled from, took all of their dead with them. Just looked out and they were gone, like a fart in the wind." she said, then twitched her blind eye reflexively as she looked to Cithara.

"My pardons, Lady. Language," she said, and Cithara smiled.

"Understandable, but I believe I know where they have gone," she said, looking to Bart.

"Mihai did say there would be no further obstacles in our way," Bart agreed, Viconia's eyes flashed.

"Mihai, that dribbling arsehole," she spat, clenching her teeth. "Begging your pardon again, Lady. He has been particularly active, we see him now and again leading his pet monsters on all manners of horror. We've put good arrows into him, but he just laughs them off. Literally." she made a face like someone had replaced her morning coffee with lemon juice.

"He's holed up in the Cathedral, God-damned blaspheming cunt," she snarled... and then coughed once more, looking to Cithara again, who just bowed her head.

"Apologies I'm certain, I have been around soldiers my entire existence on this world, dear one. I am not so delicate that coarse words curl my mane," she reassured the woman. "However... you are very... creative with them."

"Occupational Hazard, Lady," the commander said in a bit of a clipped tone. "Thirty-nine years bullying around big, burly, hairy men puts a hard edge on a woman."

"So I've seen," Cithara murmured quietly.

"Will you be staying then, Ser?" Viconia asked -- but her tone of voice made it clear she already knew the answer, Bart shook his head.

"No, I -- we -- have matters to settle with Mihai. Take our horses and the Spears," he said, turning back to look at his companions. "If we fail, you are to take the Spears and punch a hole through straight to Fairharbour. I'll brief you on what we know, and you will give it to the Lord Protector. God have mercy on us if that becomes necessary."

She nodded, and whistled sharply, calling for grooms. The transfer of the men was smooth, the soldiers did not initially want to part with their commander and Lady -- but the needs of the many outweighed such concerns; during which Bart and Cithara related the relevant information about the Magistrate's goals and the events of the last three months, albeit in a reduced level of detail. The Commander however seemed to appreciate this fact-based approach, and paid rapt attention, nodding and asking pertinent questions where appropriate.

"Are you sure you want to proceed on foot, Ser?" she asked as Bart reclaimed some of his kit from his saddlebags. His belt and pouches, and the small one containing his family's tome. He felt... wrong being parted from it, tucking it away firmly.

"Mihai has made this personal, I won't throw away good, loyal steeds to give him additional targets," he answered, handing the reins to a groom. Viconia nodded, though her face was terse.

"It's a damned fool idea, Ser," she said, folding her arms behind her back. "Forgive the impertinence, Ser -- but you're a boy. A boy with foolish ideas of heroism and an axe to grind."

She wasn't wrong.

Bart paused, he was more than a boy -- though to Viconia's seasoned blue eyes, he likely looked barely out of the crib. She'd seen more battle than he had by orders of magnitude, and it was written in her flesh and bones. He folded his hands for a moment.

"This is something I have to do. My friends and I, the Lady and I," he said, looking at her with an implacable gaze. "I will not feed more good men and women to this monster, I will not allow evil to sup upon the souls of the good folk of this world for my protection," his voice was hard, and she frowned at him.

"We swore the same oaths, Ser," she argued, and he shook his head.

"I swore a different one, an Oath of Gold," he said, and there was no pomp or superiority in his tone or posture. "I am... held to a higher standard. An impossible one really. Yet a standard I must strive to meet." he said with a touch of quiet sadness in his voice.

"I see," she said, folding her arms behind her back as the two soldiers met eyes, openly and without preamble -- he looked into her, and she into him. Each of their solitary blue eyes provided a mirror for the other to gaze upon. Something passed between them in that moment, somewhere between their mixed histories, their hurts, sacrifices -- even matching injuries. He saw a woman made of a shell of iron wrapped around a heart of unalloyed gold.

"Permission to speak freely, Ser?" she asked after a moment, her voice quiet as the soldiers moved passed them. Bart raised an eyebrow at that, shaking his head as he bid her to continue.

"I understand, Bart... but you are just a boy," she said softly, her features losing the hardened visage of a military commander... and taking on the concerned softness of a mother. "It should not be that we old soldiers thrust such things upon you so young, and be forced to sit here and just... watch you march off to your death," she said, her face pale and wan. "We've already lost too many good lads, and here you are, with this gaggle of barely-grown firebrands ready to go off and fight Evil -- actual, tangible Evil..." and her face fell, her teeth gritted into a snarl.

"And I just have to sit here and watch."

"Commander... dear one," Cithara was the one who spoke, stepping forward slowly to bring her close enough nigh to touch the Commander. "I understand your pain, I feel it keenly. I send so many, many good, good boys to graves far, far too early," she said, a mournful nature to her tone. "Would that I could spare even one that pain, I would rend heaven and earth... yet this is our role. The cosmos will settle for no less."

Tears threatened to spill from Viconia's eyes, but she set her jaw and took a breath.

"It isn't fair. War like this should be the province of the seasoned, the hardened -- we should fight for this world, not... not..." She lost her words and her composure. One tear managed to fight past her steely forbearance, rolling down her cheek. The steely lady's mask cracked, for just a moment.

"Not boys. Not our boys."

Silence reigned in that moment, Cithara simply stepped forward and laid her cheek on the woman's armored shoulder. There was no further weeping, no sobs or wracking cries of release -- nay, the iron-clad commander simply reached one hand up, and reverently touched Cithara's mane, stroking through it just once before drawing a deep breath, and meeting Bart's eyes once more.

"Come back alive, Ser. We have given too many good boys to this meat grinder. I would see it done," was all she said, drawing away and giving Bart a final salute, before turning and barking orders to nearby men -- seeking solace in the order of work.

"Am I truly so young?" Bart asked Cithara in their momentary solitude, and she turned back to him with a sad smile.

"Yes my love, to women like us -- we see the man, but also the boy. So new and fresh," she said, leaning up to kiss his cheek through his open visor. "It one day will happen to you as well, I am afraid. The curse of old soldiers. Fear not: I will be with you," she said, nuzzling him a moment; "To mend your heart when it breaks anew."

~ ~ ~

It took them little time overall to prepare, a quarter of an hour, perhaps a few minutes more. Everyone felt the oppressive pall of the place, the stale air and stagnant skies causing Bart's companions to sit on edge -- and the defenders had not fared better in their near-year of isolation in the Queen's influence. The men on the wall's eyes were sunken, hollow. There was a worn-down quality to all of them, the effects of a siege doubled and doubled again in tolls of blood and madness. Bart murmured prayers for their souls and minds beneath his breath to God as he secured his remaining gear.

Around him, his companions finished similar preparations. Notably, Gram had not joined his Spears in the Order Militant fortress, currently checking his armor's buckles and weight, the wicked bec-de-corbin leaning nearby, and the Darrowmite saber already at his hip.

"Captain, I can't ask you to come with us on this," Bart said, trying to couch the request in more formal terms to take some edge from it, the tall man looked up and then continued tightening his straps before taking a long moment to pick up his polearm.

"None asked, in fact, you are the second person to demand I stay," he answered, helmet beneath one arm, polearm butt-down on the stones. "If she could not convince me, I fear you will have no better chances, Ser," he said pointedly, walking up to Bart directly.

"Am I to consider this insubordination?" he asked, his tone neutral as the two men faced off before the fortress. Gram raised his chin somewhat definitely.

"Ser," Gram stated steadily, eyes unblinking. "The woman I love is about to assault the gates of Hell, for that alone I will not be swayed. You can write a full report of censure to the Lord Protector if we survive, until then -- I will be by her side," he said, his tone final. Bart's dual-colored gaze narrowed as the two men stared each other down.

"Is that your final decision?" he asked, Gram raised his chin a mite further in answer; "I am going. You will have to kill me to stop me." "Good," Bart said, the tension suddenly breaking as he tugged on his gauntlets, flexing his fingers. "You'd be a poor match for Lidia if you were so easy to bully," he stated, hands on his hips, Gram's face barely changing, beyond a series of sudden, rapid blinks.

"Ser," Was again all he said, a military acknowledgment, but there was gratitude in his eyes as he stepped past Bart, stopping a pace just behind his shoulder, turning slightly.

"Why did you wish to stop me?"

Bart turned his head a bit, his mustached features impassive. "You were not of the group, Mihai's obsession is with us, singularly with me and The Lady. I would not blithely endanger a soul who isn't under that auspice of... immortal courtesy," he said plainly. Gram nodded, taking a moment to consider that.

"I thank you for your forbearance, however -- you know the sort of man I am," he said, and Bart nodded again.

"I do," was all Bart said, the two men turned back to their tasks then. Nothing else needed to be said. They knew who they were.

The party gathered some minutes afterward, the drawbridge raising behind them, from the walls they saw men beginning to line them, armed with bows and shining armor, they stood a vigil.

"We never gave them a signal for if we won or lost," Bart mused, Cithara gave a terse little laugh.

"The whole world will know if we succeed or fail, beloved. In this, you can trust." The omen in that answer was not lost on any of them, Bart moved to the head of his dear friends, iron singing its shrill song as he drew his blade, carrying it loosely at the end of his arm. A staccato of steely accompaniment rang out behind him as all of his dear companions drew arms, all ready for this final confrontation.

"Very well, here. Everyone who isn't a divine being or directly empowered by one, take these. I had time before we left and lean means -- but what is an alchemist who cannot improvise?" Naima called out, moving between the more mundane of their group, handing them small, corked earthenware bottles, two per person.

"Healing draughts?" Nazir asked, and Naima nodded as he tucked them carefully away in his belt pouches.

"I had to weaken their potency to make enough, but they will still stave off even most lethal wounds for a time -- I also found stouter bottles, so accidents are less likely," she said, passing Lidia two of the bottles from her satchel -- but looking squarely at Bart, who merely shrugged.

"A reasonable precaution," Gram agreed, taking his two and stowing them similarly. "I would suggest the obvious, however."

"Dinnae get hurt?" Lidia ventured, and Rashid barked a bit of laughter.

"Indeed," Gram noted, crossing his polearm along his shoulders; he'd also vested his full panoply, and his heavy riding boots were now armored with greaves and sabatons, and his helm was open-visored and in place. "Better to have it and not need it."

"One would think such advice unneeded -- but I have found myself in the company of truly stubborn men, verily it is instead quite astute," Cithara sniffed a bit, giving Bart another pointed look, and the big Paladin sighed dramatically.

"You act like I enjoy being battered about."

"You might," Naima shot back, handing a small lidded pot to Lidia.

"What's this?" the changeling ventured, Naima raised an eyebrow.

"More of the mint oil poultice. We are doubtlessly going to encounter more fell beasts and carnage," she said, Lidia's eyes widened a bit, and she took it with a nod.

"Ye're a saint," she said quietly, Naima merely smiled.

"The rest of you are hardy, durable, and powered by Godhome, so I trust you can take care of yourselves?" She said, putting her satchel away, Rashid put his arm around her.

"I have faith and love, I need little else dear Wife," he said and bent low -- crushing her in his massive, brawny arms and pressing his mouth to hers in a hot, passionate kiss. Bart and Nazir both blinked at that -- it may have been the first time the couple had been openly amorous in public, but truly -- was there any better time?

Bart heard a gentle cough at his side and found Cithara looking up at him expectantly, her golden eyes smug and knowing. Bart colored brightly and she stepped forward, leaning her muzzle up towards his open visor.

"Do I need to spell it out?" she challenged, and Bart laughed, raising a hand to cup her cheek -- he devoured her mouth with his, the kiss hot as divine flame, full of need, fear, longing, and a promise -- a promise to return.

"Oh well, that sure is a sight, innit?" Lidia breathed, and Gram simply smiled and took her hand in his, kissing her knuckles. Lidia blushed brightly, and then threw herself up into his arms, all but climbing him for her own final intimate touch, murmurs passing inaudibly between them as the three couples came apart, Nazir gazing at them all with a rueful smile.

"Don't look at me, I think you're all fair and handsome folk -- but I am hardly in the mood for a kiss."

The couples broke up with a much-needed laugh, Bart putting his arm around the slight Southerner and pulling him into a hug as they proceeded forward. Falling into a loose wedge shape, they marched down into the cathedral district, boldly into whatever may come.

~ ~ ~

The march was quiet but for the crackle of flames and creak of ruins, Bart and Rashid had fallen into a position as leading edge, with Gram bringing up the rear. Lidia and Nazir took turns ranging ahead to scout but quickly tapered off to simply hanging back as it became all the more clear that nothing awaited them in the shadows -- Mihai's deal held strong.

"A sword, now?" Rashid asked as they walked together. Bart turned his head, his visor locked open -- quiet as it was, none of them were yet comfortable uncovering their heads or sheathing weapons.

"It was what I had on hand," he said lightly, bouncing the broad blade on his shoulder a few times, earning a grin from Rashid.

"You any good with it?"

"I manage, I am young yet," Bart said humbly. Rashid's beard bristled with a smile of fierce approval.

"There is much of that about these days," Rashid said, looking to Nazir and his own naked blade. Bart raised his chin slightly.

"I had noticed. Your teachings, I imagine."

"Naturally, he is blood."

Bart nodded, looking back at Nazir himself a moment, hardly felt proper to call him a dandy anymore with how he carried the blade, his easy grace having taken a hard edge to that of a striking snake. Nazir's wasn't the only new blade, and Bart turned his body, armor creaking a bit as his crowned helmet swung to look at Lidia.

"So if Rashid tutored Nazir, who taught you?" Bart asked the little changeling with a playful edge, who gave him an arch look, seemingly geared to respond to him with a bit of cheek before she was cut off by Gram, who simply leaned in and said.

"I did."

Bart raised his eyebrows at that, Rashid nodding his own confirmation. "I am hardly a schoolmaster, my talents lie in action more than teaching. I had my hands full putting Nazir into order, the Captain stepped up quite handily."

"It was only natural," Gram stated, "I already ministered to her spirit, it was easy enough to step from instruction of the soul to the sword arm."

"Everyone was already so tired an' busy," Lidia said, hefting her blade and peering at its unadorned surface. "Couldn't rightly ask 'em to spend all day fightin', dyin', scramblin' in the dark an' then come back and be all gentle-like teacher with me." she said, and shrugged, swinging the single-edged weapon easily at the end of one arm. She'd always been handy with a blade, and even still the difference was noticeable, she carried it with the wary confidence of someone who'd killed with it. He was passingly familiar.

"So I dinnae do that. I did it properly."

"I don't read Gram as particularly 'Gentle-like'," Bart mused, and Lidia colored a bit as Gram quite plainly chimed in:

"I was not."

That was more than enough for the assembled men at arms, two and two still made four after all -- yet the little changeling's eyes turned up at the edges a bit with the barest hint of an impish grin.

"Ye were when I asked nicely," she said in a quiet voice, causing a reflexive smile to twitch the man's lips. The grim mood had taken its toll, everyone was thankful for small moments of levity. Lidia sat there a moment and sucked in a breath.

"We better not die, 'cause I'll be a right furious banshee iffin' I go out a virgin after all this." Bart froze at that, as did Gram -- the tall Darrowmite's expression tactless and taken completely off guard, a contrary quality to the changeling's smug little grin as she stood up straight, stretching her limbs gamely. Cithara and Naima descended into giggling, and Lidia walked quite pointedly just a bit closer to Gram, looking up at him with raised eyebrows. That was a conversation in the making.

In spite of all attempts to push back against it, the pall of the place had settled firmly over everyone as they moved into the cathedral ward. Bart had subconsciously moved to the head of the group, his feet seemed to know where to go.

The cobbles gave way to the familiar fountain square before the cathedral. A massive basin set below the statuary of all three Holy Beasts in brilliant repose. A place of quiet contemplation beneath swaying trees to the ripple of waters and conversation.

It had been. No longer.

Blood was the color of the day, the greasy rust-red smudges of deep, vital life's blood. The whitewashed buildings and marble masonry stones alike were bathed in it, spatters rising up at hip height with such solid uniformity it was as if a tide of gore had washed through the square. The shopfronts and homes lining the courtyard's perimeter were burned out and flattened, the statuary all smashed -- pointedly, deliberately. Not a single effigy of the First Paladin or the Triune stood unmarred, each defaced liberally -- and from the smell, in a variety of ways beyond mere destruction.

Then, there came the bodies.

Everyone had known it was coming, feared it, dreaded it even -- the empty ruins, carnage without a body count. They all knew they had to be somewhere. Each had built in their minds a rational explanation, a reasoning as to where the corpses that must be were, and how they'd been conveyed there. None among them was prepared truly for the reality.

Some of them were stacked, neatly. Like cordwood, in order by size and shape. In order of size. Bart felt his guts seize as he looked over many far-too-small forms stacked between the larger ones. Others hung, flayed apart into horrific standards, their bodies stretched and skinned for God only knows what ritualistic purposes.

There were repeating patterns in the positioning and poses, in the methods of display. Arms spread, back bent into a hideous bow -- chest cracked and hollowed out. Flesh peeled into sheets and hung tight in frameworks made from the body's limbs and primitive twine. A consistent tone was a V-shaped incision cut into the belly of each victim, and a length of entrails tugged out and coiled deliberately at their feet, some unholy umbilical to the blood-soaked earth.

There were darker, more solid smears of gore leading from these former neatly stacked piles. Drag marks, long ones -- all going straight up the cracked marble stairs of the cathedral. The Cathedral, which now sat perched on a spur of land, the earth and ground beneath it sunk away, the termination point of the great bored tunnel Bart had glimpsed beneath Lachheim. In that great bowl of earth dug out, they burned.

So many bodies. All burning.

The new shelf that the Cathedral of Ivory occupied hung like a morbid balcony over a great fire fueled by the most gruesome imaginable charcoal, each body taken from the ever-resupplied stacks was then tossed out the rear of the cathedral's main hall, into the blazing hellmouth where the white smoke grew, into fires stoked and maintained by skulking shapes at the edge of the light. The column was bright, ashy white, and here so close to the flames the heat dried the air, made it taste of copper and salts, the calcified lime layering on thick, some bodies framed in masks, waxen casts made of them in death by the destruction of the city.

The cathedral, gods the cathedral. At this point, Bart felt a strange sense of unreality as he looked upon the gutted building. So much defilement had made the world seem all a pall of gray livened only by the bright smears of red blood and the bright glow of golden flame. The roof had been torn down, torn off really. Cast aside by some impossible force, crushing the buildings around it. Its flying buttresses and columns now stood like a great, gaping rib cage, bearing its vulnerable heart to an uncaring sky. The doors were torn asunder, cast down, and trod over in blood and dirt. He could see movement flickering beyond, backlit by the smoldering flames. Here at the center, beneath the strangely static circle of clouds, it was dark and grim -- the layer of ash giving the unnatural twilight a gruesome glow like a snowy winter's eve. They were not in Lachheim, not truly. Not wholly. They were somewhere Else. Another place.

"Such atrocity at... such scale..." came Naima's voice, the cool-headed woman's tone strained with the horror of it all.

"On guard," Gram said, lowering his visor and snapping his polearm into a ready position, its vicious pick gleaming. Bart raised his blade and the others did likewise as they tracked his gaze -- the skulking figures had emerged from the shadows, they were small, almost dog-like, wearing dirty linen robes that draped them all in flowing gauzy forms. They picked over the bodies slowly, tapping and turning them, and after a moment Bart leaned back, not so much relaxing but recoiling from what he saw or rather -- understood. He saw beneath the veil, an eyeless face, but smooth and unscarred by dominance bouts, hands that ended in hooked, bony talons but no thumbs, yet the claws were overlarge, gangly even for the familiar form, and the limbs soft. Unfinished. Immature.

"They're children," he said suddenly, bile rising in his throat and the others turned sharply at him. Cithara merely nodded as the small, veiled forms pulled and carried a corpse from the pile.

"Yes. Ghul children. Never aging, never growing. Too small to fight, they serve instead," she said in an uncomfortably cold tone.

"Let us see where they go -- if they are servants, the master must be nearby," Rashid offered, Bart concurred with a nod, thirded by Gram, the trio of men forming the front line as they slowly advanced through the square. Stealth was not a consideration, all of them knew they were expected.

The hunched, tiny figures scrabbled around and carried the corpse of a man of distressingly young years up the fractured stairs, Bart and company on their heels several paces behind, the destruction of the place so absolute it felt as if it had been ruined for centuries rather than months -- in this stagnant time, who knows -- it could.

The baby monsters shuttled their burden up between the shattered pews now exposed to the eerily still sky, up cracked flagstones to a defiled and desecrated altar -- so heavily coated in blood and viscera that it pooled and poured over its edges in sticky, tacky ropes and strands like the runnels of a long-burning candle. They offered the body up to a hulking form, a form in matte black armor, grinning a mad-eyed monster's grin.

"Welcome, heroes!" Parias cackled, spreading his arms to the ruin and carnage about him; "Welcome to the End!"

Weapons were brandished as Bart and his companions entered the gutted structure, the Paladin remaining at their fore, the First Blade leading.

"A touch melodramatic, but apt," came another voice -- Mihai stood to one side, leaning indolently against a shattered pillar, as before naked to the waist, a sash at his hips and tight leathers about his legs -- and of course, the blood. Glistening red blood ran him from fingertips to biceps, seemingly ever-wet, ever-fresh as if just interrupted from some fell rite -- though this time from the dripping knife at hand, it seems he had been.

"I cannot believe you actually came. An obvious trap, outnumbered, out-matched," Parias snorted as he reached down and seized the corpse, casually throwing it behind him onto the altar with the same casual strength a child might a knotted rope doll. He produced a pair of gold coins casually and flicked them to Mihai with a further cackle, the former magistrate deftly catching the pair, giving them a wet little bounce in his palm.

"You disappoint me, Bart," the black-armored murderer said in a casual tone; "I expected more." "You expected him to act as_you_ would. Bart isn't like you, Parias," Mihai said in a cool, confident tone, turning to meet the Paladin's gaze. "Bart gave me his word he would be here, and so here he is," he said, tucking the coins away -- the statement delivered with such sure confidence, it was casual, matter-of-fact -- as if he were discussing something as inescapable as gravity. As if to confirm, the Magistrate raised his chin at Bart inquiringly.

"I gave my word," Bart agreed, raising his blade to a casual rest against his shoulder. "My word that I would kill you both, so as a matter of course -- he's quite correct."

"So it would seem," Parias said in a dismal tone, his face a visible mask of distaste.

"You see, Bart," Mihai said, walking back to the altar -- where Ishtar awaited, uncomfortably bare beneath tattered robes once more, equally painted in gore if not moreso than Mihai was. She gleefully tore the clothing from the corpse's chest and lay him splayed across the stone altar where Mihai arrived, in one hand the eerie flint dagger from far before, in the other -- an obsidian-headed axe, a single-bitted hatchet of primitive design. Not unlike one that had been wielded against Bart on the Ziggurat a year prior.

"Parias doesn't understand things as we do," he continued, and casually hacked the axe down into the dead man's sternum, with the precision born of practice, he hacked each rib out of the way, not so much as breaking eye contact with Bart as he did, behind the Paladin -- his companions bristled. Mihai simply smiled, wrenching the corpse's chest cavity apart with his bare hands and a fountain of gore that splattered his arms, chest, and face.

"He is limited, he's an effective hound but he sees things as a hound does." "He is also within easy distance of unfettered violence so mind your tongue, whelp_._" Parias snarled, Mihai rolling his eyes at the bluster.

"Please Parias, we know how that contest has always gone. Mighty you may be, but do you have the belly for the attempt once more?" Mihai asked, his last words twisting from his lips like a knife as his gaze slid slowly to the armored murderer's eyes. Staring.

Parias blinked first. Mihai simply smiled.

"He does not see as we do," the former magistrate reiterated, eyes not leaving Parias' face, the larger man flinching away as the sinuous, dark-haired cultist stared him down with eyes so empty and full of atavistic violence they did not even look human. Eyes that only after Parias turned his entire face away, cowed, slid slowly in a slow arc to meet Bart's again. "The Cycle. The circles within circles. You've seen it, Bart," he said with a knowing certainty, those pinpoint-small, empty eyes staring into Bart's across the gutted man's body between them. There was nothing sane, human, or... whole, in his gaze.

"I know you have."

Bart was on the back foot, the memory of his stretching beyond the boundaries of his realm, the phantasmagoria that threatened to rend his mind apart. He had seen it, he understood the beginnings of what that meant. Cithara bristled.

"How dare you speak of such things to him," she breathed in quiet outrage. "Is there no limit to the harm you would do us?"

"None. Not a thing. I would spare no effort to purge you parasites from my sight, sweep aside obstructions because it is all simply going to spin forever," he said, snarling at her.

"People and places all start to look the same after a few lifetimes don't they?" he thrust his hands down into the butchered cadaver, Cithara the focus of his soulless, empty gaze and its ire now. "The petty squabbles and drama of one generation are just the trial run for the same failures of their children; except refined, streamlined for modern conveniences," he cut and worked, eyes never leaving hers as his hands went by pure muscle memory inside the slop of organs and loose gore.

"'Round and round it goes, an infinite circle. New people in the same places, the whole of creation stuck on a rut in the track. Doesn't it start to wear on you?" he asked her, and there were horrible, wet cutting sounds.

"You know I will answer you not, animal," she said in an oddly sad tone, Mihai only smirked wider.

"Does the devotion lessen the sting of the years? Or is it the cock? The latter at least I can understand, the flesh is wonderfully capable of distracting one's thoughts from the inevitable," he asked, eyes turning to Bart again.

"The latest edition, freshly bound in trauma and purpose. Truly, for a lonely immortal -- someone like you is just perfect. Made to_measure,"_ he growled, eyes narrowing. Bart trembled... that phrase was far, far too intimate. Spoken to him once before -- in the throes of new passion. Cithara cut between them again, her golden gaze furious and resolute.

"You will not undermine him, animal. Not so easily, I am his as much as he is mine. I will not let you drip poison into his ear in the spirit of theatrics," she hissed, and Mihai laughed.

"Very well, let us cut to the heart of the matter!" he crowed and pointedly tore the gore-soaked heart from the dead man's chest, raising it above his head, openly mocking her with the obvious dramatics.

"I ask you -- why are you again, not dead?" he spread his free hand to the assembled people. "Look at you, champions out of a storybook. Members from all walks of life, the wounded and the noble. Bright, generous souls all of you. It's quite a classic arrangement, isn't it Parias?"

"Add in some overwrought poetry and it could be a Darrowmite tragedy written by some weepy sop in the fens out that way," he said in a dull, spiteful tone, spitting to one side.

"Isn't that the Mother's own truth," Mihai agreed, and his face suddenly became a mask of fury. "Almost like it was fate, almost like it was prophecy." he spat, fingers clenching around that stolen heart, crushing it with a wet, squishing sound that made the guts twist as clots of gore gushed from its cut ventricles before he tossed the heart into a brazier before him, where it leapt and sizzled while the corpse was dragged away by the ghul child-servitors; tossed into the flaming hellmouth below through the shattered stained glass window that once glittered so brightly above the ruined cathedral.

"Which of you is to blame?" he demanded, leveling a gore-soaked finger at them all; "To whom do I put this curse of_nemesis_ upon so I may dispense with all of this?!" he hissed, tone unstable. Mad.

"What in the name of God are you talking about?" Bart demanded, shifting his blade about anxiously -- the First Blade was alive with a tangible... hatred, it practically vibrated in his hands with a desire to do violence upon the creatures in the room.

"Do you not feel it, Bart?" Mihai all but screamed, the half-naked, blood-soaked man advancing down the dais at Bart, heedless of the danger as he walked squarely up to the man, eyes never moving, voice not faltering. "The same force that prevented me from stopping your arrival here, the same force that dragged my plans into motion. Do you not feel the compulsion even now? Are you the focus? Was it you who ruined my plans?"

"Yes," Bart answered to all of it, his fingers tight on his weapon as the focus of so much of his pain and suffering approached him. "I am compelled to stop you, to end this bloodbath. To exact upon you furious retribution for these lives lost," he spat and Mihai's eyes went wide, his face expressionless as he stopped some ways away from him, the space between them still somehow... intimate.

"So it was you. Of course it was," he said in a dead tone. "Circles within circles. What are the chances of the one man with the onus to stop me being in Lachheim on the very day of my plan's fruition? Impossible," he said, and Cithara furrowed her brow -- similarly his other companions looked around.

"The... bloody fook has a point. All o' this happened as soon as Bart came in tae our lives." Lidia said with wide eyes. Rashid frowned, Nazir did as well, and Mihai began nodding, faster and faster, spreading his arms.

"Yes, even I was pulled along in your wake, cast as antagonist to your little three-act play of a life. Why? I was so_careful!" he snarled, rage boiling back up again as he began to pace around. "These machinations, this plan brought to this place to bring _her to this place spanned generations, _generations_Bart. I have ridden the Aldea line for so, so long on this one ordeal, since the Black March! I have labored in new flesh after new flesh, plans within plans -- within further plans!" he raved and stopped, meeting Bart's eyes.

"All to avoid the machinery of fate. The engines of prophecy, the balance of the universe. You see reality herself is a petty, miserly old whore," he growled, clenching his fingers into claws. "Tip the balance too far one way, she puts equal weights available to level the tally. However..." he turned again, pacing anew.

"If you undermine the weights themselves, tip the scale inch, by inch, by inch. She only adjusts so fast, she only adds so many weights. Plans within plans, the slow work of decades," he raked his bloody hands down his chest in fury, giving a little wordless shout of outrage.

"I even engaged in intentionally foolish things so she would pop her head up and crush them, to focus Prophecy's attention away from my grander works all coming together like a thousand, thousand bricks," he then paused and turned his head to him.

"... and then You."

Bart set his teeth, "Have you considered perhaps you just are not as good as you thought?" he ventured, and Mihai bared his own smile like a mouthful of knives.

"Come now Bart, you know exactly how good I am. Even now Prophecy tasks me, it demands I confront you -- like this, demands we do this dance of morals, ethics, pomp, and circumstance. It binds you as much as it does I, in fact -- I invite you." he spread one hand and gestured at the door.

"Leave."

Bart stared at him. The whole party did.

"If you can, all of you -- take up and leave this place. I will as well. Like morning mist, I'll vanish from this lovely little abattoir and start over somewhere else in another hundred or so years." he said and his entire being was serious.

"I swear this upon the Mother, the Queen, and my own Power," he said in a very solemn tone. Cithara's eyes widened, and Bart looked at his friends. Lidia pointedly shook her head, raising her blade.

"You are completely mad, Mihai," Bart said, closing both hands over the hilt of his sword. Mihai laughed, it was mocking -- and the edge of it was turned at himself.

"You see?! You cannot even countenance the idea, bound! Bound by fate all of you are, by Prophecy's grim fucking yoke!" he cackled madly, his voice reaching a harsh, infectious soprano pitch as he did. The Lady in White, however, had paused.

"He's right," Cithara breathed, eyes so wide as to be perfectly round, flicking between Mihai and Bart. "God's Love he's right..."

"What do you mean 'right'?" Bart snapped, and Mihai's laughter reached a fever pitch.

"There are such things as Prophecy, as he speaks of. The universe seeks balance, when one power arrays its might, it addresses its opposite so the Cycle continues to turn, eternal renewal," she explained, "It, however, is usually bound to great beings. Beings of Power."

"Yes, yes!" Mihai encouraged her, eyes wild. Cithara's own darted back and forth across the middle distance.

"Oh God... my sister. Bart," she looked at him. "It is you," she breathed, ears laying back. "When Manasa looked for a soul to love mine, a spirit to fill my heart... when she combed her gaze over the portents and potential, she inevitably made one herself," she said, and her eyes drew up suddenly full of fear, pain, and sorrow, teeth clenched.

"The Consort of the Unicorn," she almost whispered. Mihai gave a cry of release.

"At last she sees!" he exulted, eyes wide and it was like a great pressure was released from him. "We all do, revealed at last," he stabbed a finger at Bart.

"You are a cosmic accident, God's own blessed mistake!" he jeered, stomping a foot down, the ground rumbling beneath him as he stalked forward anew. "The idiot garden snake went looking for a lover for her lonely whore of a sister, and by pricking and plucking the threads of fate she forgot who she was, and what she was -- as all creatures of flesh do," he sneered, Cithara blinking away tears.

"All of this suffering... " she moaned in despair.

"... All because your dear, dear sister overstepped her bounds. To scour fate for a consort for something so powerful as the Queen of Love demands an equally mighty mate, does it not?" he snapped, and spread his arms, actually rising slightly into the air, the blood from all the nearby surfaces warping, pulling towards him again as it had in the fort.

"And so mighty a champion must needs have his equal and opposite, he would need an appropriate challenge to overcome to test his mettle for such a mantle. A trial, a task..." he said, lips splitting into a wicked grin. "A nemesis."

"When you set off on your journey..." Nazir began, Naima's eyes were wide with understanding and horror; "... we were swept along, everything changed. We changed To be here." He said, Lidia's face poured tears of rage.

"Nae, ye shut ye cursed mouth..." she spat in denial... but Cithara stood stock still, horror having stolen the words from her lips as they realized it. Mihai spread his arms -- and spelled it all out:

"Dear Bart stepped out of his home and with him kicked off the prophecy of The White Slut's lonely, paltry little heart. Everywhere he went it drew in the pieces and parts it needed to construct itself to its ultimate goal. The Champion would need mentors, friends, support -- a crucible would need be made to test him, and he would need an appropriate antagonist to whet his steel on."

"God's Blood," Bart breathed, and Mihai cackled as a single tear ran down Cithara's cheek.

"How does it feel Hero? All of this, ALL OF IT!" he roared at the end, shaking the halls before directing his hands down at Bart in a showy gesture, his voice rolling back to a purr. His face was an exquisite mask of nigh-orgasmic delight.

"... is your fault."

It hit Bart like a sledgehammer. Mad he may be, yet Mihai was highly intelligent. Never had he reasoned poorly in their engagements, in building this enmity... was it all artificial? Bart drew in a breath and set his teeth, his friends seemed to waver and instead, he planted his heels, refusing to be moved.

"Fate, Prophecy, or sheer blind luck, I made my choices and I would make them again -- aye I've seen the Cycle, and in it, I saw hope!" he shouted back, seeming to split the pall falling over the group. He advanced a step, taking his blade in both hands and bringing it before him in an advancing guard -- as if the Absolute Iron could guard him from the cultist's words as much as his body.

"A puppet who sees his strings is still a puppet, Bart!" Mihai shouted back, stepping boldly towards the Paladin anew, blood creeping along the floor with him like a crimson carpet. "All this bravado on a reused script, all this might on recycled conflicts!" his face twisted with a madness Bart remembered, a gleam of the impossible places he'd seen, the infinite Cycle beyond.

"Cut the strings, Bart, burn it all down -- we'll make something glorious and new out of its parts," he crooned and gore crawled up his fingers, his limb lengthening with it into overlong, hooked talons of dripping, frozen blood and viscera.

"We'll make The End."

Bart lashed out then, blade snapping out from a high guard into a serpent-quick downward cut at Mihai's face, the man's strange gore-caked arm lashing out and meeting the Absolute Iron blade with a grisly crunching sound like crushing ice, slapping it aside from its trajectory and grasping the blade firmly -- even as the frozen bloody member began to writhe and bubble where it made contact with the hateful metal. Bart and Mihai's eyes locked across the bind, Bart snarling in response:

"There may be an End to things," he rasped, leaning on the bind, making the blade cut and bite into the cultist's flesh. "It may even be soon -- but I promise you monster -- that you will not be there to see it."

Mihai's grin turned even more mad, face practically warping to accommodate so many teeth in a smile, squeezing tightly around Bart's clashing blade, even as he began to whimper frantically against the searing pain as the First Blade vented its hatred into his mere touch, he laughed and it was froth-flecked and full of malice.

"Ever true to your role, well then. Dance for me, puppet." Bart's only response was to clap down his visor, eyes set. To his left came an exultant roar, and he ducked aside the first of two savage cuts from Parias, bringing his blade up in a brutal series of mid to high parries that sent sparks flying between their blades as the edges met. Bart seized the mantle, golden-eyed and blazing he adjusted his footing and drove back at Parias with a mighty thrust, both hands on the hilt couching it to the right side of his frame, his entire body coiled into the motion. The thrust drove forward with such inhuman force Bart's armor rattled, and the ashes gathered on the nearby planks scattered, blown clear by the sheer force of displaced air as he drove that triangular point at Parias' black heart with superhuman strength.

Parias snapped his blade directly before him and pivoted his hips, responding with equally preternatural speed, he slapped Bart's blade to the side, clashing his own blade against it with a shower of sparks and a scream of metal, the two champions met crosspiece to crosspiece with an impact that shook the floor beneath them, Parias' eyes wide with glee.

"IMPRESSIVE!" he exulted in a throaty roar, shoving Bart backward and breaking the lock, only to be immediately forced into a full defensive parry -- as a speartip nearly took his eye. Gram had quite literally leapt into battle, his polearm leading with a thrust he smoothly carried into a rapid series of stabs and cuts fully taking advantage of the bec-de-corbin's superior reach to drive Parias back off Bart, getting a spitting series of curses from the black-armored murderer as he slapped, deflected, and dodged the flurry before Gram nimbly danced backward, his lighter armor and springier build giving him far greater mobility than Bart had.

"Do you NEVER cease talking?" the visored Darrowmite spat in a weary tone, snapping his spear up to a high guard with both hands, a disgusted roar came from his side, and Mihai lunged at him, both arms rippling forwards into hooked talons of frozen, tainted gore as he lunged for the mortal spearman -- only once again to be deflected -- by a blazing golden-eyed goddess.

Cithara's horn had intersected the lunging slash, and she'd interposed herself between Gram and Mihai, bulling him backward with surprising strength and cutting, sweeping blows of her horn, chipping chunks of his hardened bloody weaponry free as she pressed him with fury.

"Unhand my children!" she bellowed in a clarion tone, driving him back further with a radial burst of force -- eyes, hooves, and horn blazing with the grasp of her orbit. She gathered a pressing point of light at the tip of her horn, the air around it rippling and twisting with heat as the Queen of Love's anger crushed the air around her glittering weapon with main force, and hurled that pressurized product at Mihai in a sudden, piercing spear of blazing, semi-liquid flame -- the lance of searing compressed air blasting in a tight, spear-like beam at the cultist, who's teeth clenched along with his hands.

The impact shook the entire building, and staggered even Bart and Parias in their heavy armor a step, stopping the melee as a white flash of raining sparks and hellish flame... was stopped.

Mihai cackled madly as a single hand pressed back on the burning ray, sending chips of flame and scattering white-hot sparks flaring around him, starting small fires and burning holes in his clothing here and there where they landed. A swirling maelstrom sat in his unnaturally mutated palm, forming a semi-circular barrier over his hand, deflecting the intense beam of heat in a blooming pall of ash and mist as the moisture in the air flash-vaporized, making the cultist's swirling shield visible to the naked eye.

"A wonderful performance from the Queen of Harlots!" he crowed, forcing his way step by step forward through the intense pressure of the cutting beam of white-hot inferno, his shaking arm growing more steady as Cithara's own strength began to waver, she clenched her teeth and set her hooves, driving forward with the hellish lance, causing Mihai to stagger against the renewed intensity.

"Do... stay for the finale... I promise... it will be to die for..." she snarled, her blazing golden eyes gleaming with rage; Mihai snarled and brought both his hands up, another chained whirlwind dancing in his palm as he doubled his shield, splitting the beam and suddenly giving a yell -- pushing forward, and then flinging his arms wide. There was a surge of air from his extended hands, and the beam suddenly bloomed and blossomed, Cithara's eyes went wide and Mihai's dilated to points of teeth-baring madness. There was a faint whining sound, and suddenly everything went deathly silent save for the muted roar of the billowing, roiling bloom of energy.

Then, it exploded.

The burst of fire and air pressure hurled everyone standing to the floor, Bart and Parias making a clashing cacophony as they were laid out, Gram bouncing in a tight ball of limbs, leaving a skittering trail of sparks as he slid across the cobbles. Nazir and Rashid were both caught weapons out, mid-rush as they closed with the battle -- the two of them along with Naima thrown unceremoniously to the ground, head over heels by the blast wave, adding Lidia and Cithara to the scattering of forms, blasted from their feet into dazed tangles of limbs and gear. Everyone was half-deaf and half-blind from the explosion. Even Parias and Ishtar, stunned and staggering with everyone.

Everyone, but Mihai.

Exultant, he stood over the wreckage, newly-formed cracks in the stone foundation snaked outwards and chunks of pillars falling all about them, raising new clouds of ash, lime, and dust. His laughter rang over the shattered halls as he suddenly rose into the air, his body peppered with rapidly-healing burns and gouges as he spread his arms around him.

"Enough! We've all danced a lovely show, all you puppets neatly in a row, each waiting for your call to the stage -- the Champion's perfect fated party! All ready to cover each other's faults, to fill each other's gaps -- truly inspiring," he belted out in a tone of absolute disgust, a grin splitting his face anew. "I will admit, there is a pageantry to this I enjoy, a certain vitality to the struggle -- however," he focused on Cithara.

"I arrived with the intention of victory."

There was a rumbling sound as the party regained their feet, the ground began to vibrate, dust dancing and skittering across the foundation stones and cracked floorboards. Bart turned his gaze rapidly around, Parias stepping backward, a knowing look of smugness on his weathered face. Mihai caught his gaze.

"Did you even stop to ponder what I was doing here? Why all the corpses? Why the altar? Why ALL OF THIS?!" he cried at the end in delight, spreading his arms. The shaking became unbearable, once again everyone staggered from their feet as the sound of rending earth and splintering stone came to them, and the masonry beneath them began to shudder, heave, and buckle -- focused directly beneath Cithara's sprawled form.

"I CAME TO KILL A GODDESS!" he screamed, his voice shrill with ecstasy.

The ground rent asunder, an explosion of debris blinded Bart, and the force of it threw him and his companions into a sprawl, Nazir caught it in midstep as he regained his feet, sending him hurtling backward into a wall with a meaty smack, Lidia and Naima bowled after him in a pile while the rest of the party was knocked rolling and prone. Bart slid and bounced until he caught a pillar at mid-spine some four feet off the ground, crying out in pain as he fell heavily, blinking dust from his eyes through his visor as the dust cleared -- and Cithara screamed.

Up from the earth had torn... a thing. Beneath them the ground shifted, settled -- collapsing away in places, the remaining walls of the cathedral fell away into the smoldering hellmouth below, leaving the cathedral's floor alone as an elevated platform beneath the dug-out atrocities below.

It was massive, too wide to see easily around, like a great, twisted pillar of fluted and carved marble. It was bone-white and dull, and at first, Bart thought it made of stone and sediment... until he saw that ossified surface breathe. It climbed high into the air, a pillar of unnatural marble-white stone and hideous, impossible geometries; faces, limbs, and bones twisted beneath its surface, forming together into a uniform, symmetrical mass -- each one placed not randomly, but in sequence -- a purposeful construction that bent and flexed with such ponderous mass. Its tower-like shape was lined at regular intervals with strangely architectural arches and sweeping buttresses as if it were a living structure made of flesh, bone, and ash... and to Bart's horror, he began to understand that is exactly what it was.

Cithara's screams were full of terror and agony, and his eyes climbed high on the arching abomination, where its pillar bloomed outwards into out-sized, bony limbs. Each appendage built rather than grown, structured around struts of bone and mortar of ossified flesh. Like the mouth of a great insect, or the mandibles of some monstrous crab -- in those unfolding limbs, each ending in grasping, hooked talons, struggled the Lady in White, screaming as glorious, golden ichor poured from wounds where the monstrous thing had torn into her flesh where it bound her, grasping her limbs and hooking her flesh -- pulling them to their extremes, lashing around her neck and strangling another scream of pain with a gagging choke.

"It isn't easy to summon such a thing, not this far, it has taken centuries of toil to dig the tunnel to make way for_her,"_ Mihai exulted, a soft cackle coming as he spread his arms in reverence. Within the strangely insectile maw of the Pillar of Bone, a gruesome set of fleshy folds spread apart with a horrifically sexual form, a shape pushing through the meaty, slick sheathe towards where Cithara was held in its clutches.

It was a face, feminine in shape, hollow and sallow, with an eyeless veil of bone and chitinous mass where the upper half of its visage should be; the ridged and fluted surface rising up to form a sleek, thorny crown. The lower half of its face was a perfectly symmetrical feminine form, with pale, full lips that parted... and out from them issued formless, overwhelming sound. Sound that drew screams from the mortal and immortal alike as it assaulted their minds, bent and warped reality, and threatened them with madness but a hairsbreadth away. His scattered companions all fell to their knees, those who had risen, grasping their heads -- Bart himself shook as he looked up with wide eyes.

"Bow down, Bow and give fealty, petty beings of flesh, for _SHE_IS HERE!" Mihai exulted, spreading his arms as Parias, Ishtar, and even the scrambling child-Ghul servitors knelt, offering clasped hands above their heads in worship.

Bart simply stared, unable to respond as Cithara's screams reached a fever pitch, as the effigy's pallid lips parted again... and began to draw something from the Unicorn, a thread of glimmering radiance snaking out of the unicorn's wounds -- her blood, her Ichor. That hungry visage swallowed it down, and it physically grew_as it did, becoming more massive, more terrible, more _real with every drop that passed its bloodless lips.

"By God..." Bart breathed, his fingers feeling numb as the sheer weight of the presence crushed at him. "It... it's the Empty Queen."

Mihai's cackling peaked and he spun, slowly turning in the air to regard Bart. "Oh, if only! It is but a sliver of her awareness, a piece of her grandeur -- the roots of the Ossuary, extended over centuries of work beneath the deepest, darkest parts of the earth, far beneath the Sea of Glass," he reached out a reverent hand to the living, breathing structure -- a piece of the Ossuary itself, brought here. Bart felt as if it were leeching the very warmth from him, and he struggled to hold onto his grasp of the Mantle in its presence, eventually forced to let it loose with a gasp, the glow fading from his eye as the sheer metaphysical weight dragged him down.

"Feeding it blood, bone, and souls over all this time took so much work, but here she stands, even in so tiny a splinter of her majesty. Here her power is absolute," his teeth showed as he split into a grin of pure pleasure.

"Here, you can kill anything. The truth of her existence grounds everything. Power, Divinity, Life itself. Here, you can kill a God."

Bart spat a curse and dragged himself to his feet, numb fingers grasped the First Blade -- which practically was alive with enmity for the manifestation of evil standing before it, that vibrational energy of loathing spurred Bart on, it was a focus. It would do.

"Oh no," Mihai said, twisting to face him again; "I will not have you and yours ruin this, not now. I planned well ahead, centuries Bart, centuries," he snarled and hooked his fingers, dragging upwards as if he were pulling a great weight, and the air began to shimmer, the very ground began to warp and twist. Light began to lens as if through a window and the shadows lengthened as everything seemed to run and melt like wax around them.

"Cithara!" Bart roared, charging forward, blade in hand -- mantle or no, he was a champion.

"BART!" Cithara wailed, golden ichor running over her perfect ivory pelt, he leapt as Mihai released his sorcery -- and time_stopped._ Bart hung in the air, seeing everything around him in perfect, crystal clarity -- frozen in that moment. Parias was midway through raising his blade, Rashid and Gram had found their feet, weapons bared as they also advanced. Lidia and Naima were helping Nazir to his feet, blood running from beneath his helmet, his teeth set in pain. Cithara's golden blood stopped in midair as it fell, her beautiful features twisted in impossible agony and fear.

"How does it feel to be powerless, 'Champion?'" Mihai's voice asked, mockery dripping like venom from his words. He walked through the frozen moment casually, gently reaching up and dipping a clawed fingertip into a perfectly round globule of static golden ichor, pressing it to his tongue lewdly. Bart couldn't respond, but he could move. Only inches, but his eyes and muscles still strained, pushing against it.

"I could kill you now, I think," Mihai said, licking his lips. "A knife even would do it," he mused, drawing his obsidian dagger free from his flame-pocked sash and walking straight up to Bart, dragging the glassy point of the weapon across his armored form.

"However, you have done something really quite difficult. So great a task, I really must commend you on it," the cultist mused, tapping the knife over Bart's heart as his face went flat with absolute, unfettered rage.

"You have truly pissed me off," he slashed that blade across the enchanted steel of his armor, leaving a shower of frozen sparks in its wake. "You are to be given Glory for such a thing, I am a man of long, long temper by needs alone -- and yet, you and your accidental little prophecy, here in the final moments of my triumph?" he clenched his teeth.

"Infuriating."

He slashed at Bart several more times, ineffectually as even the enspelled obsidian was still just that, and Bart's armor defeated it handily, but clearly Mihai was more interested in venting than anything. The frozen sparks hanging there, the cultist irritably sweeping them aside to lean into Bart's face, staring through the visor.

"I do respect you though, even if I hate every single particle of your being. So beneath the gaze of my Goddess, I instead will simply..." he smiled wide, too wide, eyes empty. "... show you the End."

He clenched a hand again, and Bart felt that melting, reality-warping energy again, and Mihai's voice split the air like a thunderclap as he swept his hands wide.

"BE DAMNED THEN, DAMNED TO THE WORLD AS I HAVE WROUGHT!" The very air shattered like a thousand panes of glass. Suddenly there was no ground, no earth, nothing but the shattered fragments of perception and the fragment of the Ossuary, seeming to wind down into the darkness in an infinite spiral -- a spiral that Bart and his companions were hurled downwards into, Cithara's screams split the air as Bart reached for her, free of the frozen moment, lunging upwards to her.

"MY LOVE!" he shouted, and she wept bloody golden tears as the Queen's grasping, knifing limbs only closed tighter.

"NO, BART, NO!" she wailed as he dropped from sight, falling with gathering speed, the only point of reference in the darkening void the rapidly passing length of the Pillar as he plummeted into nothingness, Mihai's mad laughter and Cithara's agonized screams the only accompaniment as the empty dark swallowed him whole.

~ ~ ~

Bart didn't remember blacking out, but the sudden impact with something hard and unyielding woke him with a groan and a clatter of plates and harness. He rolled over with a fresh grunt of discomfort, his stomach turned and his head swam -- his body was simultaneously freezing and pouring sweat into his underclothes, shaking violently as he just... lay there for a bit, eyes glazed over behind his visor.

Was that... a campfire? He blinked dust from his eyes and tried to focus. He was too weak to even lift his armor, and focusing his eyes was difficult. He could see the First Blade lying a few inches from his numb fingers, and could not muster the strength to grasp it. The scene resolved through his blurry vision slowly; cobblestones, dust, soil, the smell of crisping meat, and woodsmoke. He found himself ravenously hungry and too sick to even think of food at the same time and struggled to turn himself. A campfire indeed stood just a stone's throw away, and at it sat a hulking, black-clad figure. A figure Bart recognized -- his blood ran cold.

Parias looked up at him with a grin, standing and walking casually over to the collapsed Paladin, squatting down to look directly into his face.

"That first step is a real bugger, isn't it Hero?"

Bart clenched his teeth and fought against his weakened frame to grasp his blade, shaking hands reaching up to claw at Parias' chest, only to be slapped away.

"Pfeh, put it away Hero. I'm not going to kill you like this, there's no sport in it," he said, a crazed gleam in his colorless eyes, teeth peeling back into a rictus grin as he cackled. "I have had to make a lot of sacrifices and compromises to be granted this boon, and I intend to savor it," he cooed, rocking on his heels idly, like a child eager to play.

"W-where..." Bart gasped, and Parias tilted his head.

"Oh? No Hero. Not just where, no, no... when," he rasped in that croaking baritone. "Look around, Bart. Tell me what your eyes see."

Struggling with his helmet's weight, he glanced around, he was on a cobblestone street, that much he knew... the rest was alien, the walls were gone, and in their places were crumbled ruins... and skins. He raised his head a bit, Parias' head following his gaze.

It was Lachheim... or it had been. He lay in the middle of the road at what should have been the southern gate, looking across it to see a spread mass of lean-to homes and yurts; made from skins and straw. Beyond his gaze, the fields were overgrown, gnarled in weeds and wildflowers, all looking sickly and withered. He couldn't see much further, and he couldn't lift his head to view more than a few familiar landmarks: the Gatehouse, the ruined paddocks, and the familiar curve of the outer wall, now raised down to its foundations. Further beyond there was a darkness, a haze his eyes couldn't penetrate -- as if the world just... ended a quarter league from the city.

"W-hat... not... wasn't this... bad," Bart coughed, and Parias laughed.

"Oh no, Lachheim is Hers now, Hero. She claims it and thus as long as she holds, it exists within her demesne. No Heaven, No Earth -- only one eternal now," he practically giggled, giddy as he stood, spreading his arms. "All that she touches comes into the fold, an eternity, timeless and perfect. No thoughts, no worries -- only instincts, hungers, POWER!" he roared, flexing his arms with a creak of steel.

"Crazed... beast..." Bart murmured, going slack again with the effort. "Just... kill me..." he groaned, and fixed him with a murderous if impotent stare, "Spare me... the preaching..."

"Like I said," Parias returned in a conversational tone, dropping down to his knees and almost playfully slapping his hand across the back of Bart's helmet, the Paladin in no position to resist; "No sport. I have given dearly to have you brought here, brought to me," he purred eyes flashing. "All of you."

Bart's eyes snapped open at that, and he struggled to look at him, Parias' laughter came to him sharp and mocking.

"Ah, that lit a fire did it?" he grinned, leaning down close. "Yessss, they are all here. The little redhead, the big Rezarian fuck -- all Mihai wanted was the Lady, and he has her," he said, licking his lips.

"You, however, are mine."

Bart snarled wordlessly, struggling and straining against his paralyzed body to reach his blade.

"Don't strain yourself, your Mantle protected you from this place as mine does. You'll be back to normal in a few minutes, until then you are no threat to a cockroach, let alone _I,"_mused, but that smile spread across his thin lips again, his hollow, skull-like face full of smug malice.

"Your friends though... other than the Bluecloth and his bitch, they have no such protections. The Mother feasts on them as she does the Lady, bit by bit, sup by sup," he made a sucking sound through his teeth and stood.

"Recover quickly, Hero," he said, kicking the first blade skittering over into his hands as he turned. "Your friends are out there, and they aren't alone." his expression turned comically thoughtful as he drew that cruel falchion of his, its two-handed blade grinding free of the scabbard.

"Maybe I'll find them first," he mused idly, examining the edge of the blade and meeting Bart's eyes again. "Spend some quality time with them while I wait for you. You know I get bored," he said, and the Paladin snarled wordlessly at him, strength slowly ebbing back into him, enough to reach over and grasp the hilt of his blade, pulling himself forward.

"That's it, that's what I want. Yes, yes!" he crooned, squatting down near Bart's visored face again.

"Come Hero, come find me. Before I find your friends. That little redhead smells lovely," he said, eyes flashing with hatred. "I bet she's tighter than Ishtar."

Bart howled and clumsily swung his blade at Parias, who openly mocked him with laughter, stepping out of the reach of the weak blow, saluting him with two fingers.

"See you soon, hero!" he chimed, and turned, vanishing at a brisk stalking pace into the rat warren of stretched hide walls and crumbling stone.

Bart hammered his fists against the pavestones in impotent rage, forcing himself to dig for strength, for the resolve he needed.

"Parias... you bastard..." he gasped and began, without any other options, to drag himself, arm over arm, metal shrieking and scraping stone the whole way. He made it all of ten feet before he was forced to collapse, shaking and weak. He rolled onto his back, despair and anger warring with him as he puffed hard against the weight of his cuirass. He closed his eyes, and tears ran down his face. He was always a crybaby, now seemed the worst of times, and yet the tears flowed.

He then felt... warmth. He leaned towards the vague sensation, turning his visored face to it. It felt... warm. Far away, but enticing. He felt his strength returning as Parias said it would, his sightless eyes turned towards that golden sensation; it called him without words, beckoned him without hands. It pulled him to his feet slowly, joints loosening, armor clattering as it fell from disarray back into place around him, Bart's eyes opening to the horror. He still felt the warmth, like distant sunlight on his face. He had no explanation for the phenomenon, it simply felt... right. Like a place he would be forever, he deserved. It called him. It called him home.

His fingers clenched around the First Blade's hilt, and it hummed beneath his grip with that now-familiar pulse of barely-contained violence that told him the queen's creatures were near. He took a breath and reached for the mantle, fearing he would grasp nothing but empty air and the lasting void of Cithara's... passing. He clenched his hands down around the part of his heart where she was supposed to live...

And lo, he was met with power. His eye suddenly blazed with golden light and his body surged with vitality, the very air around him rippled as his call, his request was answered in flowing excess, stirring the dust around his boots as a veritable aura flowed around him. He set his teeth and released the grasp, taking his blade in both hands, he set out across the ruined land.

He set out to kick down the gates of this new Hell.

~ ~ ~

There was no passage of time, no movement of air, no breeze. The air hung static and thick, the low-hanging clouds pitch dark and motionless, like they had been painted onto the sky in great sweeping strokes.

Lachheim was unrecognizable, Bart only found his way by years of familiarity, nothing remained that would tell him this was ever a city of men. All the homes had vanished, flattened into wide tracts of hovels, tents, and simple, empty fields of loose rubble and dying brush. The spoor of animals lay at the edges and crossroads, and nature overtook everything even as it withered beneath the frozen moments, weeds choked the streets, and dried, crackling vines consumed and covered everything in a brittle kudzu-like blanket of creep. The horizons of the city were ill-defined, the light seeming to struggle through the haze beyond a certain range; and through its veil, he could simply see... inhuman shapes of structures that no mortal hand had wrought, alien silhouettes bulging and pregnant with who knows what, veiled from his sight by the strange atmosphere.

The Order Militant fortress was gone, only a yawning, swirling whirlpool where it once stood Bart could see even from the gatehouse as he passed, its whitewater froth seeming to flow slowly as if the water was only just barely free of the stagnant time as they were drunk down hungrily by the gaping void in the earth, swallowing the river whole. Naught stood of anything he recognized, even the devastation he had seen on the return was not so total, no landmarks, barely roads -- he turned towards the northwest -- towards where the cathedral would be, and paused.

Where the Cathedral of Ivory had once stood, was now a massive, arching tower. Bart blinked, he'd initially missed it; his eyes focused on the area immediately around him so that he'd neglected to scan the horizon. The pillar that had erupted from the ground was here, but it had grown, pumped full of stolen meat, bone, and precious vitality, it lunged into the sky like a raking, skeletal limb, and all of the creeping, hungry blight seemed to radiant out from it. The Empty Queen's direct touch, sucking and draining the life and vigor from the very earth and air around it.

"Well, I know where I have to go eventually," Bart said to himself, his voice coming out... strangely muted, muffled as if the sound was struggling to travel through the still air. He carried on his pace, moving at a quick, steady pace -- eyes peeled for Parias. He was here, somewhere.

He trekked to the northwest, still scanning with his head pivoting constantly, extending his awareness. The close-ups of the homes, if you could even call them that, showed few comforts and almost no tools. Ugly mud and thatch hovels that squatted together more like insect hives than anything built by human hands, hollowed-out buildings full of the clay-like dwellings like an old barrel packed full of wasp nests, the uncanny resemblance raising the hair on the back of his neck. The horizon spread with them, and in the wan cold half-light, he realized the strange shapes he could not make out were literal towers of these strange glued-together nests, rising into the sky in lumpy, irregular spires. Bart's stomach clenched as the proximity showed occasional shapes crawling across them in the distance, spider-like and lanky. Ghuls and God knows what else.

The first attack came as he rounded a corner on the alley-like street leading to the wreck and ruin of the trade districts -- 'street' for lack of a better term for a simple clear path through the hideous hovels and their yawning, dark holes; It was a narrow, foul-smelling passage. He had a hunch -- he'd been dropped where he'd had the strongest memories of Lachheim -- his first step on this journey. Bart wasn't a smart man, not like Mihai or Nazir -- but he was canny, and kept his eyes open. He wagered his best place to find Lidia would be the Counthouse, where else would have such significance for her? Parias had picked her out on purpose, and he had little doubt that the murderer's greatest glee would be to violate her in every way he could, just to show him.

Distracted as he was, he almost didn't hear the roar of Parias' throaty battle cry in the strange air before it was too late, he snapped the first blade up to parry the leaping slash, Parias dropping from one of the muddy abodes like a diving hawk, nearly bowling Bart to the ground under his simple mass of armor. Bart grasped the mantle immediately, and was again met with that surfeit of power, overcharged with energy... surely it should be the opposite, yes? No time to think, he grasped Parias by the throat, their blades locked together, and much to the black-armored murderer's surprise -- bodily lifted him. With a roar of his own, Bart stepped to the side and hurled Parias bodily from him, slamming the big mercenary into a nearby wall of muddy domiciles -- his impact shattering and crushing them like clay posts, throwing up a great cloud of dust -- and scattering several mewling, shrieking ghul children into other holes, vanishing into the darkness like vermin.

"Well struck!" Parias hissed in an insane mix of anger and admiration, shoving his way free of the shattered hovels with a thrust outward of his arms, blasting out more chunks of mud and thatch as he shook himself clear. "You disappointed me back at the Glade, hero. I expected more," he said, eyes wild as he looked over Bart -- arrayed in the harness of the First Paladin, bearing his sword, golden crown gleaming upon his head -- and he grinned full of malice and misplaced joy.

"Now this, this is proper. Like a yearling fawn grown into his antlers and muscles," Parias said, licking his lips salaciously and raising that wicked curved blade. "Come now Bart, I'm famished, and I so enjoyed my last taste of you."

The two men squared off then, Parias lunging forward with a crisp overhand cut and thrust routine, moving at the same blinding speed Bart had been bested by in the glade -- a speed that now, seemed comfortable and familiar, nowhere near the maddeningly swift strikes of Daedolon's inhuman frame. He met Parias head-on rather than on defense, driving at his blade with countering swats and return strokes, leaning into the advantage of his longer, heavier blade to bully and bash at Parias' defenses, setting the man on the back foot. Sparks flew with each exchange, both champions calling now on their full mantles, the force of their swings so powerful that the clash of Absolute Iron and accursed steel shook and vibrated dust and detritus on the nearby cobbles and walls with the sheer force of pressure.

"What is this place?!" Bart snapped, twisting his sword to deflect a particularly lethal thrust, grasping the wide, triangular blade down the length and half-swording the weapon, not only deflecting the thrust but driving the weapon far off course, inverting his grip to hold the weapon by its edge. Its wide blade made the grip far harder than it would have been with a slimmer, traditional longsword -- but Bart had big hands, and a heart full of rage. He swung the inverted weapon like a hammer; the pommel and massive crosspiece of the First Blade smashed into Parias' helmed head like a ringing bell, snapping his head to the side as Bart followed through, giving him another 'murderstroke'. The simple, straight crossguard delivered the pure, killing force of a warhammer, force Parias only barely managed to deflect by grasping his own sword up the blade and levering the stiff spine of his falchion between him and Bart, binding them edge-to-edge, where he roared and shoved, forcing them back apart -- resetting the combat.

"It is the future! The future we wrought together, Bart!" he laughed, his strange barbute-styled helmet seemed designed to leave his mouth exposed for... obvious, grisly purposes, now also featured a prominent dent. "The final fate of all things, a forever in the now, in the moment of the hunt, the chase, the fight, or fucking -- frozen and eternal!" he crowed, cackling as he circled around him.

"This is what waits for all, once we're done with your Pale Whore," He snarled, raising his blade in a salute full of mockery. "In this world, love is dead."

"Funny, I'm still here -- and so is its power," Bart growled in a deadpan tone and pointedly grasped his mantle, his eye seared into golden light, and he felt that raucous, overfill of power once more, far, far greater than he had experienced even while in Cithara's direct physical presence. Parias whipped his head around in perfect timing to see the Paladin take his hand from the blade -- and clench around empty air.

Lightning blazed to life in his fingers, and a crackling lance of divine thunder blasted into existence, bathing the area in harsh light that penetrated the perpetual gloom. Bart's heart raced as it always did, but the abundance of divine might seemed to charge the strike in record time, far before his thundering heart had a chance to feel the strain generating a bolt typically caused him. Parias' eyes were wide with alarm and Bart grinned like a maniac.

"Omnia Vincit Amor, you murderous abomination," Bart snarled in a cold voice and hurtled forwards, the captive lightning leading as he gave a yell and hurled it at the black-armored murderer at nearly point-blank range. The wide-eyed mercenary scrambled backward to no avail, the golden bolt of energy striking him dead center, blasting him bodily off his feet and launching his smoking frame backward into another cluster of thatched, muddy nests, sending a great explosion of dust and chips of mud and wood up as Bart raced after, sword held at the ready -- intending to end things, once and for all.

"IMPOSSIBLE!" Parias roared, hurling himself from the ruins, his face and armor visibly scorched, parts of it warped by the sheer heat of the electrical blast, and the center of his cuirass visibly smoking as the damned soldier swept up his blade with a mindless, animalistic roar of pure frustration.

"You should be weak, barely able to summon a candleflame!" He shouted in pure outrage, rushing at Bart recklessly -- and catching a hard right straight firmly in the mouth for his trouble; Bart balling his fist and crashing it into the charging lunatic's face without hesitation -- pouring the full might of the mantle into the strike, amplifying his strength to such a degree that his bones and sinew screamed against the sheer strain of supporting such a blow.

There was an actual pause, a resistance as Bart's fist fully embedded into Parias' face, he felt teeth break, a nose flatten and his jaw dislocate -- and yet, even so, Parias seemed to try to resist the intense, unstoppable transfer of force as Bart kept with the motion, following through on the punch with a guttural roar like a steel-clad lion.

The resistance wavered, and as Bart set his shoulder: it broke.

He drove his fist and Parias' face back and down, slamming the murderer into the ground with an echoing roar so savage, with force so impossible for the human body, that Parias _bounced._Surrounding dust and debris leapt and displaced by the sheer pressure of his body rebounding off the stones. The twisted mercenary gave a cry of pain and frustration, rolling away from Bart and his unstoppable might, the Paladin's sole eye a searing point of golden rage, leaving tracers in the unnatural gloom as he advanced on the monster wearing the shape of a man.

"Come on, Parias!" Bart roared, spreading his arms. "You wanted this, didn't you!?" he took his blade in both hands again, inverted in another murderstroke, and began to swing it at Parias' supine form, the sellsword on his back literally and back-foot metaphorically, forcing him to roll and kick himself away from Bart. Desperately, the warrior parried the hammer blows of the First Blade's heavy crosspiece and pommel as they battered and bashed into his armored form, leaving dents and dings when they made purchase, and digging powdered divots in the cobblestones where they didn't.

"GET UP!" Bart roared, giving him a solid kick in the side, sending the murderer's frame rolling down the incline of the alley toward the river. "Get up! Fight me on your feet you monster!" he snarled, continuing the chase, "You will answer for every god-damned atrocity you've ever performed upon these people, on your feet, eyes open!"

"HOW?!" Parias howled, finding his feet and bringing his blade to bear; "I was PROMISED this boon! You LIED TO ME!" he roared at the air, not at Bart -- but he wagered he knew who, or rather _what_Parias raved at, and he decided in a fit of pure, self-righteous pique -- to twist that knife further.

"Where is your little 'friend' Parias?" Bart growled, still leaving golden trails of light as he refused to release his grasp on the mantle, its glorious golden might driving him, bolstering him in this place of unnatural despair -- in this pallid hell, he was a burning beacon of divine fury. "Where is the Wendigo? Where is its promise? Seams, Cracks, and all, I am here!" he roared in defiance.

"COME GET ME YOU MONSTERS, I AM RIGHT HERE!" Parias backed away from the furious Paladin, spitting to the side, out with it coming blood and teeth, his colorless eyes were full of hate and misery as his shadow suddenly lengthened, darkened, and became as if it were a void of infinite darkness. Bart halted, stepping back and raising his blade; the Absolute Iron weapon practically leaping out of his hands at the pooling shadow.

"You win this round, hero!" Parias spat as the shadow crept up around his legs; "But will your friends be so lucky?! You are all still trapped here -- STILL MINE!" he howled, as the Wendigo's manifestation enveloped him, and pulled him beneath the darkness, screaming out one last promise.

"I'LL SEE YOU UP AHEAD, HERO!" and then, he was gone, ripped through whatever magic the Wendigo commanded, as he had at Fort Ivory.

"Damnit!" Bart spat, kicking a chunk of muddy nest to flinders as he whipped his head around, scanning for more threats. "I'm coming," he breathed, not releasing the mantle as he swept his blade up, flipping it inverted to grasp it by the root of the wide blade, setting the blade against the back of his arm as he took off at a run, arms pumping.

"I'm coming, friends."

~ ~ ~

Bart ran flat out, never feeling the strain from the Mantle, it felt like his stamina was truly unlimited, never once feeling the need to stop for breath as the boundless divine energy suffused him, buffered him against the surrounding horrors. He only had momentary thoughts to spare on why that may be as he skidded to a halt at the bridge leading across the river, decrepit and worn-down, but still intact. No, the problem wasn't the structure -- the problem stood between him and its end, or rather sat.

"God's Blood," Bart gasped, sweeping his blade back up to the fore. A massive, gluttonous form squatted in the middle of the bridge. A horrid, corpulent figure that wept pus and grease from rolling, grotesque folds of fat, its obscene frame bulging and uneven with grossly obese flesh and cancerous tumors. The beast shifted its bulk from where it squatted, shoving some thankfully unrecognizable hunk of meat into its mouth, too large to be any of his friends -- but no less gruesome.

The ogre spied Bart at that point, its piggish black eyes narrowing beneath its flabby brows, the face a horrid distortion of human features; Humbaba had been something greater than this, this was... a throwback, a degeneration of even that monster's grotesque form. Its naked body was uncovered, its nudity obscured functionally by its ponderous gut, its massive arms rippling with bear-like musculature as it grasped a rudimentary club caved out of a piece of twisted stump and bellowing a roar at Bart that filled the air with a choking miasma of stink and rot, its wide gullet spreading open like a snake to show Bart the grisly, barrel-wide throat it fully intended to stuff him down.

"Let's have it then," Bart snarled, setting his blade to his shoulder -- and charging straight at the multi-ton abomination.

The ogre answered predictably, compared to Humbaba it was slow and clumsy -- and clearly stupid. It slammed its club down in a massive, heavy arc that moved so slowly compared to Daedolon's previous blinding fluidity that Bart felt like he could have simply stepped out of its way at a walk beneath the Mantle's surging might. Instead, he dashed to the side, the brutal blow smashing down and leaving a crater in its wake that shook the entire foundation. The bridge itself had lost all its railings and was crumbling here and there at the edges, making the functional surface at most a dozen spans wide at the narrowest point. He heard the roar of the waters below as he tucked his shoulders and rolled another lurching slam from the monster -- the swirling maelstrom where the earth had swallowed the Order Militant fortress roared like a hungry sea monster a short distance from the bridge itself, its savage currents visibly beneath their feet through the crumbled and decaying bridge's gaps. Best not to lose one's footing.

Lumbering after him, the monster gave another roar, this one sounded different -- and to the point, the almost pained bellow came with the monster's skin pinking up, and then becoming almost glowing red, flushing with blood and brutal strength, as actual _steam_began to rise off it. Like a runaway ox cart, the creature rushed at him with far too much speed for something that large, thundering down to sweep its club across at him in wide, reaping swipes that blew his cloak to and fro with the sheer air pressure of their force. Bart was driven fully on the defensive -- fast and strong as he may be empowered by the Mantle -- one single solid blow from that monster would pulp his organs and splatter him across the inside of his armor.

"Come on then you fat porkpie!" Bart hooted at it, and the enraged monster's piggish features seemed to bulge with anger -- oho, so this one could understand common. He grinned beneath his helmet and banged his fist on his breastplate. "Come on you bastard -- twenty stone of well-marbled meat!" he jeered, shifting his weight around back and forth, mocking the monster, his eye glowing brightly beneath the mantle's power.

"You know you want it!" he crowed, and the monster answered with another anger-mad bellow, and it rushed at him in a flurry of cudgel swipes and flailing, fat limbs scrabbling for purchase.

Bart ducked the angry blows with relative ease -- the ease only being relative due to the Mantle's abundant energy letting him push his body past its normal limits. Shrapnel and bits of stone from the bridge rang off his armor as he provoked it further, slashing it harmlessly across the gut and thighs as he dodged, doing little real damage -- but leaving bloody and painful gashes in its flesh that only provoked the hungry beast into further flailing, blind swings. Bart hopped back again and swore under his breath -- he'd been hoping it would tire out, but it only seemed to be getting faster, angrier, and frankly -- hungrier. He looked up at it as it reared up on its fat, stumpy legs and gnashed its broken teeth at him with fury. He couldn't cut it deep enough through its blubber to deal real damage, and he didn't dare risk calling a thunderbolt here, the blast could crumble this rickety span and send them both into the swirling void beyond.

Bart blinked then. That was it! He smashed his gauntlets against his breastplate again, raising his voice.

"Is that all? I thought you were HUNGRY you ugly beast!" he jeered at it again; "Too fat to catch your food? No wonder your god is dead!" he barked, the blasphemy lighting the monster's eyes with fresh, child-like rage, the answering bellow having a high pitched whine to it that only enhanced the idea of a massive, grotesque baby raging at him. It rushed at him again, and Bart baited it to the far left side of the bridge, where it double-handed its club, and smashed it down with apocalyptic force. Bart rolled to the side and rose with his blade couched low and to the right, and sprang forward, driving it straight in another thrust with a roar of his own. It dug into the ogre's fat, tree-trunk-like leg, just below the knee.

The beast howled, and Bart didn't give it room to do more than squeal -- grasping the weapon by both hilt and up the blade, he drove forward, running the weapon through the creature's hamstring, ripping it out the other side with a shout of effort, practically hacking the monster's leg clean off at the joint. The beast squealed and with a sickening crunch of bone and a horrific splattering squelch of rending flesh, its weight folded its knee beneath it, sending the monster toppling to one side as it windmilled its arm to try to right itself.

Bart came sailing through the air in a roar then, Blade held high, weapon inverted like a gigantic dagger -- down it plunged into the monster's chest, cracking into its sternum with a sharp sound of splintering bone and another porcine scream of pain, as all twenty and then some stone of Bart's weight hammered into its unbalanced frame high and hard, and with a savage snarl -- he kicked hard off the creature's chest.

The blade wrenched free and Bart landed heavily on his back -- powerful as he may be, he was still a brick house on legs, and the nimble, flipping maneuver he'd stolen from Lidia absolutely failed to land on his larger, clumsier frame -- but the effect went through all the same. Kneecapped and hamstrung, the beast had no means to balance its obese mass, and backward it tipped until it rolled and slipped over the broken edge of the bridge, grasping at it with a squeal of terror -- before its great weight was too much for the edge of those damaged, dilapidated stones -- and they gave way.

Down it went, screaming as the inky, churning waters swallowed it, dragging it towards the swirling maelstrom where it flailed and was dragged gurgling from sight to the void below.

"Bigger they are... God's Teeth even alone I can't finish a line that trite," He laughed, flopping back on the bridge for a moment to catch his breath, not truly winded as much as mentally tired by the continuing ordeal -- he allowed himself a moment to center himself before once more finding his feet, golden tracers still following his gaze. Perhaps it was the almost narcotic effect of the Mantle's strength, or perhaps he was truly just mad as a privy rat from the misery of it all, but Bart felt... light. Confident. He set his teeth and grasped his blade, setting back at a mile-eating jog towards the Counthouse.

What else could they put in his way at this point? He grimaced and bulled faster.

Better not to tempt fate.

~ ~ ~

The path to the Counthouse was surprisingly untouched. Bart had expected the warehouses to all be flattened and laid to waste, but it was instead a horrifically dense knot of those clay-pot nests. The whole mass practically seemed to writhe with darkened forms... but Bart felt that warmth on his face, like summer sunshine through his armor... he didn't know what that meant, but it stirred his heart and cemented his resolve. This must be the right way.

"There aren't enough Ghuls in the Balelands to stop me, Little Sister," Bart breathed, raising his sword. Bart didn't so much charge in as he did stalk; there was no concealing the clatter and rattle of his full harness, so he did not. He advanced with stoic purpose to the narrow gap he remembered Lidia leading him down -- now even more dark and foreboding, crushed to a narrower, claustrophobic passage by innumerable cocoon-like nests. The darkness was nigh-total, and within it came the sounds of agitated, hooting cries... and then distantly, he heard a feminine scream. His heart leapt to his throat, and he tightened his grip on his weapon.

"I'm coming Lidia!" he called, and the darkness seemed to roil in response. Gritting his teeth, he thought desperately, and then remembered his lessons in the glade. Reached for the mantle, instead of calling for his heart's power -- he called for its_flame._

Golden fire flared in his hand, and raising his weapon, he pressed it to the base of the blade -- wiping it along the weapon's pitted and matte surface. As his fingers passed down the length, it ignited in that golden, holy fire. Sweeping it to and fro, he lowered it back to his shoulder and advanced into the gloom at a dead run, the golden flame illuminating the darkness, pushing it back -- the glowing contrails from his sole eye leading.

The passage was a roofed tunnel now, all around him the stink and spoor of the Ghuls clung, cloying and gagging, he felt them move through the nests, small shapes -- children -- but he also felt larger things displacing the grotesque muddy tumors ahead of him, and he heard their hooting calls.

Bart had not fought Ghuls like this since the catacombs beneath Lachheim in what felt like another life, and their advantage was considerable -- and he cared not. Boots pounded on stone, and beneath his feet, all manner of unclean refuse crunched and splintered, the path narrowed at points, and with a grunt and yell of defiance -- Bart simply bulled through. The muddy nests shattered against his armor, swung fists, or slashing blade; the flaming weapon hacking through the dried clay like it was paper. Forms scattered around him, child-ghuls and the like, the unlucky were bullied aside or even trod upon with screams of despair as Bart continued to plow through the narrow passages, wracking his memory for the path.

His penetration into the complex hive of ugly hovels was not unnoticed, and it reacted more like a living thing than some shoddy monster shanty town. The walls rippled with cries and hoots, the Ghuls within responding to him like a body to an infection.

The first response came as he busted through another wall of mud with a snarl, smashing aside the clogging detritus and skidding to a halt as the flare of his blade illuminated a grinning, snarling set of flat, razor-sharp teeth and too-developed lips peeled back in anger. Bart gave a yell and out of sheer reflex swung his fist in a savage backhand, the heavy segmented plates of his gauntlet striking the lunging ghul across the nose with brutal, mantle-empowered force, sending the monster spinning backward, skidding on its axis as its motion was not only halted -- but reversed. More poured out behind it, the light gleaming off-white, razor-edged teeth, gleaming tusks, and cruel catching claws in the score. Bart was outnumbered.

"GET," Bart roared, swinging his fist again, pummeling the ghul who had snapped at him flat, slamming his boot down with impossible force, crushing its head like an overripe melon beneath the steel-shod, hobnailed sole, shaking the very walls around him with the force -- cracking the cobbles beneath the mess of its destroyed skull.

"OUT," he swung down at another, the flames of his blade seared its flesh moments before the edge cleaved its head in two as it lunged at him, splitting its entire skull down the middle with equal parts his strength and the lunging monster's own unrestrained momentum until it flopped to either side of its cloven neck like a grotesque flower, gore fountaining as Bart shouldered it aside.

"OF," another leapt over its fellows in the cramped alley and the Paladin drove the blade into its gut, shoving it backward with a rush as it snapped down on his armor ineffectually, champing at the enchanted steel with panicked motions as its impaled body was rammed into a pack of its fellows, Bart twisting the blade sharply at a right-angle inside of it, the kinetic motion of the blade carving a horrifically wide gouge through and through the suddenly gagging and shaking creature, before he drew the blade out and decapitated it with a single strike.

"MY," Two more leapt at him from the darkness, massive beasts that should have bowled him over. Bart inverted his blade, jamming it point downwards, he snapped his hands up and gave a roar, drawing on the mantle with all the might he felt he could contain, his eye blazing like a newborn star -- and he caught the leaping monsters, each by their thick, leathery throats.

"WAY!" he finished and with all of the violence of their arrested motion -- drove his body forward, whiplash snapping back the creatures' heads with a gagging choke of fear, and slamming them both down into the cobbles with ruinous force. Bone snapped, flesh tore and ghul voices raised in agony and fear. He hesitated naught a moment, snatching his blade from the ground with a shower of stony shrapnel, he went to work. His boot crushed one's throat with such raw might that its head practically snapped off the end of the mashed bag of bone of crushed meat that was its neck, and then drove his blade down into the other's torso, ripping it down and out of the monster's body in a smooth sweep, laying its chest open and slinging a shredded wad of torn viscera down the inky black alley. He threw his arms back, throwing his blood-stained half-cape wide as the flame illuminated more Ghuls -- but also the hidden side path to the Counthouse, just where Lidia had shown him. A fresh, feminine scream of rage galvanized him further.

"You will not stop me!" He bellowed, and the ghuls shrank from him as he took his weapon in both hands again and with a roar of pure ferocity -- leapt into their midst like a whirlwind of gory madness. He lost track of each individual blow, cut, thrust, or stomp; the flashing light and sudden darkness only illuminated the carnage in brief moments of horror. A snapshot of death each time the blade swept across an abomination's doomed flesh, capturing them in a grisly memento mori in Bart's mind as he hewed through the tightly packed side passage. He did not do so unscathed, teeth and claws found purchase, and tore through gaps in his armor -- but the fight was hellishly one-sided, for every drop of warrior blood the monsters scored -- Bart felled one of their number whole.

Light, not of his blade's making flickered behind the monsters, and Bart felt his will surge anew -- the Counthouse! He could see its crumbled but unmistakable shape bathed in wan rays of light from gaps in its muddy, nested ceiling beyond the remaining beasts. There was another shout -- a cry of pain and a familiar curse. Bart felt his heart soar.

"LIDIA!" he bellowed, the mantle was not needed to make his massive lungs carry the cry like the blast of a war horn, and after a moment he heard a clarion call in return.

"BART?!"

"I'M COMING!" he roared and set his eyes upon the blocking abominations. They were too zealous to run.

So instead, they died.

Bart smashed through to the other side of the press, leaving a wake of mauled and mutilated bodies, loose heads, and scattered, crushed limbs as he proceeded to put the First Blade to its purpose. The Absolute Iron weapon, forged to hate The Other bit through them far more readily than his axe had, and even without the flame the wounds it left boiled and sizzled as if the weapon itself were white-hot. He'd waded through them, bullying the last out of the way by sheer main force, trodding over their scattered bodies as he pumped his legs in a furious rush, barreling through like a runaway oxcart.

The scene beyond as he burst through to the light was one of rage. Ghuls lay dead, not many -- but enough, cut and hacked by a stout blade, throats sliced and bellies slashed, some smoldered, riddled with shrapnel from black-powder bombs. Lidia was there, darting and weaving with cries of effort and panic... from Parias. The big, black-armored murderer was pressing her savagely with his cruelly curved blade, and blood flowed freely from several places where he'd scored gashes and nicks. Lidia for her credit was putting up a phenomenal show, twisting and darting like a mongoose on the hunt, she was almost fully on defense, and yet Parias was finding her a hard target to pin down, but she was slowing even as Bart arrived -- blood loss and fatigue taking its toll.

"PARIAS!" Bart roared and poured on more speed, inverting his blade along his arm and falling into a dead sprint, pumping arms and legs as the murderer whipped his head around just in time for Bart to crash into him with an ear-shattering din of steel on steel, tackling the man prone with his whole body, both of their swords skittering off to the side as Bart drove him down into the muddy dirt in the Counthouse's hidden little niche.

"Get away from her, beast!" Bart roared, eye blazing gold as he began to simply... beat Parias, his fists rained down on the man like anvils, finding purchase on his face only a few times before the snarling murderer covered his head and lifted his legs. Wrapping them around Bart's waist, the surprisingly nimble mercenary twisted his hips with a croaking yell of fury and levered Bart off him with a heavy thud of plates, rolling away from him.

"You're late Bart!" he jeered, rising to his feet, Bart meeting him. "I was tired of waiting, so I thought I'd start the festivities without you, I hope you don't mind!" he taunted him and then hissed as he was forced to dip his head back to avoid another swing of Bart's fists. To hell with finding his blade, the big Paladin was furious. He snapped both his fists down one after the other, straightening his pauldrons and rerebraces with a noticeably loud CHA-CHAK of plates as he raised the steel-capped knuckles and rushed the man.

"I'll have your blood, monster! Never, NEVER will you lay hands on her again!" He roared like Gigas himself, slamming jabs and straights at the other man, bullying him away from his weapon. Parias bared his teeth and met him equally, the two men brutally exchanging bone-crushing blows, evenly matched in strength thanks to their combined mantles. Fists and knees lashed out, Bart caught a blow to the groin that staggered him, and he returned the favor by slamming his armored skull directly into Parias' own brow, the gong-like ring of the Absolute Gold crown of his helmet meeting the other's spiked barbute was loud and drove them apart again, both warriors puffing and raising their fists.

"How do you keep GOING!?" Parias roared in disbelief, banging his fists on his breastplate with frustration -- it was then Bart spied a weakness, nominally they were fairly evenly matched now that the surprise of his strength was out, yet as the sellsword beat his cuirass -- Bart saw the warped section of armor dent and give: where he'd caught the thunderbolt earlier. The scar on Bart's chest itched and burned with memories of his own armor being breached, and a grin full of malice spread across his face as he formulated a plan.

"I could not explain it to one such as you," Bart spat, and lunged forwards again, swinging heavy, looping hooks at the savage man's head, Parias getting his arms up, the blows raining on his vambraces and armor like hammers on an anvil, the snarling mercenary ducking and grabbing Bart by his pauldrons, thrusting his foot between his legs -- the black-armored murderer twisted, throwing Bart over his extended leg, toppling the big Paladin with a resounding crash.

"Try me, Hero! I have seen things that'd make your cock curl up into your guts!" he roared, and raised a foot, stomping down heavily at Bart's head, but the Paladin rolled to one side. If there was one place Bart had excelled in their combat training -- it was grappling, finding his back, he jammed his own legs into Parias' instep as he rushed in for another stomp, and kicked his feet right out from under him, leaping atop him again, and aiming a blow. Parias instinctively raised his guard to his face, but Bart instead called for his Mantle's strength as he had before -- and rammed his fist down into the warped, misshapen part of his breastplate. The metal gave slightly as the force of an auto-hammer crashed into it, and blew the air from Parias' lungs in a wheezing gasp. Bart managed to slam another blow into the same spot again, the dent deepening as Parias lashed out for the ground, grasping a handful of the mud, and slinging up into Bart's visored face with a furious hiss.

Bart gagged and flinched, his eye stinging as he was blinded. He had a few seconds to curse himself for falling for a literal schoolyard trick, then a sudden, jarring force caught him in the gut -- Parias' boots. He flew in a short arc from the superhuman force of the sellsword's Wendigo-ridden strength, bouncing once before skidding to a stop on his side, blinking and shaking his head to clear his gaze.

"How do I explain the Holy to the unclean?!" he spat at the man, rising even with bleary vision to face off against the murderer again. He caught a fist to his blind spot, his left cheek stinging as it savagely bounced off the inside of his visor, staggering back he raised his arms, his turn to be on the defensive as Parias rained frantic, hateful blows down on him.

"Save your fucking breath, Hero," Parias growled as he thrust his arms forward, trying to get his hands at Bart's throat; "Here, I'll help," he said, and dug his fingers around the metal, squeezing with inhuman force, Bart felt the metal of his gorget beginning to give, and mostly blind or not -- he had to respond. Up thrust his arms between Parias' grasping limbs, and with a snarl; Bart wrenched them aside, knocking both their arms wide -- an opening Bart exploited. His boot heel rammed into Parias' chest, finding that weakened part of the breastplate once again, and was rewarded with another groan of steel as it gave a bit more, hurling Parias back from the big man.

"Bart! There's more comin'!" Lidia's voice wailed, and he whipped his head around, through the wan light he saw more Ghuls massing in the tunnel, Lidia had fallen partially prone, panting and holding a grievous wound in her side, the sight of her blood welling between her fingers only fueled Bart's fraternal rage to new heights.

"Tick-tock, Hero!" Parias mocked, regaining his feet, and spreading his arms with a laugh; "Do you have time to finish our conversation before the little fuckdoll bleeds out, or before our little duet turns into a choir?" he teased, edging backward as Bart hesitated between the two options -- he wanted nothing more than to beat Parias until all that remained was a greasy red stain, but his friend's life was paramount. He couldn't take a fight on two fronts, he had to end this one.

"How am I so strong, Parias?" he asked, turning his head. His grasp on the mantle throbbed and pulsed with the seemingly endless font of power he was offered, and for a moment he felt that warm, sunny glow on his skin... as if it were answering the question for him. Raising his fist, he ignited his entire arm in flame.

"I feel the light of another place!" he cried in pure religious fervor, golden fire licking up his arm he lunged forward suddenly as if propelled by a catapult. Bart was taller than Parias, only by a bit -- but that meant he had long arms and longer legs -- his lunge was practically a district long as that white-hot fist drove into Parias' chest -- right over that warped, weakened point.

"IT CALLS FOR ME, IT CALLS ME HOME!"

That molten fist crushed into the weak armor, and Parias' eyes bugged wide as the armor plate gave out. Super-heated and abused, his sooty black cuirass crumpled as Bart's flaming fist punched straight through it like he had the muddy walls of the Ghul's nests, ramming into the man's sternum through the padded gambeson and mail beneath it, hitting him so hard the black-armored sellsword gagged, hacked and reflexively vomited his grisly lunch down his front as Bart's pushing, driving blow threw him backward, only stumbling as the Paladin ripped his conflagration of a fist out of the ragged hole, causing Parias to stumble and tumble into a heap, legs kicking in pain as he tore a piece of his own armor -- sizzling from the heat of Bart's blow -- out of his own flesh.

"I am called by a power you can never understand, animal," Bart said, his fist dripping cinders and blood, raising it and pointing an accusing finger at him. "It is my purpose in this life and all that come after. I stand against your kind," he said, heart and voice full of fervor.

"I endure."

For once, Parias in his hissing fury had no witty comeback, no pithy response to Bart's overwhelming fervor, the man grasped his sword in one hand and looked wildly around as Bart crouched to retrieve his own, that golden flame licking up its hilt to flood down the blade again, igniting it like a torch. Bart advanced on him with purpose, no words. No jeering, no mockery -- this wasn't a murder for pleasure, a kill to assuage his fury, as much as Bart wanted to drag this, this... creature back to him and hurt him. Beat him, end him in all the anger and suffering he'd caused -- he had a duty. This was to be an execution.

A mercy he didn't deserve.

"What are you waiting for?!" Parias snapped, again at the empty air... and Bart slowed his menacing advance, his cape fluttering in the thermals from the sheer heat pouring off him in the enclosed space as the shadows once more lengthened, and without ceremony or even another vindictive response -- Parias was swallowed up by it again, pulled away by Wendigo's magic once more. Bart glowered at the shadows a moment, before whirling around at the tunnel, teeming with chewing, snapping ghuls. Bart felt no fatigue, but he heard Lidia's pained whimpers growing thready -- he had no more time to dawdle, and hurriedly he looked around for something -- anything to delay them, and his eyes fell on Lidia's crumpled form -- on the earthenware pots peeking out of her satchel. An idea lit in his mind, and he ran over, skidding to a halt near her.

"Bart... whatta ye doin'..." she gasped, she was pale -- even for her she was pale, and he realized the wound she'd been clutching was much worse. He swore under his breath and dug into her bag.

"Buying time. Hang on little sister, I've got you," He said softly, touching her arm before the hooting call of a ghul drew his attention. Gritting his teeth, he took off, sprinting to that opening. A ghul lunged out of it, smelling Lidia's blood, smelling weakened prey -- and Bart gave a roar, his boot meeting its eyeless face in a savage kick, carrying all the momentum of his sprint from his fallen friend, snapping the monster's head back and sending it tumbling with a whimper back into the throng massing at the end of the tunnel.

"You will find no easy meal here, curs!" He bellowed, the shout drawing their attention to him as he raised the two earthen pots he'd scooped from Lidia's satchel.

The two powder bombs.

He lit the fuses on the flaming edge of his blade, eye a searing golden star as he gave a grunt of effort and hurled the two sizzling explosives into the gap, where they clacked and bounced among the teeming monsters, who sniffed at them with snarls and warbling hoots -- too primitive to understand. Bart stepped back... but not far enough.

The explosion in such a confined space was near-deafening. The comparatively small bombs pressed into such a tight space gave little exhaust for the pressures of the detonation, and to say Bart was... uneducated in such things as the dynamics of black powder explosives would be to put it lightly. The tunnel vomited a blast of foul-smelling air, smoke and chunks of eviscerated ghul, blood and gore splattering him as he was blown back several steps by the blast wave rushing out the tight, narrow corridor, causing him to hack and cough, but the rumble that came after was encouraging.

Above the scorched and maimed ghuls, the fragile, clay-like structures of their warren trembled, and then plummeted, collapsing in another bow-wave of dust and forced stagnant air as hovel after hovel came loose and buried them -- and the way into the Counthouse, in mud, thatch, and offal. Shielding his eyes from the onrushing plume of dust and debris, Bart staggered away, equally painted in gray-brown dust and chunks of gummy, grit-covered gore as he took a breath, and finally released his iron-hard grasp on the Mantle, staggering with several unanswered hurts to over where Lidia lay. His face fell, and he raised his visor as he was able to get a good look at her.

"Oh... oh little sister..." he moaned in despair. She tried to smile up at him with pale, bloodless lips but it was weak as she shifted, fresh blood welling through her fingers.

"He... got me, pretty good," she said with gritted teeth, shaking her head. "Damn fool I was, dinnae even see him in all the fookin' monsters nippin' and bitin' at me," Bart had pulled his gauntlets free and he touched where her hand was, and she took it away with a whimper of pain.

Parias had nearly gutted her, run her through.

"He... got me through the back." she gasped and slumped tiredly as he looked worriedly at the wound, it was bad. Very bad. If this was a regular battlefield... it was mortal. He looked at her with steady eyes, trying to hide his own panic.

"Lidia, Lidia stay with me. Hey, talk with me," he coaxed as he laid her out. "Tell me about Gram," he said softly. He reached for the mantle, not for war this time -- but for mercy.

"Wh-what 'bout him?" she asked drowsily, a wide pool of blood had spread under her, dark and still. A bad sign. Bart pressed his fingers to the wound and slowly began to pour healing energies into her, she gave a sudden gasp of surprise, but he eased her back down.

"He was singing earlier, tell me about that."

"O-oh ye mean when ye and the Lady were shaggin'?" she asked dully, chuckling as Bart, even here -- blushed in response to that.

"Oh... you noticed?"

"Th' nose knows, big brother," she slurred, grinning at him. "Dinnae worry, Naima and Rashid were over there getting' familiar as well, s'good," she said, hissing again as he started trying to pour more into it, the wounds inside were far, far scarier to the big Paladin than the external gouges or punctures. He did not have Cithara's sight, but it had missed her spine but very little else as it ran her through from low back out her belly. The cruel serrations along the spine of Parias' weapon had done a number on her.

"I guess everyone felt a bit mortal that night," Bart said, keeping her eyes on his as he probed deeper. He had a cursory knowledge of her internal organs, Cithara had instructed him in his time in the glade on some basics of field surgery, he would never be a Hospitaller, but at least he prayed -- he could save his dear little sister.

"Mnm... T'was jealous, really," she moaned softly as her body arched under the growing strain of the healing, Bart's hands pressing at the wound, almost shaping her like clay; "Ye lot got tae make love tae ye lover... but... Gram...." she laughed a little and winced, blood flecking her lips.

"Easy... what about Gram?" he said, having to put his faith into the strange overcharge he was granted in this place, giving her more and more of the divine energy, shaping it with his learning to knit and mend her ravaged abdomen, and to his Lady's glory -- the wound began to close.

"H-he won' lay hand on me proper... makin' me... wait for marriage," she lamented, eyes a little distant but no longer as cloudy. "Damn church boys, cannae jus' give a girl ye heart then expect her not tae wanna jump ye bones... " he smiled at that, the warm, golden radiance of his healing hands casting color back into her cheeks as he slowly, inexorably pushed back the specter of death.

"He's a good man, who clearly wishes to make you an honest woman," Bart ventured, and she gave a weak, slurring giggle at that. Her movements were growing more sure, but he dared not rush -- she was hurt badly, and already delicate compared to some, if he poured life into her like a burst dam, he'd drown her.

"I dinnae want tae be honest, but... it's nice..." she said, her mind focused on that away from the pain as he worked. Slowly he knit her body back together, feeling more taxed here than he had even in the height of his battle with Parias. If he made a mistake here, he'd hurt more than himself.

"What was he singing? Cithara heard it, I'm not possessed with you or her sensitive ears though," he asked, feeling like he was at the precipice, the deepest part of the wound; the part in her vitals, he trusted in the energies -- Cithara said they would do much of the work for him. The body wishes to be whole, it will return to its natural shape with but little encouragement.

"Ach, I nae have the tongue for it, b-but it was a lullaby... o-one his mum sang tae him," she said, her fatigue was fading as the mantle fed her its divine energies, color returned slowly to her face, and the wound closed over fully -- she would have a long, ugly scar running up her hip and belly for the rest of her life, and her mailcoat was ruined -- but she'd live! Bart took his hands from her, more terrified at this point of overtaxing her even though she had a dozen or more other, fairly serious injuries she grinned at him, the twinkle back in her eyes.

"That t'was right smart o' ye, Hayseed. Keepin' me talkin', Lady's Teats, I just wanted tae tilt over and sleep," she said, sitting up and wincing, popping the cork out of one of the brown earthenware bottles Naima had given them, she raised it in a grim toast and slugged the healing tincture back.

"Oh, hurrk... ach. Fookin' White Lady's White Arse that stuff is awful," she said, grimacing a bit, Bart raised an eyebrow.

"Language." Bart chided her, partly of habit, partly of levity, she rolled her eyes with a little crooked smile, looking at the bottle.

"I'll swear all I like, ye're the one who has to polish her posh bits, nae me -- and this shite is sharper than underripe berries," she argued lightly, looking down as it indeed -- worked its magic. Her myriad of wounds closed over to mostly healed, red welts or scabs, and her breathing got noticeably easier. Bart took the potion and sniffed it, the same as he'd had before.

"Tasted like almonds and a bit of cherry to me," He said, pushing himself to his feet to look around. There was little time to be gentle with her, but he wanted to. He wanted to take all the time in the world in this seemingly safe little bubble.

"Ye, and 'member how sensitive my nose is?" she said, hauling herself to her feet, reclaiming her stout messer from the ground with her dagger; "Tongue's the same, ain't just sharp tae the ear and mind, taste too," she said, sticking it out at him playfully as she rejoined him nearby.

"Ye came in... kind o' scary-like, Bart," She said softly, looking up at him. "I... I mean the flamin' sword and roarin'. I could hear ye from when ye made the alley," she said, giving a shiver. "Ye're... kind o' frightenin', when you're full in it."

"Sorry," Bart apologized, making a face behind his raised visor. "I get carried away with it," he said, looking around as he hefted his sword, not bothering to sheathe it yet; "When I am in the Mantle, and there is..." he groped for a word.

"Evil?" Lidia offered, dusting herself off from the beating she'd taken.

"... Call it injustice, within my sight. I feel... a call, a drive to right it," he said, shrugging. "It is always there in my mind, even before the mantle... but it becomes quite loud."

"Ye doubled-up on righteous indignation," she murmured with a chuckle, and then looked over, eyes going wide. "Bart... ye're bleedin'," she said softly.

Looking down he blinked, there was blood running lazily from within the creases and crevices of his armor, he winced a bit -- he had taken a few wounds, and in his fervor, he'd shrugged off quite a bit of damage and paid it back lethally, but he hadn't really stopped to take stock.

"It's minor, don't worry," He said with what he thought was a reassuring smile -- it turned a bit ghastly with all the gore and viscera still spattering his armor. He raised a hand and touched it to his own chest, calling on the mantle -- healing himself was far easier than others, he knew his own flesh, and it simply limned him in that thin outline of gold as he felt his myriad of gouges, punctures and bruises close and fade, taking a sharp breath... he'd been far more hurt than he realized. A number of the injures he now closed were... severe, several of the ghuls he'd waded through had scored very real wounds on him through his armor, mostly crushing with their powerful jaws not quite able to penetrate the plate and mail -- but the flesh compressed all the same.

"Ye're ah fantastic bandage, Big Brother," she said, patting him on the arm.

"I live but to serve... so, you lived here. What other ways out are there?" he asked her, hefting his sword and nodding towards the now highly impassable path he'd taken in. "I ah -- closed that one rather permanently," he said tactfully, and she snorted, pulling him along.

"This way, Hayseed. First rule o' the thievin' trade: always keep a back way out."

~ ~ ~

The Counthouse as It turned out, had more than a few alternative exits -- however, many of them went down into the storm tunnels and sewers, and even just the thought of repeating that journey again -- in this place -- was more than enough for both haggard survivors to wordlessly opt for the alternative.

"C'mon, I know one that even these creeps cannae 'ave gotten into," She said after a moment's consideration, leading Bart up the steps to the guildhouse itself. The interior was a shambles, but the old stone building was mostly intact; one of the few places he had found not built over or razed to the ground. There were no signs of the clean, well-oiled operation that had been here when Kull had set him on this path before -- instead, it was somewhat threadbare, abandoned long ago. Frozen in time even more than the surroundings had been. Books lay open, now-empty glasses on the sidebar still where they had been left. Things were simply unattended as if their owners had picked up to run a hundred years prior. Bart lingered near the door as sentry, watching with his sword at hand as she moved through the room.

"That collapsed passage won't stop them long, we've seen how they tunnel," Bart warned, keeping his eyes peeled for movement as Lidia worked. She nodded, crossing the building to the far side, leaving Bart's line of sight as he kept watch.

"Shouldn't be but a wee tick, It should be how I left it last week," she said, and Bart paused at that, and so did she. They exchanged a quizzical sort of look.

"We weren't here last week, Lidia," Bart said cautiously, and she nodded, rubbing at her head.

"Nae... maybe I'm just a bit twisted up innit," She said, waving around the area. "After we all had that big trip over in tae nothin', I landed here. Felt like I'd been braided an' turned inside out swear tae God," she shivered, looking around before turning about to a bookshelf at the rear, off-center and unremarkable. Shoving the rotten, moldering volumes off with a broad sweep of her arm.

"Chilled my blood, s'all... wrong, old," she said, reaching deep into the cabinet, hooking her arm into a hidden opening, she grunted with a twist and there was a loud clack, metal on metal. "Er'ry time I look at this place, I expect tae see big, fat ol' Kull sittin' at his desk, but nae -- he's dead," she said sadly, and pulled her arm down hard, and the whole shelf shifted slightly, depressing back into the wall it sat flush against. Bart's gaze tracked to her though, not the hidden passage. Concern grew as he crossed the room to where she stood.

"Right where I left it," She said, pulling her dusty arm free, and then she... stopped. Stopped dead, turning in place she looked up at Bart with haunted eyes. "What is this place, Bart? It looks like home... but... but it ain't home. It smells, tastes wrong here," she said, taking a moment to hug herself, looking around nervously. "I thought for a bit... that it'd always been like this, isn't that crazy?" she asked with wild eyes, flicking back and forth to the shadows. "I lay flat on me arse, couldn't so much as wiggle, and it was... like I was home, but home was..." She closed her eyes suddenly and tears rolled down her face.

"Where are we?" she asked again, turning with a hard sniff away from Bart, putting her shoulder against the shelf, pushing at it with a grunt, straining at likely old rust, dust, and who knows what other timeworn grime.

Bart's large hands came to rest near hers, his glimmering armored shoulder set against the other end.

"It's not real," He said to her, and gave a shove, there was a grinding sound and the shelf slid inwards on a cleverly concealed track, "This is some other place... some pocket of reality we've been pulled into, a what-if place. What if we failed," he explained, grunting lightly as he locked the shelf out of the way, peering down the small passage beyond it.

"O-oh... so... so why dinnae I feel like it ain't real... why do I feel like I'd lived here?" she asked in a quiet voice, still visibly shaken. "They... I... I had memories, have them," she shook, looking down at her hands. "I cannae... I cannae believe it, I... I saw this happen. Saw the ol' fort sink un'er tae river. Saw all o' the killin'...." she looked up at him with haunted eyes. "That cannae be right... weren't we... jus'..." she trailed off, her eyes growing more horrified, pupils dilating into pinpricks.

"I cannae remember," she said, her voice small and empty. "Bart, I cannae remember how... what we were doin'... I... know that this can't be right, but it's all gone... we were doin'somethin' important why can't I fookin' remember?!" she hissed in sudden panic, dropping her sword with a clang, clutching at her head.

"Whoa, WHOA LIDIA! WHOA!" Bart caught her up, grasping her hands and pulling her close, she struggled and babbled a moment before he just grunted a wordless curse and wrapped her up in his steel-clad arms, she struggled and suddenly just fell to desperate, panting breaths of absolute anxious panic, eyes bugging with the sheer cognitive dissonance.

"Lidia. This is not real. It's the Empty Queen, her influence. You can trust me... I'm a Paladin, my mantle protects me."

"But... Bart I remember seeing you die!" she croaked in a hoarse voice. "I... know that can't be right, because... because you dinnae die, you left here. Met the Lady. Ye are right here!" she cried, looking up at him with wild eyes begging for confirmation.

"Yeah, That's right little sister. I am here. We left after the fighting, we got out. I met the Lady, and you met Gram. Remember Gram?" he said, and her eyes lit up and she nodded -- and sudden fear spread through her; "Oh... God's Blood Bart... Gram, where's Gram!?" she wailed looking up at him with wide eyes. "He dinnae have any protection like ye and Bigstack do -- and he dinnae know the city's twists, I... I remember him enough tae know he's gonna be fightin', we have to find him, save him!" she said, huddling near the big Paladin, snatching her dropped weapon from the floor.

"I... I feel better closer tae ye. I... I got far away and it all got hazy... those... those aren't my memories, nae mine..." she said, shaking her head. Bart frowned, putting a hand on her shoulder.

"Stands to reason, the protection I have may spill over to you if you're close enough," Bart mused, Lidia nodded, touching his breastplate with one hand.

"Ye... I think I'd wager on that... I... I think I'm okay now... I'll stay close, nae worry," she said, pale again as she turned to the passage. It was pitch black and about the width of an average doorway -- a cramped place. Bart reached for his mantle and raised his sword -- a low flame licked down its blade, shedding soft light as Bart concentrated not on fierce, killing flame -- instead picturing the soft, silky flicker of a lantern or torch. The blaze followed suit, lowering as if he'd closed off the fuel until just a single tongue of golden fire the size of a torch sconce lazily flickered at the point of the blade.

"That's a nice trick," She said, looking up at the Paladin and his glowing golden gaze.

"I am glad it worked, I've never tried to control it so finely before," he agreed, extending the sword over her head into the gloom.

"Ladies first," he said, looking back at the door. "We know what's behind us, and I'd rather have twenty-two stone of steel and muscle between you and it," Lidia looked up at him with a wan smile, and nodded, pushing forward.

"I have a theory," Bart said softly, not wanting to be loud as they moved through the passage. He noted this was the wall that was flush against the rear of the other warehouses, he had a strong wager where it'd let out.

"Ye?" She asked, then held up a hand. "Wait, tripwire," she said, putting her hand on him and halting him as she pointed down, he peered close -- a long abandoned, dust-covered length of bailing wire was strung across the gap just at ankle height. Bart's eyes followed it through small, unobtrusive grooves to a little hook and a practically invisible cubby where a missing brick once was. Bart craned his neck to peer inside with his glowing sword tip; the length of stout wire leading to an equally stout, dingy iron bell.

"Cannae have a backdoor without a wee bit o' security," she said, carefully snipping the cord with a small knife and tying it off. "A few more ahead, I'll get 'em," she said, looking more confident -- more stable as she had work to focus on. "Ye were sayin', a theory." she prompted him.

"Yes, well. First I ended up on the road leading to Fairharbour, and now you were here -- the center of your world for so long," he said, pausing again as she knelt and took care of another hidden alarm bell.

"Ye think it means something?" she asked, hands quick and sure.

"I haven't seen the Wendigo, that was the third time Parias and I have clashed in this fell place -- and each time it has been he and I alone, blade to blade, muscle to muscle," he said, lowering the blade at her beckoning to give her a better angle on the light.

"So the creepy crawler ain't nowhere to be seen 'cept when it bailed his arse out o' the killin' he had comin'," she said, and Bart nodded in agreement.

"I think the Wendigo is sustaining this place or rather is what's anchoring us here. This... otherworld we're in, it isn't natural, and it's sent us to places with meaning to us as a way to... torment us, I guess. Parias said it was a boon," Bart murmured and squinted into the darkness. "I think this is a hunting ground of sorts, a game. These places are arenas for him to kill us in," she shuddered at that.

"Wonderful," she spat, snipping off the wire and standing again, signaling him forward, "So ye out towards home... me here in the middle o' the Counthouse... but what of Gram?" she asked, her focus still on her lost love, "He ain't got history nor meaning tae nothin' in Lachheim, what would it do with him?"

"The Manor District," Bart said reflexively, Lidia's head jerked up.

"Gram... told me of some of his history, a scion of a noble family like that -- I think the Wendigo would latch onto that, the old anger there, try to feed it. I think you are right little sister: I think Gram's in trouble," he said, as they paused for one last alarm.

"If I wanted to feed the darker parts of a man like Gram... I'd make him think he had nothing left to live for," he said and tapped the torn, missing parts of her gambeson, ripped away doubtlessly when she'd been half-gutted by Parias. Her face visibly paled at that.

"The fookin' bastard," she hissed with truly caustic venom in the words, her hands working in a smooth blur of purpose over the alarm, stifling it in half the time of the previous two.

"We'll save him, little sister," Bart promised, and she nodded.

"Yeah... when ye say it like that, I believe it," she said as they went to the far end of the tunnel, a similar mechanism to the first visible, she glanced back at him warily.

"Ye're gonna wanna douse the flame and ye peeper there, this opens up right inna middle o' one of the shippin' berths on the wharf," she said softly, Bart nodded and let go, sending the entire passage into inky darkness, save for a brief gleam of bright green eyes as she went to work silently opening the compartment's wall. Bart lowered his visor slowly, taking his blade into a wary hanging guard -- ready to deal out unimaginable violence as needed.

There was a muffled click, and another grinding sound -- Lidia visibly wincing as she guided the faux shelf back by two handgrips installed in its rear, it also sank back into the wall -- towards them from this side, and then shuffled to one side into a small cubby carved for it. Lidia peered out behind it and froze.

"Oh shite," she breathed.

Bart slowly leaned down to peer out the narrow passage and felt his blood run cold.

Ghuls.

Dozens of them.

They were in a small office at the end of the shiphouse, perhaps ten spans on a side. The port authority's office for this berth. Past its desk and windows, they could see the entire launch, A long rectangular dock open to the river at the far end, made for barges and ships to dock into for loading and care. The ruins of a barge half-sunken and lying on the bottom of the greasy, flotsam-laden water where it'd been docked for just that if the rotted and smashed pallets of goods along the edges were any indicator.

The berth and its docks were full of the things. Along all sides of that place were those unsettling clay nests, haphazardly glued and pasted into corners, nooks, and over every available flat surface. Beyond that -- piles and pallets of sleeping, slumbering ghuls laying about like misshapen, lazy cats. The remains of some kind of meal in a gory pile to one side of the wrecked barge. A veritable colony of the things between Bart and Lidia, all sleeping off gorging themselves on God knows what -- or who.

"Back?" He asked quietly.

"Back," She agreed, and as they slowly began to return, a faint, hooting call came up the tunnel from behind them. Both froze.

"Shite!" Lidia hissed, looking back and forth from the inky blackness to the shadowy room full of sleeping monsters.

"We have to go. You go first, quietly. I'll follow your path." he said, looking back.

"What?! Ye cannae sneak around in that great ironworks ye're wearin'!" she whispered at him hoarsely, and he made a face behind his visor.

"Which is why I'm going last. Find me a path, get out quiet and safe ahead of me," he said, looking back at the pitch-black passage, another barely audible hooting howl echoing up to them. He touched her arm, drawing her gaze to his, "Focus on the task, you seemed more lucid away from me with something to occupy your mind," he ventured, The hooting came again, closer, more intense.

"Be ready to run," he added grimly.

Lidia clenched her teeth and her fists, seemingly ready to argue, but a hooting cry from closer down the passage quashed her dissent in her throat, she gave him a glare.

"Ye fookin' die here an' I'll never forgive you," she huffed, and stashed her weapons away, tugging her hood over her face a bit more. She ducked out of sight as Bart tucked himself back into the corner by the passageway, he dared not close it behind him, lest the noise draw them to him faster.

Lidia's tiny form ghosted through the huddled creatures and their patrolling brethren, and Bart had to strain to observe her, let alone hear her through the limiting scope of his close helm. Her lithe body loped along in a low crouch, not so much darting as simply moving with smooth caution that made her seem to flow along the ground with her unnatural grace. Her sidheborn eyes gave her an advantage over the blind, atavistic monstrosities around her; Bart had to strain his own sight to keep up with the path she traced along their massed forms. She wound around the left side of the berth as a meandering, bull-necked ghul plodded nearby, her slight frame tucking into a corner piled with offal; rotting barrels of what looked like fish or some foodstuff. Bart made a face -- that had to be true suffering for the little changeling, with her sensitive nose... and that's when he understood what she was doing.

Lidia had spent three months face to face with these things in close quarters, in the dark. Bart knew how to kill them -- main force, applied directly -- but little Lidia had been forced to find her own way. She'd figured them out, they had no eyes but the hooting noises, the snuffling breaths... it couldn't find her because it couldn't smell her. Bart was sure there was much more they had by way of senses, but relaxed as they were... if she was quiet and kept to places of strong smells, she was invisible.

"Marvelous," Bart whispered into his bevor, peering back around the edge of the passage, its light yet unblocked... but he saw a shape pass by it in the distance. He had minutes at most. He began to focus his mind on what would come next, taking slow, quiet breaths -- he reacquired Lidia through the window.

She'd crept past the skulking sentry and followed a series of mired crates and barrels out over the water, the scum-covered quagmire doubtless another heady, scent-muffling miasma. He noticed none of the ghuls' nests were near the water, within a distance but never directly on the water. Curious he peered closer, and even the patrolling and wandering 'Bulls' as he'd called them before seemed to shy away from the edges of the wharf.

They didn't like the water.

Lidia's lean form flowed from perch to perch up the half-sunken barge, bringing back vivid memories of his and her meeting here in Lachheim more than a year ago to his eyes, of their pell-mell pursuit through the streets -- even in her mail hauberk, she moved with such lightness and ease that she almost seemed to spring about like a field mouse. The raised prow of the broken-down vessel where she climbed was uninhabited, much like the rest of the watery debris, the Ghuls giving it a wide berth. They were some ways distant from the maelstrom upriver, yet they were still full of trepidation. It nagged at Bart's mind as he watched her; these creatures were thinking beings, but they were so primitive, so elemental in the way they reckoned with the world such fear had to come from something equally primal. It tasked him even as something bright stung his eyes briefly, and he turned his head away, what could be so bright in this eternal gloom? Then he saw the light playing back and forth on the floor, it took him but a moment to make two and two and look out the window.

Lidia had produced a small mirror from her pouch and managed to angle enough of the wan half-light that guarded the pallid monstrosities from the scorching rays of the sun to cast a reflection, the blind creatures would notice it naught unless she pointed it right at one. Waving her arm carefully in the distance, she pointed off towards the right briefly before leaning low back into cover: westward must be that way, towards the Manor District. She peered around and then hopped lightly down, carefully picking her way through towards the westward side of the wharf. The hooting sounds behind him grew louder, echoing off the walls. Bart clenched his teeth a bit, leaning more flush against the wall.

"Hurry Lidia," he whispered, peering along after her, but she'd gone past his line of sight, having crept down past the raised prow of the half-sunken barge where it swung over the partially crushed dock planks as the rest of the ship had listed and swung down to the silty bottom. She had slid down past view, swinging herself down to the docks, he could follow her path well enough as she stayed near the water's edge, the various piles of rotting detritus and burst-open barrels and sacks of foodstuffs causing a malodorous miasma in addition to the seeming genuine fear the pallid, subterranean monsters had of the river.

Suddenly, a hooting bellow sounded alarmingly close, close enough that his hair stood on end. Bart pressed himself back against the wall, the open passage back to the Counthouse to his left as he drew his blade up slowly, raising it in a smooth motion to be at the ready. The ululating cries echoed back and forth, and he saw the ghuls beyond in the dockyard beginning to stir, he was out of time.

Out from the darkness of the passage loomed a pallid, unnerving shape. The ghul's massive, bony skull pushed through the opening, and for once Bart was given a horrifically up-close look at their visage.

The skull was doglike almost, long and full of a mix of tusk-like, ripping fangs and too-human, grinding molars, all wrapped up in an overdeveloped mouth and lips that gave the rest of its decidedly ghastly, bony face a rictus sort of grin. Its nasal cavities were enormous, not the meaty snout you'd expect on a wild animal, but simply cavernous skeletal holes that clearly occupied much of the anatomy beneath that eyeless mask of bone. It huffed in aggressive, puffing inhalations more than snuffled or sniffed, its freakishly expressive mouth pensive as it tested the air. He watched those massive jaw muscles ripple and contract, the fangs exposed past its lips, dripping thick, viscous saliva rank with an almost acrid stink as it pushed its head slightly further out of the opening. Its massive, thumbless paws hooked over the door frame as it pulled itself outwards, heavy talons a span from Bart's visor -- If it had eyes, it would have seen Bart there, only a few spans away, blade high.

Bart froze, he did not even want to breathe. Every moment he hesitated was another moment Lidia bought to keep moving, to get a head start on the absolute bedlam he was about to unleash here. The air seemed to grow more still, his heart's pounding was deafening -- he'd fought ghuls before, and yet this close, this raw and obscured near this monster -- he was terrified, real fear twisted in his guts, smashing against the walls of his courage, and not without effect. All at once he was able to put awareness to a creeping dread that had pulled at him since he'd seen the smoke over the horizon days ago, a chilling sense of unease that did not abate, that made his chest tighten and the hackles on the back of his neck rise.

This was the Wendigo's mark. The stain Cithara had spoken of, in each of those moments Mihai or another being had lurked within distances. The chill of atavistic terror, that backbeat of primal fear he tasted was the monster's black scars on his soul. He waded into it, wallowed in it -- came to know it well -- he would use this feeling against them, use it to be aware of when the dark was not empty. His courage shored up and his grip tightened on his sword.

His gauntlet creaked ever so slightly.

The ghul froze. Its head slowly panned as it began to make deep, targeting inhales, deep, purposeful snorts of air. Unlike the bulls downstairs, this one was hunting -- this one was actively looking for someone -- for him.

It turned its eyeless gaze fully around until it stared right at Bart, the man and monster face to face if not effectively eye to eye, as its full awareness colored in Bart's presence, its grisly lips peeling back in a hateful, alarmed snarl as the creature's face recoiled backward in alarm.

Bart gave it no time, and clenching his teeth over a yell -- he grasped the mantle and rolled his shoulders, sweeping his blade upwards in a brutal cut that he stepped fully into, the blade whistled sharply as it cut the air -- and struck the creature first in the throat, silencing the hooting call it was to give in a messy gurgling squeal -- and then continuing on, striking the creature's head fully from its shoulders in a gush of black, greasy gore.

There was a stillness as the monster's head rolled from its shoulders, the body slumping with abrupt, unnerving stillness in the passage. A moment of perfect, unbroken silence as the sing of the metal quieted, and the misshapen skull tumbled through the air. The sound of it hitting the floor was soft, almost disgustingly unobtrusive for the sound of a creature's life ending. It couldn't be more than a shuffle of meat and bone.

Yet it rang like a gong.

The sound of steel-on-bone and meat-on-stone rippled through the slumbering colony of ghuls visibly, hackles and heads turning, paws pressing to the ground, snouts raising in a rippling wave, the familiar; vinegar-like funk rose around him... perhaps they used scents to communicate as well? Some kind of alert-musk?

All of those eyeless visages turned towards Bart at once, as if they were a single entity.

The closest ghul's lips twisted into a rictus grin of savage fury, its hackles and heavily muscular neck rising, causing its floppy shock of greasy, quill-like hair to twitch and shudder in a visible threat display as it snapped its jaws wide, and gave a single, hooting, ululating cry.

That familiar, almost laughter-like sound echoed through the crowd of ghuls, a full company of those slouching fur crests rising in ferocious aggression, slowly moving towards him, triangulating his position, the hooting calls clearly helping them hem in the armored Paladin. Bart had no pithy one-liner, simply grasping his blade in both hands before him, staring the beasts down in a cold sweat -- eyes flicking to and fro between the leaders -- who would move first? Should he? He set his feet, seeking a break, an opening to cut through, to dash for the exit.

Then there came a deeper call, and every single gnashing monstrosity halted, statue-still before they all turned in consort to the heavy, dark pile of bodies and furs Bart had dismissed as the remains of a meal... he'd been half right. The mound shifted and shuddered, and a massive taloned paw extended, the form unfolding itself from what he had thought was a mass of furs, but instead was a heavy mantle of stitched hides lashed across its back. The beast raised itself up from the mass of bodies, a mix of the remains of meals, and what must be females and children that shrank away from its mass as it rose and faced Bart. Easily twice the size of the other ghuls and some more times the mass, it wore a series of tribal fetishes that dangled from limbs and neck, and armor made of lashed-together bones and hides in a crude sort of splint-mail... and a tall, standing crown of horns and antlers, topped with a ring of skulls. A titan among ghulkind, a champion. It rose straight up and shifted its head about in an almost regal manner, ascertaining the source of the disturbance to its slumber.

Bart's eyes grew wide behind his visor as the massive beast rolled effortlessly to its feet and stalked over to him with unrepentant majesty of the primitive, a tremendous weight and mass to it that the lesser ghuls simply melted away from in a mix of awe and fear. Like seeing a wolf among hounds, it was just everything the others were yet more -- its huge frame had thick, knobby hide where its pallid flesh had hardened into leathery armor with age, canine teeth grown into proper tusks that parted with its own ululating bellow. Its hackles slowly rose, causing those linked fetishes of teeth and bone to jingle like hideous windchimes.

Then it paused stock still -- as did Bart, he stared into the thing's eyeless face, and it back at him, its chest blossomed like a bellows as it inhaled sharply, and it dawned on Bart as the eerily familiar abomination suddenly twisted its head at him sharply, like a dog unexpectedly presented a favored treat.

It recognized him -- and in that moment he recognized it.

The creature's horrific lips split in a snarl of absolute, unmistakable hatred. It bellowed another hooting cry at him, arms spread in challenge and rage, that vinegar stink raising around Bart like a miasma, alarm rife in the air. Bart set his teeth and tightened his hands around his blade. He recognized it.

Dagan-Baal.

It remembered him.

"Oh, shite."

Bart managed to duck under the massive swipe as it tore the entire roof off the little administrator's shack, the press of air sending a hailstorm of splinters and debris raining onto his armor. Bart snapped his head back up, exposed now entirely to the whole horde. Dagan-Baal bellowed another hooting cry at him, and it was echoed by the swarm of gnashing teeth around him to a deafening degree. The plan was the same.

Bart turned, embraced the mantle fully -- and took off at a dead sprint.

The better part of valor took the ghuls by surprise initially, the creatures seeming to have a brief moment of disorientation as they seemed to switch over from sapience to an almost instinctual prey drive. That moment of hesitation was all Bart needed, crashing through their line boot-first, planting the hobnailed heel of his sabaton directly into the face of a leering ghul and vaulting its flailing body as his twenty-two stone of armor and bulk drove its skull to the pavestones -- and Bart sprang away off it.

The horde reacted with a cacophonous wall of noise, it shook Bart's armor as he broke free of the horde. Head down, pumping hands and arms, his sword inverted down his forearm once more as he poured on every ounce of power the mantle provided him.

Behind him, Dagan-Baal roared, and the ground shook.

Bart didn't remember it being that large. Large yes, but... not_titanic; t_he big Paladin threw a glance at it as he ran to the water's edge, Dagan-Baal gaining on him with alarming speed -- the sheer mass it had seemed to take a moment to gather forward momentum. Bart wasted no time, leaping with a yell over the slimy scum-covered bog the dock had become -- Unlike Lidia, his mass was not described in terms like 'Spritely' or 'Agile' but rather 'Unstoppable' and 'Ponderous' -- so when his sprinting, armored form landed on the bobbing rafts of crates, barrels and floating chunks of debris: they shuddered and plunged heavily beneath the churning, stinking skin of muck, nearly robbing him of his footing. Catching his balance for only a moment, he kept driving himself forward across them, even as he saw the horde of ghuls scrambling and swarming around him at the edges of the water.

Several took the risk, following him across the gaps with great leaps that cleared the water in a single, hideously graceful bound -- Bart understood in that moment the reason their forepaws and fangs were shaped as they were -- catching claws and snatching jaws, lunging from the dark all at once. They skidded like dogs on wet grass across the arching deck ahead of him, as he landed from the last floating crate on the edge of the half-sunken barge. Following Lidia's path from memory, he barreled up the moldering deck with a roar towards the handful of ghuls, not even bothering to change the handedness of his sword -- he simply drove the heavy pommel forward like a lance into the lead monster's face with bone-crushing force. His glowing eye left golden tracers as the creature's skull swung around with a hideous crunch, bearing a new, fist-sized divot dead center, the monster flopping erratically to the deck -- only to die as Bart's heavy boot smashed down on its face with all of his mantle-fueled might, pulverizing its skull and driving it down into the rotted deck planks.

That gave Bart a moment's pause as his heel arrested, caught up in the collapsed deck -- throwing off his stride and causing him to stumble into the remaining swarm of monsters. They eagerly piled in, grabbing and clawing at him, trying to drag him down, snaring him limb by limb, and others scurrying to pile upon his immobilized form.

A mighty roar sounded from the Paladin and Bart flung his considerable weight around, driving his knee into one's chin, sending a scattering of shattered teeth skittering across the deck as the monster fell away with a cry of pain. Another was given a ferocious left hook as he drove his left leg forward, regaining his momentum -- and crushing the Ghul's jaw with the Mantle's overindulgence of might. The last he roared in fury at, and swung his arm where it clung with teeth champed down on his rerebrace -- twisting his entire body he hurled the creature physically from his form, where it bounced ahead of him as he charged, winding up and driving another boot into its gut with a savage snarl, punting the squawking monster over the side of the shattered starboard guardrail.

It hit the water with a panicked scream and just... sank. There was no treading of water, no flailing limbs or frantic swimming... it just. Sank. Like a stone. Bart watched its horrified flailing upwards towards the surface as it plummeted down out of sight in the murk with a queasy sense of pity.

That was why they were afraid of the water... they couldn't_float._

The horrific death of the ghul had given the others their own moment of pause, an uncomfortably human reaction to such a terrible demise until Dagan-Baal's weight crashed down upon the sunken barge, triple the size of the bull-necked ghuls that chased him, its mass caused the ship to shift dramatically with a loud crunch of rotten wood and a squeal of snapping timbers. Bart was nearly thrown into a watery grave along with the ghul as the champion's arrival snapped everyone out of the momentary horror, the big Paladin snapping around, righting his blade in his hands as the sunken ship reverted its status to a sinking ship, the massive paragon's impact having twisted the bow forward, causing it to list into the deeper, hungry part of the river -- the currents visibly drawing down towards the swirling maelstrom to the east.

In the distance Bart saw Lidia, her face pale, down the road, screaming inaudibly at him, the waterside path mostly clear of the bulbous mud and thatch nests. Dagan-Baal however would not be ignored, and with a roar that split the air like a knife, shrill and furious, he leapt at Bart. The Paladin was nearly swept off the side by the lunging creature's swiping claws and snapping jaws, not so much dodging as scrambling out of the way as the creature's heavy mass crunched into the rotting deck again, putting Bart's back against the tip of the prow jutting out over the river proper, a dozen or more ghuls clung with sudden fright to the shuddering hull.

Then there was an ominous, ear-splitting crunch. Every creature aboard the vessel froze.

The prow of the ship lurched forward, Dagan-Baal's mass having broken free the dam of mud and silt it had run aground on, the arched prow shuddering as it tore free of its mired rear half, and horrifyingly sloughed forward with considerable force -- into the canal.

Lidia's wordless scream somehow reached him over the din of wailing ghuls -- the score of them that had followed their champion onto the barge losing their grip as the wreck was briefly, and very temporarily waterborne again, the torn-free front of the ship surfing on its own wake as it made the canal, rapidly sinking beneath the water's depths -- even as the hungry currents of the whirling maw down at the other side of the canal began to pull at it, dragging it further out into the waters -- with Bart and Dagan-Baal along for the ride.

"You could not just stay dead, could you?!" Bart roared in bleak frustration at the monster, getting a snarling bellow back in kind as it barreled forward, snapping its jaws down at him from above, driving Bart down into the deck slightly with a cry of pain and the sound of fresh splintering wood; his armor holding against the assault -- the Mantle's might stymieing much of the paragon's primal fury. Rather than push away -- Bart dug his fingers into the monster's gnarled and ridged cranial plate, driving his feet down into its lower jaw, with a great roar he shoved his armored shoulder between the beast's gnashing mandibles and whilst digging deep for power, thrust himself upright -- forcing the horror's massive jaws wide and causing it to shriek in pain and frustration. The monster was much larger than before, in their first encounter Dagan-Baal would have generously been able to fit Bart's whole upper torso into its mouth -- but now he stood, feet braced against its tusks, holding a jaw half-again as large wide by sheer main-force, his own cries of defiance joining it as he set his shoulders -- and whipped his sword rightways 'round. He jabbed the point ferociously up into the monster's soft palate with a prodigious thrust, ramming it so far through the meat and bone the crosspiece smacked against the roof of the monster's mouth, the flesh around it sizzling and bubbling from the touch of the First Blade.

The beast shrieked and Bart felt his ears ring and his face blasted with hideous carrion stink and viscous spittle, it flailed its head around savagely, to and fro with further wailing and snarls -- but the creature's writhing was just that of pain, not death-throes. Bart had missed.

Cursing under his breath he dared to drag the sword back, trying to realign with something vital, the slackening of his shoulders was just enough for Dagan-Baal to champ his jaws down, causing Bart's knees to buckle with a cry of pain, the monster swinging its jaws and neck with irresistible force.

Where it tossed Bart upwards, into the air.

The big Paladin gave a yell of alarm and fear, tumbling end over end, he maintained his grasp on the First Blade, twisting to look down in a single, crystalline moment. The sinking barge, the ghuls scrambling to try to leap to safety, the churning river -- and Dagan-Baal, jaws stretching wide, neck coiling tight to snap forward and crunch down on Bart like a discarded scrap from the dinner table.

Bart reacted, pure instinct driving him as he began to fall. He reached desperately for the power the Mantle offered him, pouring it into his body wholly, filling himself with the Light of God -- damned be any chance of risk, of burning himself out. He let forth a truly valorous yell, the glow of his lone eye becoming an incandescent beacon as he poured all of that power, all that will into one fist. Into one idea, a golden flame licked through his fingers, his blood burning with the energies of Godhome -- and for a brief moment, he thought he would fly apart, the containing energies screaming to be unleashed, directed, focused.

The two creatures arched towards each other in the wan un-light of the twisted demesne. Dagan-Baal's jaws lunging out, teeth bared to bite, crush, champ, and swallow the offending Paladin. Bart's incandescent fist trailed down like a golden meteor, a single bellow of wordless challenge exiting his lips.

Bart proved the quicker.

His fist and the ensuing strength and mass added to him by the Mantle, overcharged and overfilled with divine power from Godhome snapped forward with the speed of a ballista bolt. Faster than he'd ever been before, driving home with absolute authority -- his body screamed and strained as the mantle's supportive energies struggled to absorb the intense shock of the impact. The sound it made when that mailed fist made contact was almost itself a physical force, a wet, meaty resounding CRACK of metal meeting bone as Bart's blow met Dagan-Baal's eyeless face square over his bony snout -- as with Parias there was resistance, an almost preternatural straining of two forces against another as Bart's unhinged yell of challenge drowned out the howls of the ghuls -- and the standoff between them broke.

The paragon's jaws were slammed violently shut, and a hideous fracture shot up the bony carapace of its face where Bart's brutal strike had pulverized an equally fist-sized section of his snout; driving it down through the deck into the empty hold below, snapping its head violently to the side -- and adjusting Bart's course. The Paladin's still-empowered hand lashed out, seizing a handful of the dazed monster's mane, swinging himself up with a mighty jerk of his arm onto the monster's massive, ridged spine, the beast howling its frustration as it struggled against both Bart's clinging form and the rapidly sinking vessel it was now mired in. Bart didn't dare stop moving, digging his heels in, he used Dagan-Baal's own body as a springboard -- running haphazardly up the flailing paragon's massive back, pulling and digging at its mane and primitive armor for foot and handholds as he went, much to the mired beast's chagrin. Kicking off the monster's ridged skull as it twisted to bring its natural weapons to bear on him again, Bart gave a fresh yell as he poured on more power from the Mantle -- and leapt from the monster's rapidly sinking form, the barge all but swallowed by the river.

Never had Bart made such a leap, and his cry was rapidly less raw determination and turning into uncertain fear, legs still pumping, arms windmilling as he barely, just barely, cleared the gap -- rolling into a heap of plates, bruises, and pain onto the ruined cobblestones of the far side of the canal, Dagan-Baal's furious bellows chasing him as the waters surged up around it. Bart laughed incredulously as he rolled to his back, his body alight with phantom pain and numbness and he reflexively slapped his hand against his arm, flooding it instead with healing energies -- he'd cracked a few bones in his arm even with all of Godhome at his back, a mighty foe.

A hooting bellow split the air again, and Bart sat up abruptly -- just in time to see a great displacement of water and a massive form lunge up onto the edge of the path.

Dagan-Baal snarled, overdeveloped lips peeling back from fangs and tusks chipped and cracked. Its hatred boiled out in frothing, snarling vocalizations as it dragged its sodden form up from the river canal.

"You cannot be serious!" Bart groaned, pushing himself backward and finding his feet, he'd felt the monster go under beneath him -- the creature must have kicked physically off the very bottom of the river, there was no other way it could have made it clear. It gave a snarling hoot at him, its soaked hackles rising, dark blood welling from the crack in its nasal plate.

"Yeah... I suppose you hate me that much," Bart remarked wearily, still backing away now that he had gained his feet, sword in hand.

"BART!" Lidia's voice cried -- finally audible over the roaring din of the melee, and the big Paladin's head snapped to the side, Lidia was backing away herself, blade in hand. On her side of the canal, the swarming ghuls had boiled around the corner in a frenzy, whipped up by their leader's ferocity and now denied their quarry by the water -- were advancing on her instead, the young woman looking panicked across the gap.

Bart spat an inaudible curse, looking back and forth between his endangered friend, and the advancing Dagan-Baal -- he simply did not have time to engage in a duel to the death with the monster. Snapping his blade down, he turned and broke away, earning an outraged roar and a lunging snap from the titanic monster, forcing Bart to duck to avoid being messily decapitated by the snapping jaws, he drove his legs forward, pumping his arms as he raised his voice.

"LIDIA! RUN!" he bellowed, the little thief, already on the move shouted back.

"FOOKIN' OBVIOUSLY YE BARMY TINPOT!" The pair took off, divided on either side by the canal, now a mess of shattered debris and flotsam from the newly-sunk barge -- the avenues stretched ahead of them in gentle curves that followed the canal through the center of the city, at their heels was a seething horde of hungry ghuls, howling and hooting their fury at their backs.

"BART!" Lidia called across the gap, monsters literally snapping at her heels as she poured on the speed; "Bart... I can't keep this up!" she shouted hoarsely, and even at this distance, Bart could see the fatigue setting in on her... magic or no, she'd lost a great deal of blood, and no amount of divine healing could really replace rest and recuperation for that kind of damage. He swore, mind racing as he saw one of the many bridges that spanned the canal coming up, he could see them out in the distance as well, all ramshackle and deteriorated, much like the one he'd crossed doing battle with the Ogre. Scanning in a nigh-panic, his eyes settled on a still-intact loading crane some ways ahead, block and tackle still swung out partially across the canal. Setting his teeth, Bart concocted a completely, totally insane plan.

"KEEP RUNNING, JUST KEEP GOING! I HAVE YOU!" he called, and reaching for the mantle he opened wide the floodgates again, feeling the light of God pour into him from boots to crown, surging him with energy -- his bones and joints screamed in protest as suddenly he poured on a new boost of unnatural speed, taking a moment to jam the First Blade back into its scabbard -- he would need both hands.

Dagan-Baal roared in fury as Bart rapidly began to out-pace him, leaving golden tracers in his wake as his cape snapped in the wind, pulling ahead of Lidia and her pursuing pack of ghuls as well, as if history was destined to repeat itself -- Bart realized where he was: to his left was Miller's Lane, the Connerburgh Street loop he'd first met Lidia at. A fierce grin spread across his lips, The cargo crane loomed ahead of him, the timing on this would be tight. Lidia screamed, one of the ghuls had caught up with her and scored a glancing slash across her mailed shoulders.

"JUST KEEP RUNNING LITTLE SISTER!" Bart roared, and pumped his body to the limit, in an eerie sort of disconnection, he felt his joints straining, practically coming apart under the sheer exertion he was forcing his body through, carrying his own twenty-stone bulk and armor at these speeds -- but he would reckon with those costs later, for now -- he had family in need.

Bart gave a roar and summoned every scrap of the Mantle he could, and rammed it into his body brute force, a literal dust cloud kicking up behind him as he gathered his strength -- and leapt.

For the second time in ten minutes, Bart had vaulted the railing over the inky swirl of the canal, his arms windmilling, legs swinging as the roar continued from his lungs, his iron grasp lashed out and caught the rusted cargo hook at the end of the block and tackle in his left hand, his body protesting as it was jarred savagely by its own weight. His momentum carried forward however, and he swung low and wide across the canal, tucking his legs up as he crossed over the far side, sweeping over the swarm of ghuls champing at Lidia's heels. His hand snapped down.

"I've got you Little Sister!" Bart crowed, scooping the little thief up from the ground as the crane swung back around, the redheaded girl giving a shriek of surprise as she was plucked from the veritable jaws of death, suddenly airborne. Bart kicked a lunging ghul directly in the teeth as they went, violently swinging back out across the murky waters again, a shriek of abused wood and iron coming from the crane. Bart snapped his visored gaze up to it; the swingarm was splintering, who knows how many years of disuse and dry rot tearing it apart. They jolted again as it began to buckle, Lidia shrieked.

"Hold on!" Bart cried, tucking his legs up and wrapping his armored body around the tiny thief as they barely cleared the railing just as the entire assembly gave out, throwing them free in a bouncing, jolting pile as it crumpled, swaying a bit, before plummeting across the gap into the bridge -- crushing the already severely weakened stone structure beneath its massive weight, smashing it to flinders -- taking several scrabbling ghuls with it, cutting off their path to the battered pair with the swirling waters of the river.

"Lady's White Teats!" Lidia swore, eyes so wide that the white showed on all sides of her bright green eyes, trembling as she looked around, Bart dragging himself to his feet with a groan, and a brief glance through his visor slits that said all he needed to her without a word. Language.

"You'd think that would be easier the second time!" he grunted, pulling his little sister to her feet. A tremendous bellow shook the air near them, Dagan-Baal had caught back up. Lidia blanched.

"Time to go," Bart rasped, Lidia nodded and strained into motion, Bart giving her a little push to get moving. She was still tired, he had to make time.

"Run! I'll slow him down, remember how we met?" he shouted, drawing his sword with a steely sing of Absolute Iron, the weapon practically snarling in frothing rage as the eyeless abomination rounded the corner, Lidia's eyes were wide, looking around -- it dawned on her too. A grin split her cracked lips and she slapped his pauldron, taking off at a somewhat limping run.

"I'll find you a cabbage cart!" she called back and she ran up Miller's Lane. Bart couldn't hold back the bark of full-throated laughter as he set himself before the lunging abomination, blocking his path up the one-way street.

"Come on then," Bart said coldly, grasping the mantle; golden flames igniting down his blade. Dagan-Baal roared and charged at Bart like a bear, barreling at him in a headlong rush, rising up on its hind legs with a bellow, massive, scything talons sweeping down.

Bart bobbed and weaved, evading the tremendous blows by the skin of his teeth, each one tearing through the air and pulverizing stone and wood beneath it, forcing Bart to give ground grudgingly as the sheer mass of the champion of the Empty Queen drove him back. The blows grew more rapid as the titanic ghul seemed to enter a killing frenzy, all but flailing at him in abandon; jaws wide, tongue lolling with the anticipation of the kill. Bart soon was unable to evade the ferocious attacks, and had to set about parrying the blows, a herculean task but one he had to answer.

The sound of the Absolute Iron blade ringing back against the monster's blows was deafening, the steely ring as Bart not so much parried, but chopped the monster's blow from the air, the First Blade hungrily biting into the monster's flesh with searing hate that had nothing to do with the golden flame roaring on its surface, earning an ear-splitting shriek of pain from the beast -- jerking its paw back from the piercing wound, its flesh wrinkled and puckering from the bane's effect on its body.

"Give up!" Bart roared, pressing in his attack, "You need not die twice monster, just give up! LEAVE!" He roared. The champion bellowed back a shrieking retort -- no quarter was given, none asked, Bart set his shoulders and advanced. There was no subtly to his swordplay against the ferocious monster, hewing, swiping, and chopping at it -- slapping aside attacks if not just simply leaning into them and taking them with barks of pain and gritted teeth, bulling his way forwards -- he had to buy Lidia a little more time.

Pain such as this was new to the ancient monster, confusing it, angering it. The burning gold of Bart's eye bathed the Ghul King in aurum light as it was its turn to give ground. Driven back by Bart's furious assault, leaving spatters of black blood and chipped and chopped-off chunks of hide and primitive armor in their wake as the big Paladin walked forward into the abomination's midst without fear. Bart's sharp, snapping strikes bullied it backward, trading blows with it -- the Paladin's armor rang as he tucked and shouldered hits, grasping the mantle tightly as it strengthened and grounded him against the massive impacts -- the hammering was still taking its toll, Bart felt a hundred bruises beneath his armor and he wasn't entirely certain he didn't have cracked ribs from some of the monster's more square strikes.

The two champions broke apart, each panting and battered, Bart's armor dented and scuffed. Dagan-Baal fared no better, bleeding profusely from a dozen or more gashes and cuts across its paws and forelimbs, the hunched monstrosity snarling open-mouthed at him like an animal as it paced lightly to the side, both breathing heavily. Bart flicked his eyes to and fro, he didn't like his odds of this continued slugfest, he'd kept the beast on the back foot with the pain and shock of the Absolute Iron weapon, yet the monster was canny, and had rapidly adjusted until they stood now again at a stalemate -- no real fear remaining for the ghul paragon of his blade more than it feared any other.

"Stubborn," Bart grunted, the ghul flaring its jaws in a snap at him as if it understood -- it might, Bart knew it understood the tongue of the angels. It was smart, at least by ghul standards. Bart stepped back slowly, Lidia had cleared Miller's Lane onto Connerburgh Street, retracing the reverse of the path they'd taken on their merry chase a year ago through the once-teeming district. He didn't have as much of a plan as he'd like, but cutting the beast off from the rest of its pack had evened out the numbers -- Lidia and he had killed this monster together before, they could do it again -- the question was how. He didn't like his odds in a stand-up fight, he was already feeling many hurts from the previous three or four battles he'd engaged in here -- and he knew he'd need to bank strength for at least two more clashes. He couldn't pour himself out trading blows with this beast until one of them finally fell -- he needed an edge, a decisive blow to end this quickly. He had no way of knowing when this seemingly unlimited energy he had would give out -- or he would.

"You can understand me, can't you," Bart said after a moment's pause, the two combatants still squared off. He was given no answer, but the creature turned its massive, crowned head curiously -- both of them were kings of a fashion. They had not been when they first met -- and yet now each had a throne they had earned, granted to them by their Queens. In a strange way, as before deep below -- Bart felt a primal kinship with this monster, perhaps in another time they may have been allies -- in a world where the Mother had not scorned the Light of God.

"You can just go," Bart continued, His blade still raised between them. "I know naught this place, but I care not to linger. I need not your blood, I have friends I would save. You simply have to walk away," he said, begging almost. The beast's lips peeled back from its fangs and it gave a low hooting vocalization that dripped scorn. Oh aye, it understood him -- and it clearly did not care.

"Please," Bart said in a tired voice, eyes hard behind his visor. "I weep for your kind's suffering, do not force me to add any more to it," he pleaded -- and the words incensed the monster. Its hackles rose and it seemed to swell, puffing its chest with air in fury. It hacked once, and very pointedly pursed its lips and spat a thick wad of phlegm at Bart's feet, dragging its claws in deep rents into the cobblestones, setting its feet for a charge.

Bart had his answer, and his heart sank with the sorrow of it.

"So be it," he said, and the flames leapt up his blade anew. "Let us finish this." The two juggernauts stared each other down, both tense, coiled for a strike. Waiting. There was no sound except the faint shifting of his armor and the drip of the beast's slavering jaws. Though it had no eyes, Bart felt the weight of its gaze, its attention -- and he was sure it was the same for Dagan-Baal.

There was simply no compromise. Bart could respect that.

Dagan-Baal struck first, as Bart expected -- lunging forward with a huge sweep of its claws that the Paladin deftly leapt back from, the follow-up lunge of its massive fangs and gnashing teeth too fast to evade -- so the armored warrior simply pressed forward into it with a roar -- tucking his shoulders and raising his foot. The beast's maw crunched down and came up short, Bart's heavy, hobnailed boot wedged against its lower jaw, the heavy, double-layered steel of his pauldron arresting the upper mandible -- Bart's lone eye blazing golden with the fury of his mantle, stopping it cold. Even Dagan-Baal's titanic strength and terrible fangs were unable to wholly pierce the Aspects-blessed steel of his harness, nor overwhelm wholly his God-given might. His blade couched to his side, Bart shoved his body straight again -- spine going rigid and his foot stomping savagely down, prying the monster's jaw apart, and jabbed his blade forward, stabbing the flaming point down into the monster's tongue and soft palate. The beast gave a squeal of pain and jerked back, Bart kicking away and stumbling a half step as he gave a roar and leapt forward again, slashing another scored line across that bony plate where its face should be, cutting a fresh scar into its gnarled surface and getting a hiss of pain and anger in return.

The two broke apart, Bart taking the lead on the attack now, pressing at the opening he made to rush in at the larger opponent. Blade flashing, he warded off swipes and talons by simply stabbing and cutting the hands as they came, the Absolute Iron singing as it burned and sliced the monster's limbs. He fought like that, rather than commit to parries or defenses -- Bart opened up with an all-out assault. His blade hungrily dipped and slashed, utilizing the most extreme examples of Daedolon's teachings, maneuvers that would never work against a human opponent suddenly found their niche here set before this ferocious titan. He dropped the heavy blade to one hand, shifting his stance to a wider, wilder thing, then embraced his mantle wholly again, and began to swing both blade and fist in a whirling, otherwise impractical series of motions -- doling out cuts and chops with wild abandon while driving his fist like a hammer at any countering blows or exposed limbs.

Dagan-Baal answered this with his own frenzy, slamming his talons down at Bart as the Paladin shoved in, it crashed them down and around him, slamming a paw down in a near miss -- only to have the motion answered by a crushing stomp of a boot, cracking the talons and bones beneath it. It reared up to bring both its scything limbs down, and the holy warrior simply waded in and delivered a massive left hook to the creature's knee, golden tracers leading as the empowered steel-plated fist landed like a hammer blow, fouling its center of gravity and staggering the beast backward and over.

Rolling away from him, the creature's fury peaked, and it swept violently out at waist level in a surprisingly agile twist of its huge frame, catching Bart in the recovery of his swing with a massive backhand. The Paladin cried out and was slammed backward, bouncing off the nearby building with such force that he left a crater before landing in a heap on the cobbles. Gaining his feet with a wince, doubling over as his guts twisted from the shock -- he vomited a gush of blood through the slats of his helm. The monster surged forwards, leaping with its full force of weight onto the armored warrior, who could only look up in time to brace with his mantle as he and the great beast collided -- Dagan-Baal catching him in its massive jaws anew, scooping him up and driving them both through the ruined walls of the surrounding buildings in a mad four-legged rush, crushing and smashing masonry and wood with Bart as the leading edge. The Paladin roared in defiance and flipped his great blade inverted, one hand lashed up from where he was grasped in the monster's fangs, the grinding of its jaws making his armor shriek in protest, he caught the monster by the nose -- steely fingers grasping the skull-like nostril-opening and twisting with savage intent. The monster roared in pain and buckled, flipping head over heels, tossing Bart up into the air again as it reflexively released its morsel.

Bart windmilled in the air a moment, righting himself with a twist as he fell down onto the crumpled beast; taking his blade in both hands and with a cry of fury, he drove it downwards, bracing his full body into the thick, triangular blade as he plummeted down onto the monster's back. The Ghul King screamed as Bart all but stapled it to the floor with the weapon, driving it down through its thin abdomen and straight into the stone beneath a solid span of length. The monster screamed, struggling against the buried blade. Abandoning the weapon, Bart gained his feet in a mad rush, screaming at the top of his lungs, eye trailing golden rage as he brought his fists to bear; Sprinting straight up the monster's belly and chest like a ramp before driving his fist firmly into its skeletal nose. Following it up with another merciless blow, his mantle-empowered might lending sledgehammer weight to every punch as he assailed the crack he'd made earlier, punching and smashing at it, digging his fingers in and giving a slow, building roar as he wrenched at it, forcing the crack in the creature's skull wider bit by bit, causing it to writhe and wriggle in pain -- Dagan-Baal's own cries joining Bart's as the Paladin tore at its face.

The monster surged beneath him, bucking against the clinging warrior. It wrapped both its paws around his waist and with a scrabbling, half-grip of its wide, paw-like hands, tore him free from its wounded face, hurling him with crushing force into a pile of still-settling debris. Bart crashed down with a resounding smash, bouncing once before coming up to his feet. The Ghul screamed and clawed at its belly before finally managing to get its teeth around the buried blade and wrenched it free, hurling it blindly to the side, where it skittered and came to a stop out of Bart's reach, disarming him.

"You want it like that?!" Bart roared, pounding his knuckles together with a steely crash of mail and plate as he pushed out of the debris and advanced on the monster. "SO BE IT!" he bellowed and charged right back in, fists leading.

The wounded Ghul King gamely leapt to the attack as well, snapping jaws down at Bart, and catching naught but empty air as the ragged Paladin ducked and weaved under his maw, driving forward with a snarl of pure aggression, a right straight smashing into the monster's soft belly with battering-ram force, the sheer physical feedback rocking up Bart's arm, and burying his arm wrist deep in compacted entrails and bruised flesh -- not ripping through, but simply_compressing_ it with the force of the blow. Dagan-Baal doubled over with a burbling groan, the monster's turn to violently retch a fountain of gore and bile as Bart drove fist and faith into the monster's belly.

Bart snarled and capitalized on the stun, driving another fist into the monster's gut, causing it to buckle, and another, the creature's jaws split in a cry of confused agony -- it had never felt pain like this, the fists and blows alien to its realm of tooth and claw. Bart roared and drove his hand into the wound his sword had made, mailed fingers grabbing a handful of slick innards and_twisting._ Dagan-Baal screamed, and Bart just ripped his arm outwards, practically disemboweling the monster, as a fistful of weltering, ropy gore came with it.

Dagan-Baal went mad.

Bart didn't even see the blow that floored him, a hammer strike from above that drove him to the ground, pile-driving him into the loose debris at their feet, driving the air from his lungs -- only the supernatural resilience of the aspects-blessed armor and his mantle's energies saved him from a summary end from the sheer shock of the blow. Dazed, he marveled for a moment that he was alive at all, the last several blows should have ended him, no mortal man could endure being forcibly smashed through walls of brick and mortar, and yet he lived... albeit, worse for wear. He came back to himself in time to be driven down into the dirt again by another follow-up blow, his armor crunched into the shattered cobbles and earth and his head swam -- but he held fast to his mantle, and his faith.

"Not... yet..." Bart spat, and wresting himself upright, he drove a fist upwards -- meeting the next blow midway with a bone-crunching uppercut. Dagan-Baal's arm folded at the wrist, Bart's sudden upswing, twisting the gnarled joint to one side, bones broke, sinews tore, and the monster recoiled in new, horrible agony, falling away from the battered Paladin. Gaining his feet, Bart rose from the debris like some kind of vengeful shade, pale and washed out in a coating of dust and ash.

"You... couldn't just... leave," Bart rasped, stalking forwards, eye blazing golden. "I offer you... mercy... respite... in this place..." he said, his heart hammering as he drove forward again, his fist lashing out and smacking the beast in the mouth again. Teeth broke. The monster snarled.

"So we fight!" he roared, crashing a second blow into the dazed monster's face. "We fight and we kill and we die for a war already lost!" another blow, another stunned growl of anger.

"YOU LOST! YOU DIED!" Bart roared in the monster's face, spittle and blood misting out of his helmet's visor as he drove another hammer blow into the monster's face, and in response, Bart found himself airborne. Dagan-Baal had curled up, and driven its powerful hind legs into Bart's chest, sending him flying backwards again, bouncing and skittering off the debris to slowly slide to a halt. Bart planted a fist down on the earth, pushing himself upwards.

"Yet... you refuse to stay down," he rasped darkly. He stood up slowly. A million hurts lit across his body, broken bones, cuts, and crushed flesh. He barely felt it in the surging exhilaration of the Mantle's power, but he knew that they were both at the upper limits, far more evenly matched than either would have liked. Bart didn't know if he could win, not without his blade. Dagan-Baal seemed equally unsure, rolling back to its upright posture and shaking dust from its mane, digging its claws into the turf.

"Fist, meat, and bone. As it was in the beginning," Bart mused to the monster... and then he noticed movement. A flicker to the monster's side. His eyes widened behind his visor. Lidia.

The little thief had doubled back around Connorburgh street, and ended up behind the two combatants, clearly having caught her second wind. Lightly, carefully, she slipped up behind the monster, and it was only then Bart realized where they were, where their brutal melee had come to a stop.

The avenue ahead of the docks, the water lapped at the stones below them. Around them were the wrecks of shops, and stalls -- a familiar brace of now-ruptured barrels adjacent to an also now-ruined stairway to the water's edge. Where Lidia had first nicked his purse.

True to her nature, Lidia repeated that action that had led her to Bart and this journey; yet this time she did not take from the unaware monster but gave. With delicate fingers, as Bart spoke, she had tucked a pair of very familiar, blunted, round shapes into the monster's heavy girdle-like loincloth. She winked at him and then melted back into the shadows as the monster concluded its shaking, mane askew and wild.

"Come on then, monster. There is none other here than I!" Bart roared in challenge, a plan forming in his mind. "Come! Let us retread this battle to its final futility, its final madness! I will not relent, I cannot," he bellowed.

"I have people waiting for me! I will not die here!" Dagan-Baal roared in renewed fury, the creature's frail, volatile temper snapping into a frenzy as it rushed at Bart in a flurry of limbs, jaws gaping wide -- it thundered forward on its hind legs, eager to rend and bite and tear and simply swallow this irritating, infuriating Paladin that tasked it so. Bart roared in return, and grasped the mantle... but this time not for strength, not strength alone.

He called for flame.

His hand burst into incandescent fire, golden flames licked up his arm from fingertips to elbow as he charged forwards, the beast mad with pain and fury slammed down at him over and over again, the warrior forced to juke and roll between titanic smashes, each one an order of magnitude above what the monster had been dealing out before, leaving blood and bits of flesh behind -- the beast was mad, rabid with anger and pain, destroying itself with the sheer force of its own blows in a hurry to rid itself of this single, impossibly tough man.

Bart barely made it, shrapnel and debris peppered him as he dove forward, grabbing a trailing lock of the monster's braided mane, he dropped his weight hard. The Mantle and the monster's off-balance, twisted posture from the full, blood-mad commitment of its swing causing it to tip and stumble to one arm for support, Bart rushing in, driving his fist into the creature's gut again.

His flaming knuckles crashed straight into the creature's soft underbelly, causing it to belt out another cry of pain, but this time he did not drive deep, but swept his flaming arm across its waist. The holy fire caught the two bare fuses... of Lidia's two stashed black powder bombs.

The monster flailed at Bart, and even as he reeled back, the blows clipped him, sending him rolling away as the monster advanced on him, regaining its feet and seemingly the advantage... before it paused, sniffing the air in great puffs of its cracked, cavernous nostrils.

Bart covered his face, hunkering down, putting the thicker armor of his pauldrons and cuirass between him and the monster as the first fuse ran out.

The world turned to light and sound, the explosive detonating with a sharp, ear-shattering roar, promptly followed by another staccato blast of the second immediately igniting in the wake of the first. Dagan-Baal flinched to one side violently as the grenade blew a large chunk of its torso clean away, literal pounds of flesh raining down, yet the second detonation was far more gruesome; blasting him back in the opposite direction, its violence had little left to slow it down, shredding force and rending shrapnel literally bisecting the towering monster at its thin, waspish waist, shredding its entire lower body, the upper torso vaulting forward several feet as its legs were ejected in opposite directions, showering Bart and the surrounding area in vile, black gore.

Bart rolled to a stop, the pressure of the explosion so close having rocked him forward, tucking his body tight he'd let the wave of force roll him to the side. Coming up on all fours, he watched the Ghul King's upper body slough to a stop, organs, and gore gushing out of its torn in twain body like a broken egg, hollowing out his cavernous torso as it spilled its contents in a grisly trail behind it.

Dagan-Baal was not dead. But it was dying.

Bart rose to the beast, which was twitching and spasming with the death throes only something so large could have. Bart felt deep, horrible sympathy surge through him as it raised its hands above it, reaching up, straining for something beyond sight... and making the most piteous sound.

It was crying. Crying for its mother.

The Paladin slunk forward to the beast slowly and raised his hand to it. It snarled, fearful -- but Bart instead reached out and took the monster's taloned paw... and sat.

"... It's alright," Bart said softly. Dagan-Baal froze, twisting its weak head towards him. Bart raised his visor, his face a mask of blood and dust.

"Go. Rest at last... you need not feel any more pain," Bart said sadly, giving the monster's hand a squeeze. Ultimately... he pitied this beast, its kind. He felt the injustice of it, to die not once, but many times -- to never end properly, to never rest. He raged not at this monster, in spite of whatever battle fury he may feel in the moment -- nay he raged at its creator, its captor who forced it with a twisted lie wearing the face of love to suffer so. Bart lowered his head.

"Sleep, Dagan-Baal. You need not hurt."

Something passed between the dying monster and Bart then, it tilted its head to him, but it did not snarl, its lips pursed into a frown and it laid its head at his feet, shuddering as its heart slowed, pumping its lifeblood out onto the cobbles.

"I am sorry." Bart breathed, and it gave a quiet, hooting vocalization in response.

Then, quietly. It died.

Bart sank back down. Releasing the mantle, he gave a soft cry of pain and remorse, collapsing against a nearby ruin, head spinning. He was badly injured, but not beyond the means of his healing, this he knew now... he looked up at the frozen sky, the hidden sun, and the stars beyond his sight... and he had a realization. His might, his endless strength, the limitless power...

"Ye... ye stayed with it. Comforted it," Lidia's voice came to him, shattering his dazed reverie. She crept around the monster's corpse, eyes wide as she came to his side, Bart couldn't help but smile -- it was a wan, miserable expression.

"It was only doing as its god bade it... it is as much a victim as we are. Imagine that life little sister, undying, never allowed to rest, to change, to grow beyond yourself... eternally static, frozen in time," he shook his head. "'Tis a terrible existence, a half-life no being deserves for simply having faith," he turned and met Lidia's eyes, his own clouded and full of sadness.

"I would, were it in my power -- free them all from such pain." Lidia shook her head, looking over at the dead titan, pale and trembling -- she clearly suffered being that close to the monster and its heady reek.

"Ye're a better man than this thing deserved, I cannae say I feel pity fer this fookin' baby-eatin' wankstain," she hissed, spitting at it. Bart closed his eyes with a simple nod, raising his hands to his chest, he grasped at the mantle once more, calling on its healing energies... it was harder this time. His body struggled to knit itself together, even with the power of God flowing through him, his body shook afterward, fatigue sat on his chest like a stone -- yet he was whole.

"I have a standard to uphold. I was not the one who set it," he said, pulling himself arduously to his feet. His strength slowly returned as he walked a short distance, reclaiming his sword and looking down at it -- still intact, not even a burr on its edge. Marvelous.

"Yer bloody lucky tae be in a whole piece after that," Lidia groused, laying her hands on him, and turning his face to her. "God's Blood Bart... how are ye still standin'? It threw ye around like a dog with a ragdoll," she said, looking him up and down; "I know ye have power but... this... nae this cannae make sense."

"I... have a theory," he said, touching her hand and looking around. The remaining ghuls seemed to have fled in the wake of Dagan-Baal's death, Bart drew her with him as they continued eastward, to the Manor District.

"Ye get yer powers from the Lady, yeah? But... she's nae here! Parias said that, so did ye," she said, and Bart nodded.

"Yes. That's been troubling me as well... yet since I landed in this fell place, I have been awash in power." He grasped the mantle, his eye lighting with its energies... it was still a limitless, vast pool of strength he could call from... and he shuddered and released it as he realized the enormity of it.

"In this world, Cithara... my..." he swallowed. "The Lady _is_dead," he said, looking up at the sky. "All of the Paladins are, all of the Aspects are gone. Yet I am here... and so is God. He is too great for even the Empty Queen to force aside from her demesne I suppose."

"Bart... what d'ye mean?" Lidia breathed in a worried tone; "Iffin' yer the last..." "The Lady is not charging my mantle... it is God, the White God. Directly," he said in a quiet, small voice. "I am... the last of his champions in this dark place, and I believe... I am drawing from his power, from Godhome... directly." Lidia's eyes widened, and Bart bowed his head a bit.

"So... right now... yer not jus' a Paladin..."

"I think I am carrying God's light directly, as Cithara did... as she does," he corrected himself firmly, looking down at his adopted sister. "Parias erred in trapping us here, he did it as a cruelty: to sever us from what we loved -- isolated and alone to be hunted, but in doing so he made his own undoing. Empowered me to be his exact equal," he said, looking down at his hands.

"I think I am as Parias is, ridden directly by the Light of God, instead of the Wendigo's Hunger." Lidia stared at him, and shuffled a bit closer, touching his hand and looking up to his eyes.

"Ye... are a God?" she asked, and Bart quailed and shook his head.

"God's Blood no... I don't feel any different otherwise, but when I reach for the Mantle... there are no limits to it, normally I feel a sort of... finite pool, a reservoir sort of here," he said, touching his breastplate -- over his heart.

"That reservoir doesn't feel finite when I touch it now. It feels as deep as the ocean, vast. Infinite." He shook his head; "I cannot do anything new... but everything old is an order of magnitude greater, stronger."

Lidia nodded, squeezing his hand. Bart took a breath.

"I think perhaps we'll find similar strength in Rashid and Naima once we collect them, there are but three mantles in this realm, and God has light enough for all," he said, and closed his eyes, trembling.

"It is a little terrifying. I... keep pushing my limits... and they keep expanding," he said, shuddering and hugging himself a little. "We must leave this place, I find myself liking this too much. I was not meant to wield such strength, no man is," Lidia bit her lip, and then doffed him on the arm with a tinny little ring.

"Well, c'mon then. We have friends tae save. Iffin' ye are right, then the only way out -- is through," she said, turning her head to where the great, grisly tower stood in the ruins of the Cathedral.

Bart took a breath and nodded. Clapping down his visor. He set his shoulders and gave regard to the little thief, thankful for her pragmatic words.

"Through it is."

~ ~ ~

The distance gained between the pair and the Ghul King's cooling body seemed to come not nearly fast enough for either of their liking. The two moved at a relentless pace, Lachheim's streets never before seeming so vast, but before long it became clear to Bart that he, unlike his friend, was not running to anything... it felt like nay, he was running away.

Bart slowed from their strict march, taking the time to even sheathe his sword as he rolled slowly to a halt. Lidia came up a few steps later, panting but sprightly in step and gaze as she shrugged her shoulders at the big Paladin.

"Ye tired?" she said, clearly feeling the fatigue herself, but the little rogue was made entirely out of wire and sinew, her gazelle-like build probably could run for literal hours. Bart well-remembered their chase through the canals for that as well as anything. Bart shook his head but leaned against the nearby wall regardless.

"I am not -- but I should be," he answered cryptically, but his eyes through his visor met hers, revealing the haunted expression on his face. "I should be exhausted, spent. I am not," he said, and pushed away from the wall, taking a deep breath and continuing ahead at a much-reduced pace. Lidia stared at him a moment, her chest heaving as she peeled back her scarf, wiping her brow before her eyebrows shot up with understanding.

"... Ye're worried about tearin' yourself up," she said, slowing her own pace to fall in line next to him as he breathed deeply. Bart paused... but nodded hesitantly

"Two brutal melees in a row," Bart said, holding up his fingers as he raised his visor. "Light of God strengthens me but it is just the fuel for the flame," he explained, flexing his hands in vague claw-like motions. "I feel not the pain or the fatigue even without the mantle in my grasp, I should be crushed with weariness and aches and yet I feel nothing -- but nay, not quite what bothers me," he said, his breathing slowing and becoming even as they moved at a reasonable, brisk pace that was still down from the forced march from earlier.

"I cannae say we're lackin' for things tae bother us here," Lidia responded in a deadpan voice, clearly eager to be away but her own steadier breathing made it just as clear that their mad dash away from Dagan-Baal had begun to take its toll on her hardy constitution as well. Bart made a face.

"I know, I am most worried for Gram as well," he told her, and she took a shuddering breath.

"Ye dinnae 'ave tae call me out like that." she groused, pulling her scarf back up over her cheek-length red mane, Bart sighed and gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze.

"Don't be ashamed, I first worried about my love as well," he said with a leaden tone to his voice, and a sort of slow look of sick horror spread across Lidia's features as Bart pointedly looked forwards, away from his friend.

"... Oh God Bart, ye... ye can feel all o' that, can't ye?" she said, her hands touching his chest suddenly, the Paladin took a deep breath.

"In a fashion... there is a quality of... warmth, that is absent from the mantle now. A solitude that told me it was true long before I realized it. She is dead, here at least... I feel not her love any longer," Bart said, and saying it out loud made it real. He shook his head at Lidia's horrified face.

"This is not about I alone," he rasped, slightly increasing their pace, a gesture that Lidia's body language sang her relief to as she gamely took up the quicker strides; "This place is for us but an illusion. I must believe that, I will not allow myself to countenance the idea that the Lady..." he suddenly drew in a breath, speaking the hurt aloud made it real, made it sharp and palpable, and a tear streaked his dusty face and his breath hitched in a near-sob, one he swallowed heavily.

"... That the world is gone," he concluded. For him, it may as well be. Without Cithara, he felt a yawning ache in his heart, one he had been ignoring the entire time, filling with the urgency of battle and pursuit. Free of it for even a time -- his mind wandered to darker places and he steeled his soul. "There must be hope, even if I must embody it for a time," he said soundly, his pace matching Lidia's own now, quick, determined... but measured. Perhaps the panic had started to eke its way in at the edges, banished once again by resolve.

"Ye're pacin' yerself because you don't expect to live," Lidia said to him, her voice openly accusatory. Bart turned a miserable gaze back to her, thankful for his closed visor hiding much of his expression.

"I can only hope. However I don't expect to survive this, no," he answered honestly, shrugging his shoulders in a clatter of plates, his eyes hard as he continued.

"I don't expect Parias or Mihai will either, and I am content with that." "Oh aye, are ye?" Lidia countered with open scorn, her pace advancing enough to get in front of him. "Oh I cannae believe we're talkin' like this again, ye promised me Bart!" she spat, jabbing a finger at him, betrayal on her face. "Ye promised me ye'd come back. Nae suicidal heroics! Nae givin' up!" "I'm not going to my death, Lidia," Bart sighed at her, eyes tired even if his body was not. "I am being realistic, I am... operating as if Cithara is dead. I have been for a while," he said bleakly, glaring ahead as they crossed the yawning, swirling maelstrom where the Church Militant fortress had been, the roar of the water below strangely muted. The little changeling stamped her foot as she marched right up beside him in newly-formed ire.

"Ye think she'd want ye to sacrifice yerself!?" she hissed, and Bart drew himself up without missing a step.

"Yes. Absolutely. Without a moment's hesitation if it would spare even one innocent their life," he said, squaring his shoulders. "I have five innocents in this hell with me."

"Pfeh! You can stuff that innocent shite back up yer arse. I'm scared tae death, but I chose tae be here!" she said, glowering at him with rapidly building anger; "An' dinnae say I had nae idea this would happen, nae did ye or the Lady!" she spat, planting her feet in front of Bart and stopping him dead.

"Dinnae run so happily tae die because ye're scared too!" Bart stopped, and sighed, his shoulders slumping under his armor. He wore it over his heart as much as his body at this moment, even if its gleaming crown felt dreadfully heavy.

"Lidia. Little Sister," he said, turning his eyes through his visor slit on hers, all she could see of him... and later she would realize she was glad for that. Those eyes were haunted, full of pain... his face showing haggard lines.

"The love of my life is dead. Perhaps in the real world as well. In my heart, I can only hope she still lives, and that hope is what keeps me marching forward in this waking nightmare... but I have to act as if she is slain, she would not have me hesitate on her account," he said, his voice thick with restrained emotion.

"Please, allow me to focus on you for this time," he begged in a desperate voice; "It's what she would want, to her there is no greater love than acts of service, and I need to cling to that right now or else I will go mad. Please."

The little cutpurse's eyes were wide as she stared back at Bart shamefacedly, the man slowly straightened, his armor creaking like a tangled marionette as he drew himself back up.

"It's this place... it is so full of misery, even for the monsters as they live here... is this their heaven, or what they content themselves with in its absence?" he asked, indignation hot in his voice alongside the despair. The dull roar of the maelstrom down in the canal swallowed his words and his care as it did all else once it journeyed far past his lips. He swallowed heavily, the motion somehow more vulnerable in the heavy armor, his shoulders trembling a bit.

"I... I think Dagan-Baal is dead. That is why I stayed with him... I... I think he died. For good, at least here... wherever, whatever this place is," he said and there was open grief in his voice. "God's Blood Lidia, imagine that... there is_nothing_ for him, just. Emptiness. Void," Bart moaned and his hands raised up, formed into steely claws of desperation.

"... And I sent him there. The most damning part is somehow that is just. Somehow that is mercy," he said and took a deep breath, slowly closing his shaking hands into fists.

"I need to focus on you. On Gram, on these five innocent souls because you... you, I can save," he said, setting his shoulders straight once more, spine erect as that breath steadied. "I can sell my life for that, and that is all that is keeping my mind whole and sane. God's Blood Lidia... to feel the mantle without her warmth..." he choked, and a single glimmering tear shone behind his visor.

"Nae. Nae more, Bart." Lidia said, taking his shaking hands in hers, the little fingers seemed so out of place in the tough leather gauntlets, even so bulked they were dwarfed by Bart's massive, battle-scarred palms. "Dinnae ye say another word. I understand, big brother," she said, and his shaking hands squeezed around hers.

"I'll be that for ye. All I wanted was tae keep ye whole, Bart," she said, a little smile daring to break through the grit and grime.

"I understand," she said, meeting his eyes, the anger washing away into sadness and hope. "I love ye, too Bart. C'mon... Let's go save my beau, huh?" she said, the dull roar of the whirlpool looming out of the silence as Bart took a shuddering breath, it had all simply hit him once he'd had a moment to think. What had been missing, what had been wrong. The power, the strength, and might at his fingertips felt empty and unnatural -- and he had only just now had it all click into place. Her absence. Her loss. Bart was always slow.

"Thank you, Lidia," Bart said, keeping his visor down as she turned and they took back up their march. Silence reigned again, but it did not feel so uncomfortable and desperate, it was empty still... a warmth he had grown accustomed to absent, and in its place a yearning that he had first expressed as anger, his fury in the fights with the ghuls, with Parias -- all his mind grappling with such a_loss._

He had grown used to the warmth of her heart, in its absence there was only duty.

Duty, and rage.

~ ~ ~

The pair crossed over into the eastern half of the city with a noticeable change in mood. The manor homes of the eponymous district were strongly Darrowmite in fashion and thus were heavy stone edifices with tall, shingled roofs. The wooden beams and shingles had long since succumbed, but much of the masonry still stood. It had the immediate effect of walling them off from much of the sound of the canals, the roar of the tides from the maelstrom fading away like the murmur of long-gone crowds at the docks.

"Were ye not worried fer Nazir?" Lidia ventured as Bart drew his blade anew, the idea of trying to get the long blade clear of its scabbard in the haphazardly strewn alleys and streets was not one he enjoyed, flicking his gaze to her a moment he shook his head.

"No. Two reasons," he said, his tone optimistic; thankful for the lighter thoughts. Hefting his weapon into an easy ready at the end of his arm, he raised a finger "One, there seems to be some rhyme and reason to where we were placed here. I have a suspicion that Nazir, Naima, and Rashid were all deposited close together." he said and Lidia tilted her head with a raised eyebrow, drawing her own messer, leaving her other hand free.

"Makes a sort o' sense. What iffin' they aren't though?" she asked, and Bart raised another finger.

"Two: Nazir may not have a mantle, but he's a thinking man. These creatures are not. I trust his canny mind to see him safely to ground until we can reunite, and as for the others... they have mantles like mine." he said with a rock of his shoulders in vague amusement; "They are probably quite safe."

"But nae Gram?" she asked, a bit of ire in her tone, Bart shook his head as they pressed forwards, his eyes flicking two and fro, noting down things.

"Gram's a fighter, and he will fight. His faith would allow nothing less with his back to the wall," Bart said with confidence, the surroundings were not wholly abandoned, his eye scanned across clear signs of occupation, footpaths trod in the filth, barrels and crates looted and opened, clear signs of territorial markers in odd totems decorated with crude pennants and skulls. The Manor District was home to something, and Bart had a strong suspicion on what. Lidia could only sigh.

"Ye ever get tired of bein' right?" she asked him acidly, and the big Paladin shuddered, responding in a complete deadpan.

"Absolutely," Bart said, the two of them rounding the corner face first into a gaggle of grimy, emaciated forms; clad in tattered mail and cast-off weapons, fierce hunger burning in unliving eyes. Bart set his teeth.

He was so tired of being right.

The first of the monstrosities split its skeletal jaws in a wheezing shriek, raising its weapons with surprising aplomb, its fellows following suit. Plagued men. Different, as the ghuls had been... but the smell alone, the armor and weapons made it certain. There was a half-dozen or so in a grimy patrol, and like mad ants, they boiled forwards in a frenzy of blades and fury, with speed and ferocity far above what Bart had encountered from the sickly soldiers before.

Bart was also an order of magnitude grander than his first encounter with such pale shades; and with his own bellowing cry of fury, The Paladin hurtled forwards -- the cold emptiness in his heart welcoming the burning fury of combat against the deserving. Ghuls may be tragic, ruined beings of unfortunate birth -- but the Plagued Men were traitors, apostates all. The true monsters, and the black bile that rose in Bart's throat as he saw them 'rewarded' in this form was bitter as anything.

Sparks flew as he scythed into the group, his blade shearing down into them in a berserker cleave, not so much worried for technique as he simply made of himself the biggest, most dangerous target, one's head went flying in that first grim swathe of destruction, clipped free from its neck by the broad, triangular blade in a fountain of gore that gushed lazily, the black ichor thick and tar-like as the body took an uncomfortable few seconds to cease moving before it collapsed to the ground dead.

The others resolved into a surprisingly tight formation, shields snapped up and rusty, notched blades were set to the edges of each bulwark as they locked themselves into a ragged phalanx -- or at least they tried. A fresh roar split the air and Bart barreled into them at full tilt, his eye alight beneath his visor with the light of his mantle as he wasted no energy, no finesse on these beasts -- he chopped into them like a battering ram. Were he as he were before, unmantled and unblooded -- the far more professional, canny soldiers here would have been the end of him. Shields raised, and their line pressed back against his assault, the wide, triangular blade of his weapon leaving showers of sparks and splinters as he harried at the front line in a furious series of mantle-empowered blows that left gouges and rents into the surface of the battered shields.

Yet, unlike those he had encountered elsewhere -- they held. Digging in their heels with raspy cries, the Plagued Men pressed back to his assault, the back ranks held halberds and spears, and immediately put them to work, thrusting and chopping down at Bart from multiple angles, forcing the larger man onto the defensive as they locked their end of the tight alley down, advancing on him steadily, blades gleaming. These strangely skeletal, wight-like beings were a cut above the chaff he'd hewed through before.

Battering away the attacks, Bart was put on his back foot, blade held forward and high as he paced back and forth to either side of the advancing shield wall. His time fighting monsters had made him keenly aware of the strengths and weaknesses of his blade: the wide, thin edge was phenomenal at cutting -- it cleaved flesh and bone with startling ability, but the wide blade and narrow cutting profile struggled against armor, and made half-swording the weapon difficult even for his large hands -- it was poorly matched against the armored defenders.

Bart paused then, the golden gleam of the Absolute Iron caught his eyes and a feeling of foolishness ran through him -- aye, these things were true of his blade -- were it made of humble steel alone.

Grasping both the hilt and the mantle firmly, Bart approached the problem of the shields from a less technical angle. He ignored a decade of battle-theory, and poured unto himself might and fury. With a bellow that split the air, he dove forwards again, swatting aside plunging thrusts and cuts of the two halberdiers in the back -- he raised his blade mightily, aiming at the middle of the three-wide shield wall, at a rent already shown in the rim of the raised shield.

He drove the blade down with a cry, trusting in the Iron. Trusting in his Faith.

The Absolute Iron stood true to its nature, and where the blade would have hung, snagged, and notched against the metal-riveted bulwark was it mere steel -- it instead sheared through wood, iron, and flesh with a shriek of metal and a hail of sparks, cutting halfway down through the shield, shearing mostly through the wielder's arm, drawing a guttural scream of pain from the monster as Bart, his blade stopping, drew the blade back out straight -- and drove his heel forward with a shout of martial fury.

The shield splintered, splitting along the great cut down its middle, Bart's unstoppable might and irresistible mass drove his hobnailed heel through the shield, the hacked remnants of the plagued man's arm, and through to its skeletal face. Bart felt even through his thick-soled boot the crunch of bone and teeth as he booted the monster head over heels by sheer main force, making a hole in the line.

He was in among them then, and he once more heeded faith rather than technique, swinging his blade through. It screamed as sparks flew and mail that would have turned a blade of man-made steel aside instead shredded and buckled beneath the impossible edge, cutting the first of the two remaining warders nigh in half from collar to breastbone, the monster gurgling up a death rattle as its black, sticky ichor burbled out grossly from the wound.

He lashed again to his side, parrying a thrust from the lone defender, and engaging him in a ferocious back and forth between sword and shield; the blighted soldier gamely pressuring him back with his bulwark -- yet Bart rapidly gained the upper hand through main strength alone, battering down the weaker warrior's defenses -- until the thrust of polearms drove him back. The halberdiers harrying him with measured strikes. Professional soldiers, briefly caught off guard -- now in their element. The shieldbearer bulled forwards again, providing more cover for his long-hafted allies to swing down on Bart, forcing the swordsman back into a full defensive to deal with four different angles of attack, swinging his blade two and fro in a high guard, the halberdiers deftly snapping their strikes at him staggered to keep the vulnerable hafts out of reach of his vicious blade -- having seen what he had done to that shield moments before. Bart found himself truly in a bind, the trio holding the alley, even pushing him backward.

"Ye fuckin' gonna DANCE with 'em all day, Hayseed?!" came a cry -- as Lidia joined the melee. Bart swore softly, pressing himself forward to try to break their focus, keep it on him -- but he had underestimated how much the lithe little thief had learned. Gone was her wild, careless nature, the thief darted in on Bart's weak side -- messer leading, free hand tucked close to her chest. Immediately she harassed the shield-bearer, hacking and thrusting at his face over the rim of his shield, Bart setting about swinging down at the halberdiers, driving their killing points away from his lightly armored companion. Bart looked down at her a moment, and she grinned, pressing her back to his, giving him a little nod.

The pair waded into the melee, Bart giving a howl of fury, eye blazing gold with the Mantle -- they began to flow around each other like a dance -- Bart led, his stomping, unstoppable mass driving them forwards in great hacking swings and sweeps of his blade that pushed the halberds back and harried the shield-bearer -- blows that Lidia snaked around, her lithe frame darting into the gaps in his swings -- thrusting at the shield-bearer, drawing out long, crisp cuts that echoed Bart's own chops from the opposite angle.

It was the defender's turn to be on his back foot; Bart's intractable advance was one thing, but now there was a darting, vicious barb in between his brutal blows. The little thief's messer left savage hacks and rents in his shield and armor -- the weapon's thick blade and heavy spine doing much of the work for the lithe rogue. The tempo was too much for even the professional monsters, and Bart spied the gap they had made -- driving forward he raised his blade, causing the defender to brace behind his shield high -- and instead, he lashed down with his foot.

Bart's heavy, hobnailed boot stomped down on the shield-bearer's instep, crushing its foot in a gruesome crunch of meat and bone while trapping it and the defender utterly as he hewed down with all his might and a bloody roar of fury to boot. Into the shield he cleaved; intentionally hanging his blade in its steel-rimmed pavise. With a snarl, Bart twisted hard to his right side, wrenching aside the defender's shield, breaking open the apostate monster's guard -- but exposing his own weak side to a lethal riposte, one that the monster rallied to; coiled to drive through the exposed gap beneath Bart's armpit.

But in that space, Lidia appeared like a vengeful shade. With a shrill cry, she thrust her messer into the oncoming stab, tangling her blade spine-side first into a weaving parry that drove the blade wide with a forceful thrust of her lithe frame -- a thrust she rapidly recovered from, far quicker than either of the armored warriors. Her blade chopped back down in a textbook follow-through, driving its brutal single edge between the Plagued Man's helm and hauberk with a grotesque sound of cleaving meat and bone, the monster gurgled as its notched weapon fell from its spasming fingers, Lidia drew her blade back out with an intentional hard flourish, shearing the edge down deeper into the wound and pushing the soon-lethal gash into a ruinous, nigh-decapitating strike.

"Like ah' puddin'!" she barked, kicking the monster off her blade -- all of this happening in the mere moments between Bart's parry and the abomination's riposte. The two halberdiers did not take this lying down and immediately drove both of their weapons at the unshielded, lightly armored little thief.

Bart would not stand for such a thing.

Lunging forward, he slapped the first halberd ferociously downwards with his weapon, the tinny ring of the iron on steel langets loud in the alley as he followed the chop up by stamping down on the weapon just below the blade, pinning it in place. With a yell, he drove his opposite foot down, grasping the mantle for strength -- for mass, his booted heel splintered the haft at the midpoint of the unshod length, causing the plagued man to recoil as all tension was suddenly slack from the broken shaft. His partner drove his spear at Bart, but he was inside of the arc of it now, a last-second parry showered him in a brief spray of sparks as he drove the axe-like weapon to one side, wielding his sword in both hands like one would a staff. Bart's hand lashed out, grasping the weapon just beneath the socket, his grip like Iron, the halberd held in place.

Lidia lit off like a shot, a furious yell leaving her throat as she lunged down the short alley. Her blade was couched close to her body as she uncoiled like a spring, the messer diving down to chop the inside of the still-grappled lancer's knee, causing him to buckle with a hiss. It swung its gauntlet-clad fist at her, cuffing her across the cheek and earning a curse of pain, but in return, she drove her sword arm up against its extended arm, over-rotating its limb until it locked at full extension across her shoulder in a brutal hold that angled her still-held blade back at its throat -- her free hand using the leverage to bring her weapon to bear with both -- one on the hilt, the other the thick-spined back of the weapon. She gave a brutal snarl of effort -- and both pulled the handle and pushed the blade, leveraging the monster's own arm as a fulcrum -- and forced the weapon's brutal edge through the monster's neck, even as it struggled against her. Lithe as she may be, leverage was everything. The blade cut deep, and with another dragging withdrawal, she hewed through meat, bone, and sinew, and left the monster's skull flopping about on its neck by a half-severed flap of muscle and spurting gore.

Its partner lunged at her, a short blade drawn from its belt, but it halted mid-swing with a dull, meaty thunk and a white-eyed, sightless stare. Bart stood over it, having crossed the intervening space in but a single stride, down had descended the Absolute Iron blade, devoid of tact or finesse -- Bart had simply cleaved the creature's skull, helmet and all, down to its flat, skeletal nose. The creature twitched a few times as its ruined brain misfired as Bart twisted savagely, splitting its skull like a melon, and freeing his blade. It fell in a heap, Lidia blinking at the sudden, brutal end.

"Good hustle," Bart breathed at her in approval as they surveyed the carnage, and even spattered in gore -- the little thief beamed. Beyond the alley, the familiar low blare of a war horn bellowed out. The two looked up sharply.

"So much fer sneakin'," Lidia blithely grumbled. Bart nodded, wiping gore and brains from his blade, shaking it free.

"I am more than willing to give these apostates the bloody end they so crave," the Paladin's voice was like the grave, cold, dark, and unforgiving, the mantle still gleamed in his eye, casting an intimidating golden shadow out of his visor. Lidia nodded, banging her blade's pommel on the nearby stone to shake the clinging, tarry gore from it. Her form suddenly perked up, head turning away towards the center of the district -- Bart shuddered, as he realized where she looked.

The Magistrate's Manor.

"Ye hear that?" she breathed, eyes wide. Bart paused and listened, having to briefly open his visor to strain his steel-muffled hearing.

Song. A strong, baritone voice. Lifted in a hymn in the tongue of angels.

"Gram," Bart breathed, and Lidia nodded, fresh tears misting her eyes beneath the rage.

"He's callin' me, Bart," she said desperately, clearly having to restrain herself from lighting off at once, Bart clapped his visor down, looking at the bodies a moment before he gestured out of the alley towards the sound of steel and song.

"They were waiting for us, they're using him as bait. Bastards," Bart said disdainfully, and Lidia bared her teeth in something that only barely passed as a grin, eyes full of murder.

"Well, it'd be a cryin' shame tae disappoint 'em, wouldn't it?" she said, hefting her blade. Bart grinned as well, though only his eyes showed it through the visor, lifting his own gore-smeared weapon.

"Can't be poor guests, they've gone through so much trouble to bring us here," he agreed mildly. Lidia's bitter mirth only deepened.

The pair stole away in the eternal twilight haze, Bart moving with a refocused purpose despite his strain: He had a friend in need, and that was all that mattered. Strength surged in him anew and he bore it no mind for what it could do to his mortal shell, it was a tool -- and he would use it until it broke. Until the Pale Dawn called him.

The singing grew louder as they found themselves picking through the alleys, by and large, avoiding the main streets. Gram's booming baritone rang out across the stones leading them as much as Lidia; Bart readily let the quick little skirmisher range ahead of him, picking a more or less straight line towards the sounds of slaughter and song.

"I truly, deeply despise being right," Bart groused as they crouched behind a ruined home, peering out into the wider streets meant for travel by either foot or cart; the plagued men milled about in regimented groups, both eyes and bodies alert in force. There were dozens of them in those same shield-and-pike formations up and down the thoroughfare.

"Shite, a fookin' right lot o' 'em... why are they just standin' idle-like?" Lidia asked -- the question of the hour, even at this still-considerable distance they could hear the clash of steel and muscle up the road. Bart shook his head, eyes wild as he scanned over the assembled troop of soldiers.

Idle wasn't quite the term, Bart knew what men at muster looked like, even as slipshod and chaotic as these creatures were. They stood in loose, but professional formations -- the stances of dangerous men at ready were so baked into Bart's mind from a young age that he'd know it anywhere. There was a quality to the way a man of war stood, the way he moved -- that no amount of poise or posturing could replicate. These monsters moved like that, stood like that.

They milled about in said units, and there were subtle similarities about them that began to play across his eyes in the macro scale. Common colors, slashes of red and black, checkers of blue and yellow, devices and regalia, and more of those grisly totems -- each with a design. He furrowed his brow as two of the units passed near one another, each of unlike totem and color -- and they postured across the lines, puffing up and sneering as they went.

"Look at that," Bart said as much as he thought, Lidia's gaze tracking to his.

"They're spittin' like rival gangs o' pickpockets," She said, and Bart nodded.

"This explains why they didn't descend on us like a swarm of ants, they are not a unified front. Not entirely," Bart said as they watched them a moment longer, Lidia fidgeting upon hearing a particularly harsh stanza from Gram's song, causing Bart to set his teeth.

"I dinnae 'ave time for this," she groused, scanning about frantically for a gap. "Ye're mighty Bart but even runnin' on infinite divine go-go I dinnae think ye're that mighty," she complained, and Bart was inclined to agree -- he wasn't particularly good at healing, to begin with, and he couldn't do it nearly at all without total focus. He'd be swarmed under without contest against such numbers, even if he slayed them three-to-one for every blow they struck, they'd wear him down until he made a lethal misstep. He wanted to rush through, to charge and smash and be angry... but even now he saw the futility of that. The marching patrol moved at pace towards the alley they'd entered from, Bart realized unified mind or not, the alarm would spread quickly once they found the dead men. Bart swore.

"Should have thrown them in the canal," he complained bitterly, and Lidia looked up at him with a wary glance.

"Back, to the alleys. We're on the clock. How would you get to Gram if you weren't with me?" Bart asked her, and the little thief furrowed her brow, shying back into the shadows of the alley between ruins.

"I'd nae bother wit' the streets. I'd take the Thieves' Highway," she said, Bart tilting his visored face pointedly in confusion, to which the thief just pointed a finger, and looked up.

"The rooftops," Bart breathed dumbly, and Lidia nodded.

"For a wee lass like me, dinnae 'ave a problem just skippin' across the shingles an' suchlike to avoid gazes. Enough critters about nae one pay much attention tae few odd bumps an' thumps in the evenin'," she said but looked Bart up and down. "Ye're nae wee slip o' a lass though, so I didn't consider it."

"Fair, but we're out of options elsewhere, and I refuse to traverse underground in this place," Bart said, the very idea making Lidia pale at the mere mention, nodding hurriedly in amusement.

"Most o' the roofs are shot to shite, but there's still good masonry that'll do, but cannae ye hoist all o' that up with the rest o' ye?" she asked as she lead him back through the alleys and warrens of the tightly-packed district.

"I can," Bart said earnestly, and Lidia regarded him for only a moment before nodding.

"Alright, I'll 'ave to pick us out a roost wide enough for ye. Nimble or nae, ye're broad 'cross the middle and that can't be helped," she said -- almost more to herself than him, eyes up on the roofline as they moved through the narrow ways between homes, every lot practically built into one another except for the most lavish plots towards the northernmost edge, the northern side of the canal as-always viewed as richer and more opulent, and reflected it even here.

"In here," she said, and Bart quickly ducked through a doorframe, leaning back out of sight as a patrol of the Plagued Men roamed out of the darkness moments later, Bart wild-eyed tucked back into the corner, hoping his gleaming armor would be out of sight. He hadn't even known they were there, his hearing dampened by the padding and steel of his helm.

"Good ears," Bart added thankfully as the clattering group rounded the corner, straight through where they had been moments before. Lidia nodded with a brief grin.

"Helps tae not be an ironworks now an' again," she said, peering around behind him, pressing her hand up along a wall before ducking under a fallen beam, her head vanishing into a large stonework opening in the wall for a moment. A massive hearth, its cavernous fireplace filling the whole wall beneath the ruins of the roof. Good, solid stone and mortar through and through.

"How strong can ye be in a go?" she asked him pointedly as he raised his visor to survey the surroundings.

Bart simply grinned wide.

~ ~ ~

A brief moment's work with the aid of his mantle shifted debris and had him staring up the massive chimney, light peeked through the top. Bart's hands were busy, gauntlets carefully threading a length of rope.

"You sure about this?" Bart asked, narrowing his eyes through his raised visor.

"Yeah," Lidia answered simply from back where she had slipped over to keep watch. "Recognize this place, was a fancy drinkin' establishment for the fine how-tae-do's o' the quarter, chimney's wide as ah' streetwalker's arse the whole way up."

"Colorful," Bart mused and began to twirl the grapnel hanging from the end of the rope -- both pieces of Lidia's surprisingly well-stocked outfit. The numerous pouches and pockets on her belt and satchel were seemingly endless, each one full of another timely tool. His eye shone golden as he conquered the primary reason that she and her ilk never made much use of these massive chutes -- height. A full three stories up was a long way to throw a hook -- and a long way to fall. Thankfully, unlike her days scurrying around for pennies and play -- she had Bart along for muscle. The grapnel sailed through the air, and deflected noisily off the rim of the chimney, causing Bart to wince and Lidia to reflexively duck her head as it banged and clashed its way down back to Bart, who leaned away from its flight, letting it clatter safely to the floor under Lidia's withering glare.

"This isn't exactly in my skillset little sister," Bart groused, fumbling the hook back into his gauntlet-clad hands again, Lidia raised her eyebrows.

"What, nae teachin' ye to storm walls an' rescue princesses from towers?" she asked and he grumbled, fixing the hook and setting it spinning again.

"A lot more concern with the swordplay on top of the wall than the climbing of it, truth be told," Bart said in a clipped tone, eye glimmering with the mantle's energies once more as he gave another whirling toss, swinging it overhand -- he could certainly_pitch_ the hook through the flue, but they had need of it actually securing a hold and not launching into the canal district -- so it went. Up it sailed, and with a precariously close path, it went up and over the lip, Bart pulling the rope tight and setting the grapnel like Lidia had shown him.

"See? Ye're a quick learner if I tease ye hard enough." Lidia said, and her ears twitched, eyes flickering to the side -- even Bart could hear this one, a group of soldiers marching with purpose. The pair's eyes met in mutual gazes of understanding, surely they'd heard the din of the burly Paladin's fumbles. Bart stepped to one side as Lidia all but flew up the rope, her long limbs swayed to and fro in a practiced sort of rhythm that ate up the distance with such fluid grace that he was forced to blink in the dull twilight, to make sure his half-fae friend had not indeed merely grown wings and taken flight.

"Nae time to gawk, up quick-like!" Lidia hissed in a harsh whisper, Bart jarred out of his reverie at her frankly preternatural agility to ascend himself.

Bart was not preternaturally agile, however as he grasped the mantle -- he was incredibly strong.

Where Lidia had flowed up the rope like a darting wisp of smoke climbing the chimney proper on agility and balance -- Bart overcame the problem of height as he did more or less all things in his life: by main force. He grasped both the mantle and the rope, and he_heaved_. The rim of the chimney buckled slightly as the tines of the grapnel went from set to buried as Bart didn't so much as climb the rope as throw himself up it in great, hand-over-hand motions that stressed both the cordage and its mooring as Bart simply ignored all caveats to finesse and decided it was simply work to be done and gravity was the burden he had to carry in the doing of it.

There was not a moment to spare, as Bart's legs cleared the second-story crossbeams, the clatter of armor and bones filled the first floor of the shop, Bart's hand lashing down at the last second to drag the slack of the rope up behind him, thrusting his arms and legs out hard against the edges of the chimney, sweat beading on his brow as he relied on the mantle and pure pressure to keep himself wedged between the chimney's walls, flush to the far one as he could be in the irregular masonry.

Lidia was gone, and Bart was forced to close his eyes to cover the glow of his mantle. Beneath them, he heard the clink of mail and leather tooling, the slow creaking sound of a gambeson stretching along with a limb, hoarse, irregular breathing coming in slow intervals before slowly fading away, the sounds beneath him going with it. There was a faint stir near his head.

"Nae move a hair." Lidia's voice came to him quiet as a mouse; "There's one in front o' the hearth. Keep that eye shut, and listen." she breathed, and then after a spell, he felt her presence vanish again more than heard it, the air just more empty. Bart was never one to turn down sound advice from professionals and kept his eyes closed. Focusing his breathing he slowly moved one arm up, setting the limb to maximum extension. He listened, there was a clatter of rubble, and a series of curses and Bart pulled himself upwards smoothly, arm shaking as it strained even with the mantle's might to pull him upwards by sheer flexing of the sole limb alone.

Quiet settled again, and he sucked air through his teeth. He braced lightly as a pebble dislodged from the rim where the grapnel was buried, rattling off his helmet. He clenched his teeth down on a curse as it fell and skipped from stone to stone, wall to wall before dropping unceremoniously into the ash pile at the base of the ruined hearth.

Bart held his breath, barely daring to move. He shut his eyes as he heard the creak of leather and mail again, a faint sifting sound of something rooting around in the ashes. The long, twisting creak of extended leather -- and Bart didn't need to open his own eyes to know that there was a pair of cold, undead eyes peering up through the dimness at them. They were as helpless as he was in the dark he reminded himself even as he felt those eyes staring holes into him through the darkness of his eyelids. A long moment passed, and Bart's lungs screamed for air.

There was a hawking sound and a rheumy hacking expectoration -- then the sound of rusty, clinking mail moved off towards the street -- followed by a similar clatter from afar, the sound of feet on stones moving towards the main avenue.

Bart breathed out heavily and opened his eyes, relaxing a bit as he looked up to spy Lidia peeking over the rim of the chimney. Her face and hands were smeared with soot, a fate he doubtlessly was already doomed to once he escaped the gloom. She smiled at him.

"I cannae believe it dinnae see either o' us. C'mon get up here a'fore ye sweat the color out o' ye hair," she said, offering Bart a clear path to heave himself up onto the roof, rolling heavily onto his back across the thick, heavy double-wall that ran the length of the two back-to-back plots that formed the massive three-story pleasure house.

"I chose the right profession. I do not have the constitution for thievery," Bart wheezed, prying off his gauntlet to wipe his brow with a thumb; "I will stick to fighting, that is reasonable exercise, for reasonable men." he panted, getting a laugh from Lidia as she ghosted by him, patting the metal of his pauldron. The big man lay there a moment, arms and joints on fire, muscles that he had not toned and conditioned extremely irate about being suddenly stressed far beyond their usual duties. If he had not great respect for Lidia's fitness before, he'd redoubled it just now.

Rolling over, the big man took a moment to adjust his twisted harness, crouched along a row of similar stacks of tightly packed chimneys and vents, the yawning ruin of collapsed roofs to either side of him. They stood upon the two conjoined back walls of the building -- two buildings really, that ran in a row along the inner curve of the avenues. Shopfronts, businesses, and lounges galore, the place the well-off once played, now just another crumbled ruin.

"You call this wide enough?" Bart asked as he caught up with her, moving at a half-crouch, half-crawl along the uneven masonry, the thick supporting wall was double and then some the width of the average beam or exterior buttresses -- but that still barely made it a span wider than his heels square. Lidia peeked up at him from where she crouched at the end, her soft doeskin boots far more useful on the tenuous ground than his heavy hobnails.

"'Tis plenty wide, Big Brother, ye jus' are as well," she said innocently, gamely hopping back to her feet and balancing with ease on the slim walk of stones and ruined chimney stacks, Bart keeping his body fairly low for both sake of keeping his profile down -- and keeping himself grounded. Thieves' Highway indeed; "Iffin' ye are doin' second-story work tae begin with, ye cannae be tae large," she said, shrugging ruefully. "Sorry Big Brother, nae much future in thievery for ye. Too big," she remarked as Bart finished shifting and jostling his armor back into place.

"However will I go on?" he remarked in a total deadpan, earning a crooked smirk from Lidia as she took the lead once more.

Running the Thieves' Highway proved to be a more nuanced task than Bart expected -- moreso as he found the roofs of the manor district in far better repair than expected. Much of the larger homes and block-house businesses were tiny citadels of masonry and mortar, with minimal shingles to match the style. Much of the roofs themselves had collapsed into solid-stone attics and second floors, creating a whole series of complex new pathways to follow. Rapidly, he was given a crash course in second-story stealth that he was woefully under-prepared for -- It was a task about economy of movement more than silence or speed. Bart found himself more being instructed on how to move well rather than fast -- Lidia quietly calling out footholds and snares to capitalize on and avoid. He was reminded of the core basis of swordplay being good footwork.

"They ne'er seem tae look up," she remarked as they continued along rooftop to rooftop, the district's streets being mostly meant to be walked meant that most of the ruins had gaps of no more than a few spans between them -- though there had been more than a few harrowing chasms they'd been forced to cross with timed leaps between shifting, sharp-eared patrols. Bart paused by the edge, peering down with her.

"An oversight we should thank God for," Bart agreed, keeping his head low -- the monsters below did not scan the horizon in constant paranoia, but even as preoccupied as they were; they were soldiers and would recognize the gleam of worked steel if he was not cautious. Lidia jerked her chin, moving them back along the path she'd laid out for them.

They made astounding time, Bart was able to in some places move_faster_ at a cautious pace than he ever had on the cobblestones at a dead run simply by cutting across a building directly rather than being forced the long way around. In what felt like less than a quarter of an hour, Bart and Lidia hurdled yet another gap, bringing them alongside the central ring of properties that was the crown jewel of the northern half of the Manor District, where the highest of high had sat, a place once always busy with the bustle of servants and guardsmen -- now barren save for the tattered, still banners and totems of the conquering cursed men.

Seeing it like this was as to seeing it for the first time. Being under neither obscuring distance nor cover of darkness alone would have been enough for Bart's eyes, rarely had he reason to enter this well-heeled part of town, first as a simple miller's son, and later as a novice of the Radiant Order; he had little knowledge of this part of ostensibly his city.

Even so, the circle of homes had undergone so much more extreme a change that he found it unrecognizable as civilization, let alone the bustling place of high society that he had crept beneath in pursuit of monsters only a year prior.

Desolation was the word that struck him as they peered over the edge of the ruined home they'd landed atop at the circle's edge, Desolation and ruin. What had once been a fountain and small park was a ravaged crater, the earth sunken in and impacted, collapsed from beneath and hollowed out. Tunnels ran in and out of it, the underground warrens sunken and opened to the sky. Fires burned here and there, guttering, pitiful things fed by debris. Campsites and posts put up by the Plagued Men, a lived-in tattering to things that added but another thin layer of desperation just in that central ring alone.

Beyond it was ruin.

Where before the destruction had seemed random, the brutal calculus of a plundering force -- this was measured, deliberate. Each of the homes in the surrounding circle, each manor had been pointedly, methodically laid waste. Flattened and torn asunder, the front-facing walls of each grand homestead were torn down, ripped out wall-for-wall back to the very flagstones -- forming a series of amphitheaters of ruin, each festooned with the totems and banners of the warring factions. Indeed, many fetid bodies dwelled in close proximity, packed in like wild dogs, sniffing and snarling at one another around their guttering campfires and staked territories -- the edges of each wrecked holdfast stationed by bristling sentries, hissing taunts and provocations at their rivals. Bart scanned these demolished camps, and his eyes went wide behind his visor as he saw the center-most of each, the densest part of the milling bodies all sat around... thrones. He found himself squinting across the haze and gloom but in each of the flayed manors, the centralmost point of the opened structures was occupied by a large, standing throne. There was no symmetry, no art or form -- but to call the seats anything else was to simply ignore the gravity of their presence.

They were formed from bones and flesh, irregular, twisted, and terrible -- and most horrible of all -- they breathed

"God in his Heaven," Bart rasped, Lidia's eyes turning towards his as they both scanned the grounds, he pointed, her expression rapidly morphing from squinting scrutiny to wide-eyed horror.

"Th-those are people..." she said to no one in particular. The arching spires of each throne were an amalgamation of still-living flesh and bone; at the armrests and back writhing, tortured faces were visible, the seeming mounds of earth beneath them instead resolving into masses of bone and meat bound and fused together -- the grim process of the Wendigo's all-consuming, all-rotting presence.

Upon these thrones sat terrors, Bart had no time to count the banners nor ruined homes as his mind raced to be done with yet another twisted horror beyond faith or light. They were men once, that much he was certain of. They carried themselves as men, moved as such but... bore little other likeness. Armor, meat, and bone had fused together into a carapace of waxen flesh and ossified plates, each one a wildly different mix of borrowed meat and limbs. One had two forearms sprouting conjoined from one elbow, ending in talons like meathooks, another had forsaken a limb entirely for a long, raptorial construct of tendon and teeth that looked like the assembled flesh of a man into some hideous approximation of a Praying Mantis' catching claws. They were varied, unique, and equally horrible to look at, pulsing and twitching with visible bone, sinew, and black bloody ichor.

"They're.. champions. Chieftains. Leaders of a sort., Bart said in instinctual understanding, each twitching, breathing throne of flesh and suffering inhabited by a colossal paragon of the sect, a Great Apostate Lord here in their eternal reward. The totems and banners borrowed themes from them, a three-eyed skull with a split jaw matching its own master's bifurcated visage, another red-splattered banner clearly matched its owner's sexless, flayed and gore-soaked frame -- constantly dripping down in a solid runnel of ichor even from this hazy distance. Bart felt his gorge rise as each Apostate Lord's presence only layered on disgust, fear, and loathing.

"They're monsters," Lidia breathed, eyes dilated, twitching rapidly across the monstrous forms with primal anxiety. She was not shielded as he was, not buffered against the prying insanity of this place by the golden mantle of The Lady in White -- to imagine how they looked to her...

"Look... there's armor, weapons in the thrones," Bart said, even still he was unable to look away, spying the gore-smeared plates and blades as they rose like hideous steely quills and scutes from the bony mass... "They must answer challenges as thus."

"God," Lidia breathed, pale with obvious nausea at the writhing abominations. "T-they're all still alive in th-that mess o'... meat..." she said in sudden, terrible understanding.

"Woe unto the vanquished," Bart said icily, and Lidia promptly turned her head and was violently ill. Bart could not blame her.

The sound of song finally, mercifully clawed its way through the idle din of the warring houses of apostates and monsters, demanding their attention; Lidia's head snapped up, lips spattered with sick still as she all but climbed over Bart towards the sound.

"Gram!" she gasped, the cavalier's resonant baritone cutting through the din, raised in yet another hymn to the Lady and God. Beyond the ruination of the square and its parks and homes stood the once-familiar ruins of a place that lived in both viewer's memories as an experience of horror. The Aldea Mansion was the centerpiece of the outer ring, the crush of the various decaying tribes of warriors were all focused on it, eyes upon it.

It had been given the same treatment as the other homes, stripped back stone-by-stone until the inner walls were laid bare, indeed back to the parlor room where they had first laid eyes on Mihai in his original guise as Magistrate of Lachheim -- yet in its recesses stood no throne of horrors, no plundered treasures or soldiers. In its place instead, stood a ring of stones -- in its circle cut some kind of unholy sigil, crudely carved down into the flagstones by hand. The sigil itself was stained in faded blood and viscera long-sunk deep into the masonry, every crack and grain of stone steeped in the spilled vitals of hundreds of dead.

Gram stood in that ring, visor down, weapon in hand, voice raised in song.

And around him were bodies.

The blood spilled on the sigil near him was fresh and gleaming; each slain foe dragged outside of the circle and deposited in an unceremonious pile. The soldier had been busy, even void of a Mantle or any blessing, his grit and stamina had carried him forward -- but not without cost. Even from the distance, Bart could see that much of the blood staining his silvery plate was his own, and clear now of the echoing walls, he could hear the raggedness of the hymn's stanzas. Truly, even his iron posture wavered a bit as he faced his opponent in the circle -- another plagued soldier. A hulking brute of a creature, its hands wrapped around an unadorned sword of blackened iron and saw-toothed edges, its torso bare of all but bits of armor that seem to have melded to its chest and arms, its visage hidden entirely behind a dented, spiked helmet.

The beast rushed at him, and the distance obscured the melee, the clash of steel and muscle echoing, and Gram's song only grew stronger -- to falter with a sound of pain for but a moment.

"GRAM!" Lidia wailed and then clapped her hands over her mouth, eyes wide and brimming with tears, she looked up to Bart, whose own gaze was lost, teeth clenched. "We cannae jus' sit here Bart!" she cried softly, and the big man raised his hands uselessly.

"I'm open to ideas, short of God giving me wings to match the halo he's apparently hung upon me, I cannot see how to reach him!" he answered in frustration, peering down at the conflict. Around him the rest of the plagued men had arranged themselves as spectators, only Gram and the hulking abomination crossed the circle of stones... it was an arena.

"This is a duel of some kind," Bart said in realization, the pair below clashed again -- Gram winning the contest of the moment on his polearm's superior reach and leverage, Bart's eyes flicked around rapidly, noting the bodies, the two heavy wooden posts driven into opposite sides of the arena. Sides. Corners. "This reeks of Parias' vendetta against the church."

"Wouldn't he jus' take that up with ye? He hates ye like cats do water," Lidia said, even she had seen it clearly in their clash before the Counthouse. Bart shook his head, still scanning the area for anything.

"Both Parias and Mihai seemed surprised by Gram, even in the fight back in the Church -- Parias was entirely unprepared for Gram to attack him." the big Paladin furrowed his brow; "I don't think Gram is supposed to be here."

Lidia met his eyes, searching, chewing her lip, "Dinnae know what ye mean, none o' us are supposed tae be here!" she groused and Bart shook his head once more, rising slightly to lean over the crumbled edge of the rooftop... an idea forming in his head.

"Gram wasn't with us when we crossed paths with these monsters here in Lachheim, I think whatever accidental prophecy that incensed Mihai to such lengths was locked in then. Gram's an accident. They didn't know what to do with him, he keeps surprising them. Old monsters like that hate being surprised," Bart said then turned his head to her suddenly.

"Can you find the undercroft to the estate? The one we entered through Mihai's kitchens?" Bart asked, and the little thief looked at him with pure, daft lack of understanding for a moment before it dawned on her, her gaze torn back to looking at the two figures lashing at each other in the arena. Her eyes hardened.

"Yeah. Yeah, I can," she said, her voice confident. Firm. She was away almost like a shot, pushing past Bart's frame and taking a path across the rooftops towards the back half of the inner ring, only pausing long enough to give him a withering look.

"Move it, hayseed, my sweetheart's singin' his heart out fer me and I'll ne'er forgive ye if the song ends too soon."

~ ~ ~

To call the pace across the rooftops anything but a mad dash would be to undersell the urgency, the pair sprinting pell-mell to the soaring sound of Gram's voice down below as he did battle before the assembled horrors of apostasy. Lidia's feet only seemed to make cursory contact with the slats and stones as she sprang ahead, Bart was forced to follow behind her on his own course as the pair abandoned subtlety for speed.

The zone of desolation around the central circle fell off gradually at the edges of it, Bart and Lidia's manic trek leading them rapidly downwards, the sleek thief springing from handhold to foothold as they found shorter and shorter ruins, barely dodging patrols -- and in some cases Lidia simply sailing clear over them with great, bounding leaps that forced Bart to grasp his mantle to keep pace with the weight of his armor and bulk slowing him down. Her sidhe blood seemed to empower her naught with strength but wiry agility the likes of which he'd never seen in common men, or even his own Paladins.

"We're going to have the entire district after us if we keep this up!" Bart called to her as they hurdled another small gap, the looming ruins of the Aldea Manor ever at their left-hand side as they circled towards its walled back lot.

"Hells if they aren't already!" she spat back from her higher road, her light body letting her all but run across beams too thin and light for the armored juggernaut of a Paladin to follow, her gazelle-like form leaping through the air with ease as she transitioned from the upper paths to run alongside her friend again, looking him dead in the eyes, her green sidhe-given gaze hard as steel.

"They already took me home, hell if I'm givin' these fookin' monsters another piece o' my heart on account o' bein' timid."

Bart found he couldn't argue with that sentiment.

The pair came to the end of their route, the rear wall of the Aldea Estate clearly in view, and unnervingly pristine compared to the ravaged facade out front. Lidia gave a sound of frustration, hands shaking in tiny fists -- and before Bart could stop her, she hurdled the edge of the rooftop, leaping right off the side and vanishing from sight.

"Lidia!" Bart shouted, running forward in a clatter of plates and mail, his hands hitting the raised edge of the rooftop, scanning the street desperately.

"What are ye waitin' for hayseed?" she called up, Bart spied her below, standing on an awning lightly, hands on her hips some dozen spans below, rather than smeared on the pavement. He blew out a breath and hitched his own leg over the edge, vaulting the barrier. Lidia's eyes grew large as dinner plates and she quickly scrambled to one side of the rickety awning as Bart's twenty-two stone crashed down next to her, causing the entire assembly to shudder and buckle beneath the impact.

"Tae fookin' big!" she hissed as the structure began to list, the little thief scrambling down one of the supporting beams, shimmying with arms and legs down to the ground as Bart regained his feet just in time for the entire thing to rip free of the building and begin to yaw forwards ominously. Bart clenched his teeth and bit down on a particularly vile curse as he and the awning both took a sliding ride forward into the cobblestones in a great, rending crash of timber and debris, the big Paladin leaping clear of the collapse at the last possible second, rolling painfully across the stones in a loud clattering of armor and swearing.

"Bart!" Lidia cried, scrambling to his side as the Paladin groaned, dragging himself to his feet.

"Don't worry about me, run. No way every damnable monster in a block didn't hear that," he hissed, rolling his shoulder as he nodded forward. Lidia blanched at him, grasping his hand and helping him to his feet.

"Shut it, ye fookin' great ironworks. Ain't leavin' ye to limp after me," she groused, Bart, smiling under his visor as he found his feet, the two taking off at a sprint, the sound of marching feet closing in the distance.

"Fookin' hell they wrecked every single fookin' wall in the damned city but this one!?" she growled in growing irritation, the two running along the back wall of the estate and finding its large, spike-topped iron-barred fence fully intact.

"Mihai must not have cared for visitors," Bart commented as he kept pace just behind her, scanning along it with his own eyes, easily two men high and free of anything resembling solid handholds, the thick iron bars seemed fairly impenetrable. The two kept running until they came to the rear servant's entrance -- which was chained and barred shut. Lidia spat a muffled oath and looked at the massive padlock with dubious eyes. The sound of a warhorn blared in the far streets. Bart snarled under his visor.

"To hell with it," he grunted and grasped his mantle.

"Bart?" Lidia asked as the flash of gold lit his eye, and suddenly the big Paladin swerved sharply, digging in his feet and ducking his head, the little thief windmilled her arms as she jumped back out of the way.

"FOOK ME!" she shouted as the armored knight simply went_through_ the wrought-iron gate, his Mantle-given strength and mass bulling into the rusted, pitted bars and coming up short at first, a hideous sound of bending metal as the padlock strained, with another gleam of gold, he drove his shoulder forwards again and the gate banged not only open but half off its hinges as he thrust himself through it like a bull in a tea shop.

"... Fook me," Lidia breathed mutely once more as he stepped through, chest heaving, and nodded at her to follow, the gate swinging lightly before falling off its hinges with a clatter.

"Yer real subtle, Hayseed," she said wryly and Bart grinned behind his visor, though she could only see it in his eyes.

"That's me, subtle," he replied laconically.

The pair stole across the grounds, the lawns dead and pitted with dried scabrous weeds, and anything resembling the old statuary and trellis that had stood here before had been neglected to the point of crumbling and collapsing under their own weight. Urgency moved their feet, the pall of the place pressing down like physical weight as Lidia's sharp eyes alighted on the deep-sunken, iron-barred door leading to the undercrofts, half-buried in rotted barrels and encrusted with rust and grime.

"Ach, what a fookin' shitepile," she swore vociferously, kicking the debris out of the way as she tried the door, which was locked firmly in place. Swearing anew, she knelt down at the lock, her picks springing to her hand from her satchel as if by magic as she set to work.

"Fookin'... God-forsaken..." she hissed as a sharp _snap_of metal came to Bart's ears, followed by another milk-curdling oath as she peered into the lock after the end of her broken pick.

"Fookin' piece of shite lock is rusted straight tae the fookin' wall." she snapped, banging her fist on it and peering down the keyway again; "Little prick ate my favorite jigger." she lamented, clenching her fists and shaking the door again. Behind her, Bart cleared his throat.

"What?!" she snapped at him in agitation, and in response he simply grinned wide -- his eyes crinkling at the edges beneath his visor.

The door banged off its hinges in a hideous cacophony of screaming metal and splintering mortar and stone, sailing straight past the door frame to smash into the far wall. The airborne portal ripped and tore its way through a series of moldering crates and barrels before it slowly, ominously tilted back forward, and smashed to the floor in a single, final movement. Bart retracted his leg, stepping into the gloom with his sword drawn, its blade alight with a golden flame to match the gleam of his eye as he once more reveled in his Lady-Blessed might in this grim place. Lidia stuck her head around the doorjamb as the big Paladin swept the room. It was much as they'd left it -- far more ramshackle and rotted, but also empty -- the torn gap into the storm sewers having further collapsed some time ago, blocking the passage down into the bowels of the city. Small mercies.

"Ye 'ave a personal hatred o' doors or just a special mood today?" she asked cheekily, Bart snorting under his helmet as he raised his blade above his head, letting its crackling flame illuminate the undercroft as he stalked towards the kitchen passageway.

"Looks abandoned," the Paladin mused, Lidia nodded, moving lightly past the big warrior to the next door, finding it not only unlocked -- but ajar.

"Definitely not many comin' down tae the larder often," she agreed, the pair pushing down the dust and grime-covered passage. Bart found the corridor even more cramped in his new armor with its wider pauldrons.

"Cannot imagine why" he grunted, his already grimy surcoat now all but dyed a grisly rusty brown by a mix of dirt, gore, and various kinds of effluvium he'd been spattered, soaked, and dragged through -- made worse by the greasy, paste-like layer of caked-on detritus that clung to the walls and floor like soot and ash, likely what they were -- remnants of the burning.

The pair pushed past into the kitchens, and Lidia immediately went pale and made a soft mewling sound of displeasure, Bart's eyes hardening.

"Well, found the new larder," he said dryly, Lidia turning and dry-heaving as the smell hit them both. Blood and rot, the chewing burble of maggots feasting rising above the din of flies.

The kitchen was a scene of horror. Human remains dangled from hooks in various states of butchery and the pots and cauldrons all hung and bubbled with grisly soups and stews rife with questionable hunks of flesh -- where they did not simply have whole limbs jutting out of the mix like some unholy bone stock. Bart cast his eyes around for foes, finding none here and the door ajar, the bubble and boil of the hearth wafting nauseating aromas to them.

"Bart, get me outta here 'fore I heave my entire gut up onto tae bricks," Lidia gasped weakly, her hands over her mouth and nose, eyes watering and skin ashen with disgust. The big Paladin nodded, shepherding her to the open door, retracing their long-past escape from the Magistrate's clutches.

"Looks like everyone left for the event," Bart ventured, and Lidia nodded, perking up as they passed the hall towards the parlor -- Gram's voice raised anew, coming to them through the shattered and ravaged walls clear and strong.

"He's alive!" she crowed, color returning to her cheeks as she stole ahead of Bart in desperate need, the Paladin having to all but run to keep up pace with her as they hung a sharp left into the main hall, and came up short -- Bart snarling and reaching out, snagging her collar and jerking her backward from the yawning doorway with a soft yelp.

"What the fookin'-" Lidia began, but Bart hissed a shushing sound at her and pointed.

The entire front half of the manor was gone. They had seen as much from the outside, but here they were open and exposed, the doorway leading into the parlor and the arena Gram fought in torn and ripped wide enough for one of the hundred-handed giants to walk through unimpeded, everything back beyond that was a collapsed, debris-piled ruin, leaving them only one path forwards and no readily available exits. Lidia looked up at him with daggers in her stare.

"We know there's a whole fookin' shitepile o' monsters out there, why the fookin' hold up?!" she snarled at him, and he shook his head.

"A plan, we need something. If we just rush out there we'll get swarmed." "An' iffin' we dinnae do that Gram will_die._"

"I'd rather avoid killing all of us, if you don't mind," Bart added with a brusque tone full of finality, and the little thief pulled against his iron-like grip once to no avail and sighed, defeated.

"Fine, what's ye plan?" she asked. Bart furrowed his brow and leaned around the door frame slightly, peering around. Gram and the plagued champion still dueled one another, each one bleeding freely from several terrible wounds, Lidia was right -- he wouldn't last much longer. The upper floors were exposed above them, the supporting columns bare and visible. His eyes brightened as he peered up at those pillars, straining, cracked, about to break...

"I think I'll kick over Mihai's house."

Lidia stared at him again and shrugged after a moment. "Fine. Ye seem tae be real fond o' wreckin' shite up right now, dinnae let me stop ye," she said, Bart grinned.

"We'll go out at once. You push the creature off him and I'll pour the Lady's blessing into him, I should be able to knit the worst of the damage quickly if you can hold it," he said, and Lidia once again nodded curtly, pulling her messer free of its scabbard along with her narrow poniard, flipping it through her fingers in an agitated tic.

"I'll hold 'em, dinnae ye worry," she said grimly, and it was Bart's turn to nod.

They returned to the doorway, Lidia bolting across it to the far side, Bart staying at the near one so they flanked either end of the door. Gram's thrumming voice was thready but holding, his hymns filling Bart's soul with the remembered glory of God and the Lady, Lidia's face was a mask of determination and fury as Bart's eye flashed golden -- and he gave the signal.

The two burst into the room, blades in hand. Bart crossed the space in no less than three great strides, Lidia out-pacing him with her nimble gazelle-like springing gait to leap into the fray with a battle cry that would have done any member of the Order proud, her blade leading.

"DO NOT!" came a powerful voice -- Gram's voice. Lidia and Bart both halted.

Gram turned his head to his allies, his chest heaving, the roar of the beasts down below suddenly became agitated rather than exuberant, the assembled horrors clashing against one another as the newcomers arrived. Lidia looked confused and moved forward again, Gram swung his polearm outwards -- blocking her advance.

"I SAID DO NOT!" he bellowed again, setting his feet against the faceless helmed horror before him, he took his weapon in both hands once more, determination in his every fiber as he advanced. Bart froze, and Lidia seemed unable to process it.

"Wh-what cannae ye..." She murmured, but Gram all but bodily threw her from the circle of stones as the monster shrieked and rushed them both. Gram twisted artfully, almost like a dancer on a pirouette, whirling out of the way of the heavy downward strike, and keeping the momentum going as he continued to out-pace the follow-up series of surprisingly crisp hacks, cuts, and thrusts the monster used to press its advantage with its saw-toothed weapon. Gram took it in stride, and with a careful, measured movement, stopped his retreat at the very edge of the ring and leaned back suddenly -- the blade whistling past his visor by mere fingerbreadths.

"GRAM!" the little thief wailed, and set to attack the beast assailing her love once more -- but even tired and bloodied, the dutiful soldier was not beaten. The helmed horror had over-committed on the final swing, overextending itself, and Gram pounced upon that mistake like a kingfisher in flight. He leapt forwards, both hands on his polearm as he swung the heavy pick-end of the bit down into the beast's nape, not simply puncturing into the flesh -- but hooking it into the monster's neck and with a twist and yank -- he dragged it forwards.

Where his own, heavy-heeled riding boot was waiting.

Heel-first it drove the monster's face into its own visor and its spine back into the cruel hook of the polearm's scythe-like pick, even Bart heard the gut-rending SNAP as the creature's spine crunched and powdered under the brutal leverage of the blow. The body went slack like a puppet with cut strings, falling heavily to the floor, twitching -- not quite dead, but well on its way. Gram stumbled but found his feet.

"TWENTY!" he roared, turning to the assembled horrors. "TWENTY OF YOUR BEST AGAINST ONE MORTAL MAN!" he all but screamed, his voice hoarse with a furor he'd never heard from the taciturn man. Bart looked around, and with a brief count confirmed -- nineteen bodies lay to either side of the ring, slain to the man by gaping spear and staving pick wounds. The tall cavalier banged his polearm's haft into the floor, beating his chest with a gauntlet-clad fist.

"CAN YOU MUSTER NO GREATER MIGHT? CAN ALL THE EVIL OF THE QUEEN OF HARLOTS NOT KILL ONE PETTY MAN?!" he bellowed, froth flecking the grill of his visor as he stumbled, his strength ebbing suddenly in his outburst, Lidia ran forwards.

"Bart! He's too heavy!" she gasped, trying to shoulder his weight -- but the big Paladin had other problems. Enshrined in his mantle's might, he saw the approaching horde of apostate monsters fighting with one another to climb the amphitheater of ruined stone and cut into them all. He had no time, he had to skip to the end of their plan. The holy warrior hurdled the bodies, driving his sword blade down into the very masonry -- he lashed out with both hands, grabbing both Gram and Lidia by the scruffs of their harnesses, and with a great yell, twisted his entire body as a fulcrum -- and bodily threw them in a bouncing, jangling pile of armor and weapons back through the doorway.

"B-Bart!" Lidia shrieked in pain and surprise as the big warrior turned to the struggling horde. Their in-fighting had kicked up to full-on fighting as they jockeyed for the glory of killing this interloper in their midst. Bart did not waste a moment, charging forward, he reached deep for every drop of power he could muster.

He hit the pillar like a runaway oxcart. The sheer impact caused his armor to squeal in protest, his body and bones following suit as the dilapidated pillar tangibly shuddered beneath his assault. There was a sharp crack of fracturing stone, the support column already heavily compromised by the destruction of its load-bearing walls.

"GOD GIVE ME STRENGTH!" the Paladin screamed, his eye blazing up like a literal flame behind his visor as his muscles surged with divine might, the very girth and size of his frame seeming to swell and grow with the investiture of holy energy. The swarming monsters had solved much of their differences and the first were already cresting the uneven ramp of rubble. Bart redoubled his efforts, leaning forward sharply in another savage slam of his shoulder that went so far as to visibly dent his pauldron as he shoved it not merely into the stonework but through it with a cry that crossed the line from human to sheer bestial vocalization.

The very air split with the sharp snap and crunch of shattering stone and mortar as the Paladin, body practically alight with divine might, swept his arm and shoulder through the fractured stones, ripping a chunk out of the supporting pillar and sending it collapsing into a roaring heap of debris. Bart took off at a sprint, ducking under a swiping cut from the leading Plagued soldier as he swept his sword out of the stones with a shower of sparks, running flat-out as behind him the sky fell. Massive flagstones and chunks of masonry as big as a man poured down, a large section of the tilting upper floors flattening the monster who had sliced at him as he made the door.

"RUN!" he bellowed, still in the Mantle's embrace he grasped Gram by his armor and heaved the cavalier onto his shoulder -- which the tall man answered with a cry of pain and surprise, clinging fast to his weapon as the trio lit out of the collapsing building, back down to the kitchens.

"Are ye CRAZY we cannae be unnerground in THIS!" Lidia shrieked and Bart shook his head, shoving her forwards.

"Keep running or we're dead!" He bellowed, ducking his head as he followed her into the cramped passage, both his and Gram's armor sparking as they wedged into the too-small passageway, Bart having to practically run doubled-over to not simply grind his comrade's slung frame into the stonework.

"Don't look back!" Gram shouted, his angle giving him a view of the approaching devastation -- Lidia of course, did not listen, flicking her gaze behind them her green eyes widened to the size of saucers and she gave a keening cry of fear and ran faster, rapidly outpacing the two knights. Bart dare not look back, the roar and crush of stones deafeningly close.

"The door!" Lidia shrieked, the building collapsing ahead of them now, the fall of the upper floors causing a chain reaction throughout the rest of the ruined building, flagstones heaved, and ahead of them chunks of bricks and dust rained down -- but the doorway shone the half-light of the outdoors like a beacon, and the trio made for it in a mad rush. Lidia dove out of the doorway clear, a full room-length ahead of the armored pair. Behind and all around him, Bart could feel the crushing stones falling -- and he knew he wouldn't make it.

"Brace yourself!" he called to Gram, who tensed as Bart lunged forwards a step, swinging the armored man in a loop before simply_flinging_ the armored soldier ahead of him, through the doorway in another tumbling heap, the cavalier using his polearm to dig in and brake his slide through the turf. Bart winced as a heavy stone clanged off his armor, and with a shout of desperation, he dove forward.

A great blast of dust and debris followed him in a billowing plume as he hit the stones, tucking his shoulders he slid forward hard, a trail of sparks following him as he ground against the masonry and skidded through the doorway as the ceiling above them gave out -- and the entire undercroft was promptly buried in a tomb of stone.

Bart looked up, coughing and blinking he raised himself up and felt something against his foot. He peered downwards.

A single block of masonry the size of a warhorse had crushed outwards, bowing the doorway into an unrecognizable mass of mortar and bricks -- less than a finger's breadth from Bart's foot.

"God's Blood," the big Paladin breathed out, sinking back against the stones with a dry, half-mad cackle.

"You... are mighty hard on buildings, friend," Gram's voice came weakly, and Lidia's laughter joined Bart's, the little thief leaning against the Paladin's heavy frame, pulling Gram into her arms as she chortled helplessly.

It was a good laugh, good enough that even Gram couldn't help but join in. The trio all leaned together in a heap, covered in dust, blood, and debris -- laughing like madmen.

It was a good laugh. One sorely needed.

~ ~ ~

Bart's healing hands righted Gram in but a moment or two, at least enough to move under his own power. The litany of injuries the man had endured had brought Lidia to tears of fury as the Paladin worked to heal what he could in the short time they had allotted before the rancor and chaos calmed enough that the apostate horrors rallied and found them.

"I did not expect it to be so... warm," Gram said, breastplate hanging open, Bart's hands laying over his flat, muscled chest; gauntlets cast aside. Gram was nearly of a size with Bart, but where the Paladin was burly and bulky, the Cavalier's frame was densely packed with flat, toned muscle.

"Ye thought a great big ol' softie like Bart would be cold?" Lidia asked, holding the tall Darrowmite from behind, her chin propped on his head as Bart worked. The trio had limped away from the entrance and ensconced themselves in another ruined house in a collapsed basement, giving Bart enough time to finish putting his friend back together. The tall man snorted a bit.

"I suppose that would be out of character," he agreed in his usual cool tone, his normally pale skin returning to its familiar creamy hue rather than the chalky, ashen pale he'd had, leaving more of his blood on the floor than in his body. Lidia turned his face to hers.

"Ye have a great, big ol' heart loverboy -- but ye're terrible at readin' folks," she quipped, and Gram gave a weak, lopsided smile.

"Do teach me, Little Redcap," he said in a quiet voice, and the green-eyed thief could only smile, and drew his mouth to hers in a long, heart-felt kiss.

"Ahem." Bart cleared his throat, the two turning and seeing the scarred Paladin still hovering but a span or two away from them, hands radiant with the gossamer gold outline of the healing energies as he worked. Gram simply raised an eyebrow, but Lidia turned a very impressive shade of red to match her hood -- one she pulled up to shield her face from her adopted brother's scrutiny.

"Sorry to intrude, but you are still laid open like a stuck pig," Bart chided them gently, turning his glimmering golden gaze back down to the man's wounds, the cavalier chuckling softly and Lidia pulling him closer, running her hand across his chest, feeling the new, angry pink scars there.

"Apologies, friend Bart. Surely the mate of the Queen of Love understands..." he ventured, and it was Bart's turn to chuckle.

"I don't imagine you would fancy being in my lap the next time Cithara..." Bart's throat tightened as he recalled the last he'd seen of his beloved, and he swallowed heavily. The two lovers looked at him shamefaced as he shook his head, clearing the dark thoughts.

"She would approve, I am remiss," he apologized, taking his hands back to the task of repairing the many grievous wounds the man had suffered. Gram had been beaten worse than Lidia had, and only endured it thanks to his larger, tougher frame and heavier armor. A gauntlet-clad hand folded over his, and Bart looked back up to see Gram's gaze leveled at him, steadfast and true.

"We will get her back, friend," the severe Darrowmite said, and there was such conviction in his voice, that Bart was momentarily filled with shame for his own doubts. Gram gave his hand a squeeze and Lidia smiled at her adopted brother.

"Nae chance in this hell nae any other we dinnae save her," she agreed, laying her hand as well over top of Gram's. "She gave my big brother back tae me, I'll walk through fire tae pay that back."

Bart's eyes filled with tears, and he lowered his gaze. Unable to find words for the appreciation he held for his friends, his loved ones. He nodded, tears streaking his cheeks as he set about finishing up the rejuvenation of his newest fast friend.

It only took a few more minutes for Bart's clumsy, limited healing to put Gram right again, hale and whole save for several new scars. Bart assisted him in buckling his armor as Lidia and he filled the cavalier in on the events of the last few hours. The man's resolve was impressive -- his eyes only bugged from his skull once.

"The sole occupant of the Mantle? Unimaginable." the tall Darrowmite said, disbelief still in his voice, but not in his eyes, shifting his armor into place as Bart stood from where he knelt, reclaiming his own gauntlets and helm, nodding along.

"It's but a theory, but it seems sound," Bart said, tugging his gauntlets back into place, Gram looked at him with a level gaze.

"You know you are destroying yourself, yes?" he said, and Bart's spine stiffened midway through his second gauntlet. He took a slow breath and finished twisting the metal-riveted glove back into place, flexing his fingers.

"I... had a feeling, yes," Bart answered, and Lidia's face screwed up in chagrin.

"Ye bastard," she said quietly, her face hard. Gram shook his head as he tightened his breastplate's straps.

"Perhaps, or perhaps not. I am no Paladin or Priest, just a man of dogged belief," he said, looking back up at Bart, long mustaches bristling. "We are not made for such power, it strains us, body and soul. We are but mortal, no matter what number of years our sweet Lady may add to our lives."

"As you say," Bart agreed, taking back up his helm, looking down at its hanging mantling and proud, golden crown embedded into it like glittering heraldry. The Crown of the King of Love. The helmet felt heavy for a moment once more, as if the gold carried all the weight of that office, of the world and its troubles. He touched the foremost of its five-pointed crest, the golden spike reminiscent of the Unicorn's own horn in some ways, though not nearly so great and grand. He squared his shoulders and unlatched it, securing the steel casque around his head resolutely.

"I have tasks yet to complete however, I pray that this humble shell withstands the strain but a mite longer," he said, latching it shut pointedly with a crisp clack of steel.

Gram simply nodded, mimicking the motion with his own plumed helmet.

"Until the Pale Dawn calls us," Gram answered. Bart smiled and gave him a critical look.

"You're crooked," he said, and the tall Darrowmite looked at his pauldrons and sighed, giving Bart a little nod and straightening his spine. The big man stood with arms to either side of him, and banged both fists down on his pauldrons, knocking them down into even place on the man's frame -- and making the cavalier buckle just a bit.

"Thank you," he rasped a touch, rolling his shoulders as Lidia watched, pausing to roll one shoulder a bit more. "... You are a big one," he winced, and Bart smiled sheepishly.

"Sorry. Heavy-handed."

"Quite."

The trio left their hiding place shortly after, the collapse of the Aldea Estate had sent the entire district into a buzz of chaos that Lidia found easy to avoid, everywhere they went the patrolling Plagued Men were distracted with brutal in-fighting among those who simply weren't kicking in doors and scouring the houses for their quarry -- much of their efforts focused on the collapsed and still-sinking manor; its weight having collapsed the entire structure down into a yet-growing sinkhole as it breached the storm tunnels and catacombs below.

"Like sneakin' past drunk watchmen durin' the harvest festival," the little thief chirped smugly as she led them around another agitated, distracted patrol of grisly, skeletal soldiers -- too busy jostling and cursing at their fellows to be truly aware of their surroundings. It seemed the blame for their escape was undecided and being passed around at the end of a fist -- or a blade.

"Evil is ever self-destructive," Gram observed.

"Not to mention, quite dumb at times," Bart added as they slipped past the patrol, and seemingly for sheer cheek -- Lidia led them back out of the manor district through the very same alley they'd entered by, stepping over the bodies of the monsters they'd slain on their way in.

"Didn't even recover their dead. Beasts," Gram noted, looking up to Bart; "Even in the ring back there, they left their dead where they fell, only I bothered to kick their corpses from beneath my feet. No thought nor mindfulness of the dead, a blasphemy most foul."

"What were they doing with you in such a state?" Bart asked quietly, keeping his eyes alert -- once more relying on Lidia's sharp ears to fill in for his own deadened, steel-clad senses. Gram let his shoulders slacken a bit in a thoughtful pose as they crossed the line to the district's edge, the dull roar of the maelstrom slowly trickling in.

"I think I was to be made sport of. I could not understand much of what they said, their tongue was... wrong, not truly another language I do not think, it felt as if I..." he touched his brow through his raised visor; "... as if I was missing something needed to understand, if that can be made sense of."

Bart's eyes widened at that... had he been able to understand them? Most of their speech was just snarls and roars, but he'd never thought of it as unintelligible... he touched his chest idly... perhaps Wendigo's mark had left more in him than he had fully grasped. "No... I think I can grasp your meaning."

"Mn," Gram grunted with a nod, flicking his eyes to and fro; "Nonetheless, they overwhelmed me and pressured me into that ring and began throwing bigger and uglier beasts from their ranks at me, cheering and... I swear I saw the monsters betting some kind of tokens between each other," He said, curling his lip in a sneer. "I like to think I threw the curve of their odds something fierce."

Lidia giggled darkly at that, and Bart didn't bother to contain his own grin.

"I daresay that you did," Bart agreed, clapping the cavalier on the shoulder as they pushed past the canals, the maelstrom swirling ominously, dragging Gram's attention away with wide eyes.

"God's Blood," he swore -- a particularly stiff oath from the penitent soldier. Bart paused alongside him, Lidia coming up short and having to double back to where the two armored warriors had halted.

"It's not real, and yet..." Bart trailed off, gesturing limply at the yawning vortex -- and indeed the ruined and ravaged skyline of the city as a whole.

"I had not seen beyond the tall buildings, the devastation..." he breathed, his usual taciturn tone shaken a bit.

"Total," Bart agreed, Gram stared out across the water a moment longer, silence lapsing over the pair. Lidia's small form crept alongside him, her hand seeking out his, entwining their fingers together. The trio stood in that mute silence, letting their friend absorb the horror -- and come to terms with it. The little thief was perhaps the most affected, she'd been rough and tumble -- game for the fight, but now in Gram's presence, her love rescued -- Bart could see the crushing grief in her features. A home laid waste, never to be whole again. For the second time, no less. Gram also clearly noticed.

"We must punish this atrocity. Every brick and shingle a debt owed," he said resolutely after a moment, giving Lidia's hand a squeeze as he looked out across it. "I... have lost a home before, not so dramatically -- but I would have denied you a repeat such pain," he said, pulling her close to him. "I would have bled and died to deny you this pain."

"Oh Gram... ye would jus' 'ave made it worse," She breathed, reaching up to touch his face. "Tae lose it all... an' 'ave me first taste o' love jerked from me hands and dashed to the rocks like glass? Tae lose ye and Bart, an' all the rest?" she shook her head and blinked away tears trying desperately to fall.

"Nae, ye big, stupid ironworks. Jus' stay with me. Ye can be me home," she breathed, putting her arms around him. Bart pointedly looked away, and she peered out from around Gram's sleek breastplate.

"What are ye doin' over there?" she said quietly, a small hand grasped his and Bart felt himself pulled in close, the little thief crushing the two men as much as her tiny arms would allow into a fierce, desperate embrace.

"I love ye both so much... I dinnae know I could love anyone like I did me dad. I thought that part o' me was dead and cold," she whispered to the two men, looking up with great, glimmering green eyes.

"But I do. I love ye both. Ye fill in the missing bits I ne'er knew I dinnae have. Ye're me home now. It lives here," she said, raising her hands to lay over both men's hearts.

Bart and Gram exchanged a brief glance, the rivalry they had feared had no further nor future grip on them as of that moment. The two men in that glance passed between them a single, undeniable purpose: they would protect this fair creature that they held so close to each of their hearts. Keep her safe and sound, or die trying.

"Ah... I cannae believe I jus' said all that," Lidia gasped, her shaking hands withdrawing to wipe her eyes. "C'mon boys, let's go find the others," she said with fierce, glimmering eyes set with determination. "I was promised payback, an' I'm gonna collect."

~ ~ ~

Lidia and her glimmering protectors made their way further into the merchant's quarter, that seeming of sun-warmed radiance returning to Bart, pulling him vaguely deeper into the northern half of the city. He'd begun to realize that warmth was guidance of a sort, a pull of like-to-like. He hoped it would bring them to their friends.

His intuitions from earlier bore out, as the tugging glamour led them further and further towards the more opulent, service-oriented part of the city. Nested deep in the merchant's district, the walk was familiar enough to Bart as the homes and businesses began to rapidly turn into inns, alehouses, and open stages normally host to any number of seasonal attractions -- now all lain to ruin. No children were running across the cobbles, no sounds of criers or hawkers, no distant strains of a dozen bards at a dozen lounges all playing their hearts for coin. The excesses and celebration of life and luxury that these walls once held instead were only home to desolation and woe. In some ways Bart felt more shaken by this as a child of commoners than he had by the other scenes of devastation, to see the death of one's aspirations like this, was like walking through the bones of a long-dead dream.

The faint tread of feet and the light jingle of mail cut the oppressive silence, causing all three companions to look up, even Bart in his sound-deadening helmet turning towards the hurried sound of footsteps in streets beyond. Glancing between each other, silent nods and motions directed them to places of concealment. Bart's sword gleamed with its golden sheen as the wan light of the stagnant twilight skies played across it as he drew and ensconced himself into a shadow of a collapsed facade, directly at the corner the oncoming footfalls must needs round. Lidia and Gram doing the same, Lidia so much more capable than he that she literally vanished from sight, where Gram and he stood at arms in the darkness of the ruins. Holding his blade at the ready, he slowly lowered his visor -- Gram across the road crouched behind a ruined wall, setting his polearm slightly aside as he gently peered over his own barrier, his body language tense and set -- ready to hurdle the low wall and leap at a full charge into the oncoming host. Bart gripped his sword, He and Gram would be the wedge, Bart would hit them first and break their formation, Gram would cover him from behind. Lidia would find the gaps -- she always did.

The air practically vibrated with the restrained violence as the sounds came closer... not that many feet, the echo of the ruins distorting it over distance, Bart now could easily make out three distinct sets of footfalls, moving rapidly. He set his teeth jaw and squared his shoulders as he heard the group rounding the bend he sucked in a bracing breath, and stepped out of his cover hard, thrusting his rear leg straight with practiced force, catapulting him around the corner with a bellow of fury, eye flashing golden as he grasped the mantle, swinging his blade down in brutal fashion.

A faint oath caught his attention as the sound of steel on iron rang in the quiet, a sharp intake of breath seeming to fill the air, Bart's weapon stopping short with a spray of sparks and a blast of noise. The big man's movement totally arrested, and for a second he instinctively began to force his way through the parry into a lethal riposte.

"BART!" came a familiar voice, and in that mere moment's clarity, the Paladin halted, and his eyes took in more than just the rush of bodies and violence. A single, familiar shield strained against the blackened edge of the First Blade, reinforced by a darkly tanned arm clenching an equally familiar curved blade.

Rashid's fierce eyes rose over the shield's rim, a familiar gleam of gold in them as the two men faced off, brawn to brawn, might to might, mantle to mantle. Bart gave a short sound of alarm and broke away, his blade having cut a fairly severe gouge into even the heavy steel rim of the Akali's shield despite being held perfectly firm. His alarm turned to laughter as he released the mantle.

His friends stood before him, and quite a sight they presented. Haggard and blood-smeared, each of them showed at least the cursory signs of battle, Rashid himself the brunt of it, his electric blue sash and turban smeared an ugly pastiche of brown and rust-colored fluids, much the way Bart's own white and gold surcoat was now a grimy smear of gore and grit. The new gouge in his shield was but one of numerous open nicks, cuts, and wounds visible on gear and flesh alike -- Rashid had been at the fore of their fight, that much was clear.

The big Paladin raised his visor, giving the Akali a sheepish expression of pure, palpable relief. The others melted out of the shadows, and Bart got a good look at the remaining two, his heart hammering.

"Bart! Oh thank God, I had surely thought you slain." Naima said, and Bart was taken aback, her very... orbit, he supposed was alive with energy, her hair seemed to slightly writhe on her head, and her eyes softly lumed with the embrace of her own mantle of sorts -- but more so: Sikha, her guardian Nagai whirled through the air, his golden scales and glittering wings immaculate as he twined into a helix of scales and pinions above her head, tangible power crawling as glittering, golden lightning across his shimming scutes and scales. Naima's aura calmed as she seemed to dim the link between her and the celestial serpent -- and yet he did not vanish.

"Truly the Soldier of Love doth endure," It spoke in a voice he felt in his mind more than heard, like when the Wendigo had touched his mind, or Cithara in her true aspect -- but far, far less demanding, a gentle whisper through reality rather than a blaring clarion call. Its tone was warm and full, a wise tenor that comforted the mind and heart. Bart looked at it with wide eyes, Rashid and Naima flicking their gaze knowingly between Bart and the Nagai.

"Ah," It said, its sinuous form cutting through the air to alight before Bart more directly; "Thine hath noticed mine predicament. Astute or simply flabbergasted?" he inquired, and Bart looked to Naima desperately.

"Don't look at me Bart, he asked you the question," she said with a bit of a smirk, she was haggard, her clothing and skin were beaten and battered, and she as well had many minor wounds, Bart furrowed his eyes at that, turning back to Sikha.

"You are here," Bart said dumbly, the Nagai inclined its serpentine head, its far too-intelligent eyes were kind.

"I am," he agreed, seemingly content to let Bart draw his conclusions.

"So you feel the... isolation," Bart hedged, unsure how to broach the pressing topic of Cithara's absence, and his theory as to why. The Nagai raised his brow ridges, its features alarmingly human much as Cithara's were as it spoke.

"I do," he agreed, out of the shadows emerged Lidia and Gram, the latter raising his visor with a curt nod to match the contrast of Lidia's exuberance, hitting Naima around the middle with an enthusiastic hug that the southern woman returned earnestly.

"So that confirms it, then?" The alchemist asked from around the little red-headed thief's embrace, The remaining men all relaxing, Bart realizing he still gripped his blade somewhat defensively, turned the point down to the cobbles as he tilted his head at Naima. Sikha seemed content, however, to answer.

"It does," he said, his golden gaze flicking to Naima -- his eyes were like Cithara's, solid, unbroken gold save for the fine, engraving-like lines where his pupils and iris shifted and focused, like tiny leaves of aurum sheet laying atop one another in a dense pattern. He regarded Bart again.

"I feel not the call of mine brethren, the choir of Heaven is silent to me, only the carrying song of the Father doth reach mine ears and mine alone," he said, twisting into an uncomfortable, agitated knot of coils, its four wings winding around it protectively like a nervous crossing of arms. "I alone feel the weight of their burdens and its power."

"Similarly, I as well have found my powers more potent. The wisdom of the Learned One is silent in my mind, yet God's light through her has only redoubled its potency." Rashid added, and Naima nodded.

"The same, my connection through Sikha seemed infinite -- and he may not return to his place in the Choir of Heaven, we awoke here and he was as you see him now, locked in his aspect," she said, and the Nagai nodded.

"Locked, and verily -- brimming with energies beyond mine own station," he agreed, and his eyes, too wise, too piercing alighted upon Bart. "Thou art of similar disposition are thou not?" he asked, and Bart took a long, shuddering breath.

"I... am. I feel as if my mantle was a deep ocean from which I could drink forever," he said, clenching his fist and his one eye blazing gold. Naima's face went serious, her own eyes widening in alarm.

"Bart... take off your helmet," she said quietly. Releasing the mantle, he acquiesced hesitantly, unsure at her tone. Nazir made himself know then, popping up from the edges of the ruin with a nod.

"We're clear for now, the bunch of them are running around well and truly angry as bees from a broken hive, boiling and swarming everywhere," he said, looking up to Bart and his gaze going a bit wide.

"What is it?" Bart asked, his helmet had come free easily enough, and it rested in his hands just beneath his collar.

"Bart... yer hair," Lidia breathed in quiet alarm, everyone stared. Bart touched his head and looked around confused.

"What is it? Did I lose more of it in the collapse?" He asked, trying to look up as Naima fumbled in her satchel, and came away with a small hand mirror, handing it over. Bart took it and looked down, and could naught but blink.

His hair, normally curly and black... was gray. Not merely gray, parts of it were shot with streaks of white, visible in his stubble-dusted face and mustache. More even than that, his face was... hollow, he could clearly see his cheekbones and eye sockets pressing through his skin in sharp definition. His eye was bright and gleaming beneath it all, and he clenched his teeth.

"How much have you used your mantle, Bart?" Naima asked in quiet concern, Lidia looked up at her, the hug of welcome having morphed into one of fearful comfort, the young thief grasping the woman's hand.

"He... he's been leanin' on it pretty hard since a'fore he found me," she said, turning back to Bart as she spoke. "He had that glowin' eye bit goin' on when he first run up on Parias an' his beasties," she said and Bart nodded.

"I have had many uneven battles, and have pressed it into service quite a bit," he said, looking at his graying, almost cadaverous visage. "I... called for strength, and God answered."

"Bart, that power is not meant for Men," she breathed quietly, shuddering even as she looked at it. "I am comfortable saying it now that we've seen it in action, we are not taking power through our mantles as intended," she said, and Bart finished for her in a leaden, final tone.

"... We take it directly from God," he said and Sikha nodded grimly.

"Verily thou are a conduit for his unfettered, unfiltered might. It tasks thee greatly." Bart looked at the woman and her husband, both rough but seemingly hale and whole. She shook her head to his unspoken question: "We have not made great use of our mantles or Sikha's power except when left with no options." she offered, Nazir nodded with a wry grin.

"My intense desire to not be eaten alive manifested in an alarmingly strong incentive to remain unnoticed." he said, rubbing his chin and looking around; "As I did just now, I have scouted and plotted our course in silence, we have seen very little battle."

"... I have fought for nearly every step," Bart said quietly. "Parias, Ghuls, an Ogre even," he said, getting surprised blinks from both Naima and Rashid. "... in all of it, I drew on the mantle at great length and depth, used it to... do things I normally could not."

"God's Power is too much for us, Bart," Naima said, shaking her head. "That is why the Triune and the Mantles exist in the first place, they dilute much of it for us, filter out many non-essential energies that would pour heedlessly into us as a burden." she groped around for a moment, looking between the others as she struggled for a metaphor.

"Wielding God's Light in such a way is like being given a full harness of armor to remove a hot kettle from the fire!" she said emphatically; "It will do the job, but it is simply far, far too much for the task at hand."

"That much I gathered... but... what is this?" he said, looking down at the mirror again, at his ravaged visage.

"Bart... that power, it flowing through you, it is like a raging flood in a canal. It flows through, but it buffets and wears chunks out of the edges," she said emphatically, eyes full of fear as she stated it plainly,

"It is killing you, Bart."

He stared at her after that, dumbly. His face didn't change, he simply blinked mutely with that blank expression, she carried on:

"It's just too much for you, every time you call for it, it's burning and straining your edges, pushing at your body like too-small clothing. Giving you too much, too fast. Bart... God's Blood, Bart..." she said and came forward out of Lidia's arms, touching his face with trembling hands, "You're burning out, body and_soul."_

Bart reached out his hand to her and touched her face. The news seemed distant, disconnected. He put it aside, on a shelf in his mind. His eye glowed familiar gold and Naima's breath caught in her throat as healing energies flowed into her -- Bart sought out the myriad minor hurts, clearly left as triage, and he made them whole. Tiny cuts and abrasions closed over on her face and arms, and she shuddered as Bart finished.

"I swore an Oath," he said quietly, turning and grasping Rashid's arm before protest could be made, similarly his Mantle answered him and the healing touch slid through his fingers, mending Rashid's much more serious wounds, damage he concealed well either due to his altered Akali physiology or just pure grit. He grunted and shook his head, gently pulling his arm away from Bart as the worst of the wounds closed -- but far before all of them. Bart set his teeth, and Rashid merely shook his head solemnly. Bart nevertheless continued, reaching out to Nazir who hesitated, but Bart simply grasped him, Naima touching his arm.

"Bart..." she said, and he reached for the mantle again. Once more the power flowed, and he found Nazir also quietly had greater, hidden hurts he had kept quiet from Naima's obvious worry. He met Bart's eyes shamefaced as they both realized such together, Bart cast no judgment -- and simply put his friend back together, letting him go as the golden light faded from his eye.

"I swore long before I was a Paladin, or King of Love, or even a fighter. A fat little boy with a broken nose and tears in his eyes," he said sternly, jaw set.

"I will not abide a bully," he said, teeth clenched still around the words. "I will not." He spat impetuous, childlike spite in the words. His friends all looked at him with haunted expressions, "Parias, Mihais, just more bullies. More wicked, more powerful -- but just bullies, seeking that they can_take."_

"I care not if it tears me apart one bit at a time until I am but dust and bones in armor -- I will not abide such injustice as this, I cannot. It cannot be borne." he snarled, hands shaking, grasped Naima by the shoulders; madness in his one blue eye,

"She is dead Naima. I feel no connection, no warmth. Gone. Severed," he snarled at her, face hollow and intense. "In this place, in this time -- whichever it is, perhaps both, perhaps neither but in this place she is dead and I can feel that," he almost shouted at her, and tears sprang from the older woman's eyes, flowing silently down her cheeks.

"I don't care if this fire burns me to ash if I get you home," he said, face haggard, voice hoarse. "There is nothing that can compare to this emptiness, this hollow wound where she should be." he banged his fist into his breastplate.

"The only hope in this grim land is the chance I may yet break you, my friends -- my family -- free of it. In the doing of that, let me burn myself out, wear myself thin," he said in rising fervor, hands shaking once more.

"Anything, to fill the silence of her absence," he said, sagging under the weight of all the pain he had been ignoring -- body whole and unbloodied -- his heart had instead weathered the blows, and it stood weary.

"Bart... oh dear one," Naima said, the familiar phrase triggering a surge of emotions, the sight of golden eyes and a delighted smile -- and he crumbled.

"She's gone... god Naima, I felt the connection... I felt it_snap..."_ he wailed softly and fell to his knees, his helmet and sword clattering to the ground with the mirror as he buried his head in her chest, weeping bitterly, like a child.

"Dear, dear Bart..." she gasped and held him, stroking his hair. His fellow companions pressed in close, a small pair of arms encircled his waist, and a strong, calloused hand touched his hair. Lidia, Rashid, he could pick them out without sight, his friends pouring their strength into him. He bawled into Naima's chest like a babe, letting out the grief and agony he'd been pushing off, holding at bay with the pressing issue of survival. Of the needs of others. Of duty.

"You do not need to pour yourself out until there is nothing left," she said for him, two more hands joined the group, a firm, mailed one at his back, and a familiar, lithe hand grasping his in brotherly ferocity. He sobbed anew, squeezing Nazir's grip in return and turning his head slightly, nodding through tears and a blind eye towards where he knew Gram stood.

"Ye've done so much, Big brother. Ye dinnae 'ave tae carry it all," Lidia said against his chest, her green eyes looking up at him, hard and determined.

"None question your valor or sacrifice, Brother," Rashid's voice rumbled, his fingers were gentle and soothing, like his father's hands. "You are not fighting alone, not with your hands and neither with your heart."

"Just let us carry some of the weight, you northern brute," Nazir said, squeezing his hand, a familiar glimmer of mischief in his amber eyes. "Just because you're stronger than I doesn't mean you have to lord it over me all the time." Bart couldn't suppress his laugh, shoulders shaking with sobs and chortles alike.

"You have fine friends, and they are correct," Gram added after a long moment, the others looking up at the newcomer sharply. He continued, "You would carry the world on your back if you could just find a handhold," Lidia looked up at him over Bart's pauldron. Gram did something rare for the tall Darrowmite.

He smiled.

"I like that about you. Perhaps the others see it as foolish, but I see it as courageous. I can only dream, of being so sure of mine own heart that I could carry the burdens of another as they were mine own to boot. If you will pour yourself out until empty, I will stand beside you." he said softly, and Bart shuddered a bit.

"Please Bart, take my beloved home," he said softly, his hand slowly leaving the Paladin's back. "Let us pour ourselves out together, but let us see them home with our own eyes, yes?" he said, and the Paladin turned to him, surprise on his face. Gram shrugged, his back straight, pale eyes direct.

"Let us expire under blue skies upon God's good earth, friends well-accounted for," he said, offering his hand. "I couldn't ask myself for more than that, thus I cannot ask more than that of you."

Bart took his hand, and Gram squeezed it. There was a single nod and Bart sank back on his hands, sitting in a rough circle of his loved ones... save one painfully noticeable absence.

"I would be remiss if I doth not inform thee, that thou's condition is not final," Sikha said, sinuously swirling down towards the group again. "Thy are winnowed thin by God's Light true, but thou art His children, and what He does He can undo. Take heart, champion," he said, wings fluttering as he swirled upwards above them all, his glimmering golden scales casting faint light down upon them.

"Hope yet remains. Thy fellow can be made whole and hale, but thy time presses close. We must quit this conflict at its earliest chance, lest thou find thyself as but dust and ash."

Bart looked up, his tearful face a mess of blotchy red and streaks of clean flesh beneath soot, gore, and grime. He had resigned himself to it, but these words seemed to give hope to the others more than he. Naima nodded.

"It is not yet too late, the damage is..." She touched his face gently, and she and Sikha's eyes both lit at once, his vision linking to hers... Bart understanding then, the Nagai's blessed sight passed through the mantle to Naima. "... Severe, but not untenable." she said and frowned; "... but if you draw heavily upon the mantle again, I cannot be certain you will survive it."

"I guess we'll jus' have tae pick up the slack," Lidia said, squeezing Bart's armored midsection tightly. "Good thing there's a whole gang o' us, innit?" Bart smiled, still unable to find the will to speak as he just nodded, feeling weary and drained.

"Together," Rashid agreed, his stern visage confident. Nazir chuckled as well, standing up and dusting off his battered form.

"Beating the Empty Queen in her own backyard is quite the tale, and it'll sound all the better with a proper band of heroes," he said, beaming cheekily. "How many get to write their own legends?" he asked, and Naima tittered softly at her brother, the familiar popinjay bravado a welcome absurdity.

"As you command, Ser," was all Gram said -- and from him, that quiet note of respect was as to a monument. Bart looked at his friends, and that crushing grief welled up again, feelings of worth ebbed between his fingers, and even as they poured their love into him... he felt hollow, empty.

Yet, he smiled. It far better suited a hero.

"Thank you, friends," He said after a long moment, eyes on the ground. "I... am afraid I will fail you still. So please... let me give what I have, for you," he looked up, eyes vulnerable as he regained his feet slowly, taking his blade and helm from the cobbles, eyes haunted as he looked between each of them.

"Even if it empties me body and soul... she would do that. She would erase herself for those she loved," he said and drew in a shuddering breath, swallowing the wracking sob -- but not the fresh tears.

"I can do no less."

The others simply nodded, sadness in their eyes -- but also love. He was what he was.

Heroes rarely died of old age.

~ ~ ~

"Drink this," Naima said, the group had poured into a small, ruined home with a mostly intact roof. Naima had immediately set to work brewing... something, taking everyone's waterskins and belt pouches for anything vaguely resembling reagents. Bart blinked as she handed him a steaming mug, recoiling from it.

"Ugh, it smells vile," he groused, and she snorted.

"It will taste worse, but drink it anyways," she said, watching her brew had been fascinating, Sikha's presence with her almost like a dancer, ghosting between the stirring vessels and gently pouring breaths and bursts of his energies into them, setting them glimmering and glowing -- and indeed, as Daedolon had suggested, Bart did in fact spy faint flecks of gold leaf suspended in the foul-smelling liquid.

"What is it?" he asked, taking it -- and noting she did not give it to anyone else.

"A dangerous draught normally I wouldn't dare give anyone, but these are anything but normal circumstances," she said sternly. "It will... restore you, to a degree. Toughen you, but it will not be pleasant," she said, looking briefly to Rashid. "It is one of the fortifying tinctures we give the Akali to prepare their bodies for further infusions, both of potions and power." she continued and nodded to him.

"If it doesn't kill you with shock, it should recoup some of your spent... soul, for lack of a simpler term," she said, and Rashid nodded, tapping his own chest.

"Remember. Good living, good vittles, and great love restore the soul and renew the spirit," he said, and Bart nodded, recalling his lesson earlier in the give and take of the eternal essence. He looked dubiously down at the murky drink.

"Hardly seems good living."

"Indeed, but it is made with great love."

The entire group had more or less set about doting on him after a brief and demanding conversation that he rest, even if just for a short spell. Food and rations had been dug out and passed around, everyone putting an extra share in Bart's hands, trying to stave off the odd hollowing he seemed to be undergoing -- in truth, he'd been famished and only just realized it when the first bit of tough trail sausage hit his lips like the juiciest cut of fresh beef possible. His friends had bit by bit, made him a little more whole.

The big Paladin looked down at the cup with a frown and then shrugged. "I've survived worse today," He said laconically, raising it in a toast. "See you on the other side."

He upended the tin mug, swallowing the steaming liquid in several uncomfortable gulps, his face screwing up as the foul, chemical flavor hit him -- gritty and bilious on his tongue. His gut immediately rebelled, and he swallowed the last dregs hard to stave down the desire to retch. He panted a bit, wiping his mouth as he sat upright, eyes flicking to and fro as he felt the heavy liquid settle into his stomach.

"Well, that was not so b-" Bart didn't even manage to voice his hubris before the shock hit him, his body went suddenly rigid, and with a gasping choke the big Paladin arched back, hitting the floorboards of the ruined building hard, his spine arching and struggling against the binding steel of his cuirass.

"BART!" Lidia screamed, lunging towards him -- but Naima grasped her arm, pulling her away.

"Don't! He's MUCH stronger than you, if he gets a grip on you in this state it won't be pretty," she said, her voice full of bitter, first-hand knowledge. Lidia struggled, but Naima's grip was as iron-like as Bart's had been, wrapping the girl in a fierce hug as Bart's heels kicked into the floorboards. Rashid was by his side in a smooth instant, placing his hand on Bart's brow.

"Breathe," the stern Akali intoned as Bart struggled, his throat tight, his entire body a wracked, rigid mass of stretched tendons, ugly, startling veins of radiant gold began to press through his skin. The pain was without description, simultaneously feeling as if he was burning alive and breaking apart, his muscles tearing at their moorings, overstretched and straining as his flesh grew taut and his heart hammered so fast the beats began to blur together into a single, thrumming noise in his ears.

"Breathe. In through your mouth. Out through your nose." Rashid instructed calmly, Bart's eyes rolling back into his head, blinding him as he struggled to follow the directions, struggled to hold on. Folding his arms across his chest, trembling and shaking -- he sucked in breath through clenched teeth, blasting it out through his nose in fits and starts.

"Focus on your heart. Breathe between the beats." Rashid continued, experience coloring his words. Bart wanted to scream at him, panic, and demand how but instead, he simply tried. Focusing as his body continued to wrack and spasm, his fingers clenched in claws of agony as the bright gleaming gold continued to draw tracery across his body, setting fire to his blood and guts... but he slowly found the rhythm, his panicked breaths became more paced. Rashid's cool hand on his brow was an anchor in the swirling miasma of pain. It ebbed and he found the rhythm, breathing in on one beat, holding it, and releasing on another further down the thundering pace. Each time they came easier, less shallow.

"Good. You didn't die." Rashid stated plainly as Bart came down from the agonizing experience, a sort of euphoria filling him in the absence of the pain, a rush that made him briefly dizzy as he sat up. Looking down at his hands... so far, everything seemed normal.

"I'm getting rather good at that," Bart groused, shaking his head and rubbing his hands over his face.

"Ye look better," Lidia said in a shocked, quiet voice -- her eyes wide and a hopeful smile daring its way onto her face. "Yer hair... well its nae quite black but closer than it was," she said, reaching out after disengaging herself from Naima's arms to thread her fingers through his curly hair. Naima provided him the hand mirror once more as he shook the remaining dizziness away.

"See? Fookin' magical," Lidia breathed, Bart regarded himself. His face was a bit fuller, less drawn and gaunt, and indeed, his hair had darkened back to a deep iron gray with a few threads of white that he could see actually fading in real-time. He wasn't quite himself, still haggard, still pale and washed out in flesh and coif -- but better. On the mend.

"Marvelous," he murmured, looking down at the dropped cup. "Though risking death for a pick-me-up seems foolish for our situation, extreme or not, doesn't it?" he asked the alchemist, who simply raised her eyebrow at him as she prepared a few more bubbling vessels in her make-shift laboratory.

"Suddenly afraid of death, Bart?" she asked with a mocking edge to her voice, and he gave a sheepish smile with a rattling shrug.

"Just... seemed a bit extreme," he said, his mind clear now and Naima chuckled.

"It was only a coin toss on if you died, that's all," she said blithely, and Lidia choked on a mouthful of warm tea -- the rest of them had continued to eat after he had regained his composure, Nazir and Gram quietly talking to one side again.

"Excuse me?" Bart inquired in a stunned tone, Naima smiling archly at him. More of a smirk.

"Just an even shot of horrible death or rejuvenation. Simple math, less risky than dice really," she said with a little scoff, her eyes looking up through her lashes at him as the smile grew wider and she shook her head. "I jest, you Paladins. Always so earnest," she chuckled and stirred a vessel.

"No you were perfectly safe, I would not have risked killing you here. The chances the shock would have slain you outright were very low, the draught's ill-effects lose potency with body mass," she explained, eyeing him pointedly up and down, "Something you are in no short supply of." Bart's smile turned rueful as she continued; "It's why my dear husband is so large, as are many _Akali_you may later meet."

"A certain degree of bulk is required for proper soldiering," Rashid agreed in his usual stoic manner, patting Bart on the shoulder. "You weathered it well. My own experiences were somewhat more violent -- alas I was also much younger when first given that infusion."

"How young?" Bart asked reflexively.

"Fourteen. I had just come of maturity. First growth of beard and muscle." he said, stroking his dense, luxurious black beard. Bart blanched a bit at that,

"At fourteen they just had us running laps," The Paladin mused, looking at the cup. "Severe or not, that was quite a trick, I feel refreshed and... rather spirited all things considered," he said, nodding gamely. "Keep this brew ready at hand, it could be a useful medicine in the future."

"Oh, absolutely not," Naima responded casually, looking up as she began to decant the small bubbling vessels into earthenware jars from her satchel. "That, is a one-time trick," she said, meeting Bart's eyes steadily.

"If you ever partake of that draught again, it will kill you. Not might. Will." she said, corking the now-recognizable healing potions and setting them aside to cool. "The draught leaves certain deposits in your body, toxins of a sort. In a single dose they strengthen your constitution temporarily and make you ready for the further infusions Akali undergo -- though you cannot partake of the deeper mysteries, you are far too old to survive them all," she said, pausing thoughtfully and then continued with a dismissive shake of her hand. "However that aside, that is the limit. A single dose. If you were to ingest another, the toxicity would make you break your own spine with the spasms, and then bite through your own teeth," she said grimly.

"Yet not before your heart ruptured from the strain," Rashid said casually. "It is an ugly way to die."

"Fantastic," Bart said laconically. "I've added a new and interesting poison to my life." Naima only sniffed at him.

"It is an extremely specific toxin, unless you plan to sneak off and steal draughts from Rezarian novices, it will never trouble you. Even in the base components, they are harmless unless mixed in that exact proportion," she said, scowling at him lightly. "Really Bart, I know I jested but come now, what sort of healer would I be feeding you poison that might actually kill you?" she said.

"Point taken," Bart agreed, holding up his hand to forestall her further ire. She waggled a finger at him nonetheless.

"This is not a reset," she chided him, "It has lessened the strain and ruin you have placed upon your body and soul but not done away with it. If you draw too deeply on the mantle again, it may still kill you. Your heart has taken a beating, and your spirit was in little better condition," she continued, sighing as she packed away her effects.

"I would never do this to anyone else, you are too old. Your body too set in its ways, if you weren't so large and already proven to be tough, it would have as like crippled you as anything," she said... and there was a catch in her throat. Bart, ready with another bit of wit -- eager for a bit of their usual banter to lighten his heart... and it died unspoken on his tongue as the woman suddenly looked up with tears in her eyes, and came forward and wrapped him in her arms.

"You are too strong for your own good, it even has I of all people believing in your irrational heroism."

Bart was stunned for a moment, Naima was a veritable fortress of a woman; he had seen her emotional armor crack but a few times... and in all of them, he had been paying the price for his brand of heroism.

"Do you not believe in Heroes, Naima?" Bart asked her after a moment, his voice small.

"No. Heroes are just men Bart, just good, good men," she said... and it was not him she was trying to convince in her tone. She tightened her fingers in his cloak.

"But you keep pushing your limits and every time I think that I will finally be forced to close your eyes for the last time, you pop back up with a smile and tell us not to worry," she said and shook her head, letting her brow lean on his pauldron. She did not sob or wrack herself, her eyes just met his, tears glimmering in them.

"You make me want to believe again," was all she said quietly, and then just like that. She sat up, wiping her eyes and straightening her hair before looking at everyone else with an impassive expression.

"I'll ask that you keep this to yourselves, I am not made of stone," she said, cupping Bart's cheek a moment... using looking into his eyes clinically as an excuse to smile at him once more; "There... you look as whole and hale as can be asked of the circumstances."

Bart simply smiled at her. It was enough.

~ ~ ~

In spite of it all, the companions found little comfort in even a meal, none dared risk a larger fire than needed and the air was a deceptively neutral chill that crept into the bones and armor. Morale was decidedly low. Lidia and Naima spent what little fuel they had deigned worth the risk on topping off their alchemical concoctions, the little thief pocketing another brace powder bombs that Naima had stashed away in her satchel while the others were all dosed with potions of a decidedly less... aggressive nature than Bart was. Simple healing draughts for the remaining wounds, and a few rounds of a startlingly, suspiciously refreshing tea that everyone had been more or less forced at the point of Naima's disapproving gaze to drink down.

"Ach, I cannae taste naught but the brew still," Lidia groused, smacking her lips as they broke camp. It had been bitter and strong with a decidedly acrid flavor that lingered on the tongue.

"I rather liked it," Bart said, securing his helmet back on as they moved out. The little thief shot him a tired expression.

"Ye would, ye and yer fookin' tar coffee."

"I like strong coffee," he said simply, getting the young thief rolling her eyes at him and his grinning visage, walking away and sucking at her palate in displeasure.

Bitter taste aside, everyone felt fairly renewed. Naima related quietly the tea's origin as they pushed through the merchant's quarter back south, everyone's eyes on the great, grim spire of flesh and bone that stood in place of the Cathedral of Ivory.

"It's a simple enough thing, every student learns it as one of their first projects," she said with a shrug, Sikha hovering near her shoulder, always close at hand to his bond mistress.

"It seems like it would be quite handy for your _Akali_companions," Gram mused quietly, and the dark-skinned southerner chuckled a bit, shaking her head.

"Nay my tall friend," she said, raising an eyebrow. "We all learned it to better stay awake during long hours of intense study. Far more effective than a mug of coffee," she said, turning that arch look on her battered Paladin companion with a grin; "Even Bart's."

"I like strong coffee," Bart said, an edge of protest in his tone to his friend's quiet laughter. Perhaps the morale wasn't_quite_ so poor.

Silence ruled afterward, but it was far more companionable than it had been -- a sense of purpose had seemed to fall over the group, everyone gravitating towards their natural roles with Bart, Gram, and Rashid forming a formidable bulwark around Naima arrayed in Absolute Iron and steel. Lidia had vanished well ahead of Nazir, both of the shrewd pair exchanging turns in scouting ahead and warning them off of the still-searching monsters and patrols as they picked their way back along the path Bart had followed from the southern half of the city.

"How did you find us, anyway?" Bart asked quietly as they crossed the bridge, the welters of gore where he had wounded and driven the ogre over the side still wet and sticky as they passed over them. Nazir took this one, looking up from a waterskin -- Lidia had ranged ahead this time -- her knowledge of the city letting her even in this state literally vanish from sight with little effort. The southerner raised an incredulous eyebrow at him as they set foot on solid ground again -- everyone pointedly trying to ignore the yawning maelstrom and its roar.

"Are you serious my friend?" Nazir asked with the same incredulity that'd gotten his brow up, wiping his mouth and gesturing back towards the Manor District -- where a considerable plume of smoke and dust still rose over the whole area. "You knocked over a building by main force. Plainly put -- we followed the noise."

"Oh," Bart said dumbly, Nazir's bright teeth flashed in a grin.

"Become accustomed to mayhem that quickly, have we?" "Hush. It's been a full day."

The group made good time, Bart was unnerved by how little resistance there was after such brutal fighting for every step of his journey -- it was as if they were simply letting them go. He did not trust it one bit, and by the sharp-eyed awareness of his companions, neither did they.

Pushing eastward the signs of life fell off even more, and it became clear why they were encountering naught but ash and silence. The Church Quarter was mostly homes and small businesses that supported the pilgrims and clergy, all gone to smash of course, as had all else in this hellscape. The ruin here wasn't indiscriminate, unlike much of the rest of the city, nay here it felt as it had in the inner ring rushing to Gram's aid: deliberate. Ritualistic. The road seemed mounded in debris and the buildings to the sides of it demolished flat, a forest of totemic fetishes began to emerge the deeper in towards that fell Pillar of Flesh they approached. The fallen buildings were seeded at length with them like a field of hideous wildflowers, tiny wicker offerings in effigy tied to fetishes and totems, unnervingly still in the stagnant air.

A crunch sounded in the wan light as they mounted the first steps on that hellish path. A particular crunch that put a special chill down both Bart and Lidia's spines. Everyone stopped as the big Paladin raised his boot, everyone else peering at their shoes.

Bones. Thousands, millions perhaps. More than there should be,could be in this place, and yet skulls leered up at them from piles of similarly flensed and flayed remains, piled here deliberately; paving the road up towards the darkening gloom that hung around the great pillar of flesh and bone as it climbed above the low clouds, seeming to vanish out of sight far above them.

None had words or remarks, everyone's eyes pinned to the atrocity they trod upon, its weight visible in the gaze of each member as they met in silence. Lidia shuddered, Gram's hand finding her shoulder in a faint squeeze, gaining from her a weak smile and little else.

The pall only grew as they advanced up that road of bones, the very air seeming to grow thicker -- more still, a weight that settled over the chest and shoulders oppressively, driving and pushing at them -- demanding inch by inch, that they kneel.

One by one the companions seemed to lag behind as they walked eastward, the very light slipping away. Darker still came the shadows at the edges of the ruins as they wound 'round towards the path into the Cathedral Square proper. Bart remained at their head, he saw it first.

The ravaged causeway opened suddenly into a wide, impossible wasteland where once had stood neighborhoods, flattened by force unimaginable, lain low like grain before the scythe. Hidden from view until now by the remaining ring of buildings around it, the unnaturally flat plain climbed up in a subtle mounding hill towards the center. A nigh perfect circle of the city lain to waste around that fell structure, blasted and sheared outwards, beaten smooth and compacted by a pressure beyond the reckoning of the mortal mind, as if some great being had leaned down from the clouds and simply _blown_the city in that unmarred ring clean as if it were so much dust and lint.

One by one a single file emerged, the pressure of the place piling on with every step, as if the very idea of the tower was pushing back on their entry, demanding they kneel or stand aside. Each step dragged with intangible, invisible effort -- walking upstream in a river of souls. Bart found himself at the head of his companions once more, marching doggedly forwards as they crossed that threshold writ in the ground, and the air changed.

Bart stopped after a few steps onto the white-sheathed plain, the ground clicked under the hobnails of his boot. The sound was crisp and small, without the bouncing echo of walls. It was wrong.

One by one each of his companions caught up, and was similarly struck by the sudden wrongness, the change in the air, a pressure in the ears equalizing in a vague, distant pop. One by one it lined them up all in a row, struck by the intense sensation of unreality.

Bart was the first to turn, twisting around and giving a startled cry... as the way back was gone.

Everything was gone.

Turning one and all, similar despair and alarm rose in the rest of the companions as they found the city behind them simply vanished, gone between blinks and a turn of perspective. Beyond now stood a limitless plane of gnarled white and grisly slashes of red, far beyond in the distance the Ossuary of Man rose into the empty, starless sky with startling clarity. Above it there hung both Twin Maiden Moons: perfectly aligned over top of it. Not once, but in seemingly infinite recursion above them, pairs and pairs of cloned moons stacked in perfect sequence -- reaching up to both impossible, incalculable heights to rest above the clouds, beyond the sky with the lunar surface as its roof and curtains -- and also down, the closest of the recursive moons stacked so near the surface as to be a ghastly white roof to the horizon. However, that was not the horror that stole the color from their faces, and the breath from their lungs.

Nay. It was that it was merely one of hundreds.

In the vastness beyond, dozens more pale, gnarled silhouettes rose into the skies, seemingly thin as gossamer, rising up and clawing down at the blackness, as if grasping for the long-dimmed light of distant stars... a coldness radiated out there. It was not the depth of the Astral Tapestry so full and bright with stars and dreams, no here lie black beyond black -- darkness incalculable, yawning, infinite hungry madness that drove down at them all like gravity, demanding each and every being there know that it is small.

In some way. They all knew, perhaps it was this place's pervasive reality seeping into their minds, perhaps it was animal-mind understanding of danger, perhaps it simply was they had seen perilously enough horror that this final, ultimate one was only just understandable. Each gossamer-thin spire reaching towards an empty, drunk-dry cosmos was a dead civilization. A place once full of life plundered, ground down, and rendered like fat into a Pillar of Flesh.

A human population, built with like hammer and nail.

They knew, for as they turned back they saw they stood just afield the base of one, a Pillar of Flesh and Bone, reaching up into the sky like hands folded upon skeletal hands miles high into the starless night's sky. Their destination rendered out in the lives of the whole of Lachheim... nay, all of the Heartlands must needs be built like mortar and brick into this edifice of calcified bone and ossified torment. In the beyond the worldly of them could mark them then. Cities. Reikstand. Darrowmere. Al-Reza. Mistport. Yet and further beyond the oil-black seas which stood mirror-still and alarmingly clear even here some hundreds of leagues away -- beyond that black shimmering mirror of nothingness came yet more gossamer threads further afield: cultures undiscovered, places unseen and unknown now never to be. Died alone.

They all had.

The ground itself had been broken down, transmuted and flensed. Brittle, matte bone clicked and cracked under their heels, what had initially been taken for sun-baked earth was instead hideous, meat and bone plates. Beneath them, the earth shifted when trod upon, depressing not unlike firm, unnatural flesh. In the near distance long tendrils grew up, a hideous parody of trees via arrangements of limbs and organic, bony members into hideous fleshy foliage, all clawing upwards at an unfeeling, infinite darkness.

"... I'm gonna be sick," Lidia said in a small voice. The immediate answer was a rattle of weaponry, none traveled with a weapon slung anymore. The very air here was alien, the sky stolen and the cosmos emptied out. It raked the mind's eye wide open with screaming, unrelenting reality. Distance and clarity were impossibly, unfathomably crisp. Details that should be infinitesimal at range instead seemed to leap out at the mind, threatening madness at a moment's distraction.

"What fresh hell is this?" Gram spat, lowering and locking his visor; seeking comfort in the embrace of steel.

"It is her world. Truly. As she sees it," Bart said hollowly, taking his blade to hand as he turned towards the Ossuary in the far distance, the moons hanging above them in repetition unto eternity. Sikha spoke, and his voice was low with dread.

"It is her death-dream made manifest. A world where she is at last full-up and content." The serpent let that concept speak for itself. The empty cosmos above offered no comment.

The starkness of the eternity of night above them made the light present seem to come from nowhere, reflected brightly down seemingly from nothing but the brighter and larger of the Twin Maiden Moons, the Older Sister's glow an omnipresent ghostlight that reminded Bart of the luminescence of freshly fallen snow at night. Yet this light was wan, sickly, and diseased, its touch felt cold. Hungry. Bart felt a shiver that had nothing to do with the frost run up his body as his companions continued to stare.

"It's... it's not real is it?" Gram's voice came harsh through his helmet with a tinny echo as he warily bounced his polearm in his hands, head on a swivel -- the veteran lancer clearly unnerved by the surroundings. "I... don't care for the atmosphere," he said, an edge of desperation in his tone.

"It makes me wan' tae die," Lidia said in a hopeless, brittle tone, her body a bit slack. Her eyes haunted Bart as she looked at him, they were without the light he expected to see there. Empty. "Like... bein' not, would be better nae bein' here."

"Do you not hear that?" Gram asked in an agitated voice, Bart turned to him, his face drawn in concern. The Cavalier shook his head, face concealed by his helmet, waving the Paladin away. Lidia looked away from them both.

"It is as real as our own Heaven would be, within the bubble of her perceptions reality is as she deigns it," Sikha said, looking to them all with grief written across his whole body, his coils in knots, plumage visibly disheveled, eyes milky and empty. Empty inside. The realm took its toll on the creature of Heaven.

"'Tis a fallow place. Stolen and haphazard. Unfinished. Unloved." The words landed on everyone like nails hammered in one by one, Lidia seemed to fold in on herself, Gram's head twitching again to a sound none else could hear. Nazir could not take his eyes from the sky.

"I had never thought anything could be so dark," he said after a moment, his eyes as well as Bart came to him, lacked the light and warmth. Empty. "There is... nothing. I look and look and cannot see... no star nor sun, nor flickering comet in the skies. It is... over." Nazir said, meeting Bart's gaze. "It is the End."

"Bart!" Naima's voice came, sharp and clear, Bart wheeling from where he stood with his friends as they all struggled with the horror of the place, her own face was pale -- but her eyes were bright, glittering with gold. "It is the Queen's hunger. She's drinking them dry this close!" Naima said, taking her brother in her hands and looking into his eyes. "They cannot be here in this place, it is drawing out the very flame of their Divine Ember!"

"What do I do?" Bart cried frustrated, taking Lidia in his arms, giving her a little shake as she looked up at him, face listless.

"Nae Bart, I dinnae wanna remember this... it's so awful..." she said, a quiet anguish in her tone. "I cannae stop seein' it all, tae black stuff is behind me eyelids..." she covered her face with her hands and crumbled. "It's inside me..."

"LIDIA!" Bart barked, Gram's muttered ravings setting his teeth to edge as he snapped his gaze up. "Naima! Options!" he demanded, the young woman muttering to herself as she rocked Nazir, Who similarly seemed... distant. Listless. Rashid strode up to him, inclining his head to Gram, who seemed increasingly agitated. Naima's voice quavered.

"They don't have mantles! This close to the queen she's peeling them apart like a whirlwind in a grain field!" She hissed, tears running down her cheeks, "They don't have anything between their souls and her Bart, it's like walking into the heart of winter naked!" she cried, her hands shaking. "I don't know what to do, they need something to ward it away a-a shield of some kind!"

Sikha writhed through the air towards Bart; eyes focused as Rashid warily put himself between Gram and the others, the lancer turning on him slowly as he noticed the motion. Lidia and Nazir were fading faster, the despair outpacing the madness in their hearts.

"It must needs be thee. None here but thou can project the needed energy. Thy needs but know how," he intoned, his artfully outdated speech clipped as Gram and Rashid muttered something rapidly back and forth, the two seeming increasingly agitated.

"Naima said it would kill me," Bart said, and Sikha nodded gravely.

"It is dangerous, but I can shoulder some of the burden once the wielding is in motion, thy must-needs but create the framework that I may grasp it."'

Bart felt despair hit him like a hammer, he cradled Lidia's form as she remained listless, simply muttering 'Dinnae wan' remember' over and over again... a new ability? A new working of magic now? He was a thug, a mystical brute -- he was not the one to do such a thing!

"Surely if you can, then Naim-"

"A tool is only good for its purpose, Naima is a scalpel and this task verily requires a sword," Sikha cut him off with strident, imperious language. Bart flinched back, and a guttural roar to the side drew his attention, his blade snapping up to attention as he did.

"How, HOW can you not hear the insufferable, ENDLESS gnashing of teeth, teeth, TEETH!?" Gram bellowed and raised his polearm, swinging it down with a roar, skittering the speartip in a brutal, crackling arc over the ossified earth beneath them, showering everyone in bits of bone and mucous-like gore as he hunched and screamed in both triumph and agony as the debris settled...

Revealing a grisly, gruesome pastiche of flesh, organ, and bone beneath their feet, with hundreds, nay thousands of vestigial, gnashing maws of all-too-human teeth, chattering, chewing and yawning just beneath their feet. Nazir began to pray in a manic tone in Naima's arms, Lidia simply screamed. She started screaming... and simply did not stop. Bart's eyes filled with tears as Rashid struggled with Gram, the armored cavalier's madness turning violent as he began to lay into the ground with heedless, zealous abandon. He snapped his gaze up to Sikha.

"Teach me," he barked, and the Serpent bobbed its head in an earnest nod.

"You must draw deep upon thyself, of the energy thou doth use to heal and grow strong," he said, and Bart nodded, his eye igniting in brilliant gold as he grasped the mantle, he drew upon that specific well of power, holding it firm as the serpent wove itself into an arcane sigil of coils before him.

"Extend it instead of out of thy body, to thine orbit. Fill it with that power like a jug." Bart struggled with the instructions, even as bluntly explained as they were; Lidia's keening wails had taken a ragged, wet edge, and beyond he heard the scrabbling of limbs and the clatter of armor, his hand tightened on his sword, his body yearning to help -- for which he was granted a stinging blow across his cheek, Sikha's tail red with a line of his own blood at its end.

"Focus, Paladin. Thine charges suffer."

Bart grit his teeth and reasserted his control. He wrested back that torrent of curative, purifying energy and filled... himself with it? He struggled and hissed as false starts were punished with the uniquely bloodless, formless pain of the arcane. Sikha observing silently.

"Imagine thy body is a bottle, thine orbit is the glass. The edges of thy skin art the edges of the bottle," He intoned hypnotically, waving that bloodied tailtip back and forth before Bart's half-blind gaze like a choir maestro conducting an overtaxed student. Bart followed the logic, the stinging on his cheek adding a touch of spite to the pull of power as he raised his fist again, grasping for the mantle. Here more than before, he felt as if he was thrusting deep into a great and yawning ocean of power, vast enough to drown in. He poured that golden power into himself as if he could weigh himself down with it, like he was swelling his body with it. It bubbled and boiled inside of him, his teeth chattering with the exertion, armor rattling as he trembled in time.

"Good, fill every crack, every crevice. Maintain it," The serpent intoned in that same droning song, his coils weaving around Bart in the air, forming a complex helix of scales as the serpent's mindful gaze darted over him.

"Crude, but strong. An apt working. Give me thine hand, Paladin," he spoke, holding up that blood-stained tail tip before him, eyes golden discs of intensity. "Lend to me, thine Lady's blessing."

Bart reached up his free hand and grasped it, his own blood flecking his gauntlet as the two servitors made contact like a thunderbolt to an errant tree. Some part of his mantle, the deep weaving of magics and love that layered him still in Cithara's warmth understood this connection: and entwined with Sikha's magic. Bart caught between like a dam in a raging river.

"It is... it is too much!" Bart screamed, holding fast to Sikha's tail like wreckage in stormy seas, buffeted by the surging energies inside of him, carrying far more than he was made for, his body felt as if it were about to fly apart, golden radiance began to show through his flesh, those same golden veins of tracery limning his body and illuminating veins through his flesh, a golden glow showing from beneath his armor's plates.

"Be steadfast, for the working is done -- it but needs be fed," Sikha said in a low, calming tone. The servitor's writhing form swirled around Bart suddenly, spinning about him so quickly he blurred into a molten ring of gold, buffeting him with the turbulence of his body cutting the air at such unnatural speeds, and his voice rang out -- not in Bart's ears, but this time, wholly within his mind. A voice raised in harmony with itself a thousand-fold, a chorus of one raising in indiscernible song.

"Give it thine all, Paladin! It is the purpose for which thou were made! Thine art to burn, burn eternal for the light!" came a cry from the chorus, ringing in his mind as much as his ears, Bart set his teeth and redoubled his efforts, his blade flashing as he raised it to the sky -- its gleaming edge defiantly bright against the great black tapestry of the unsympathetic sky.

If it was his lot to burn, then burn brightly he would.

The howl that cut loose from his lungs was not a sound he would ever truly be able to replicate, the silence of this dead place was rent asunder as one man threw wide the vaults of Heaven, and let their torrent of light pour forth from him. His body ignited in golden fire, running up him in a scintillating inferno that burned away the black, chased away the shadows, and tore the chill from the bones, racing faster and further up him til it engulfed the blade above him, shining as a beacon, spitting its defiance into the empty cosmos, that nay -- here in this place of dark, the light still burned. It burned, and brightly so.

"Yes!" the serpent sang in exultation, a chorus of one venerating the glory before it. Bart felt a weight lifting from him as Sikha's whirling flight suddenly halted, the creature's interminable coils having wrought themselves into a living sigil of divine might, and atop its head burned a halo of holy light.

Searingly bright. That halo grew and grew, it drank all that Bart had, and into it, he was given focus and purpose, his body a doughty channel for the energies. The two creatures worked in concert, what felt to Bart was a years-long struggle was but for the rest of them a few moments, as he provided the proverbial bricks and mortar, and Sikha built with them a great magical fortification.

His chorus crested and that halo suddenly expanded outwards, sweeping out in a pulse that engulfed each and every one of the companions, coating them briefly in that immolating golden flame before simply going out with a rush of air... and a heavy, loaded silence. Bart shook as he felt breath rush into lungs long emptied, staggering to one knee, his heart raced and his body quaked with effort... but he lived. Moreover, he lived and felt not the tax he surely paid on such an expenditure.

"You took the working from him... Sikha, you're brilliant," came Naima's small voice, looking down and smiling as the brightness and color seemed to return to Nazir's eyes. In the distance the struggle between Rashid and Gram fell slowly silent, Bart turning to see the burly southerner letting the cavalier up from a fairly serious grapple, and at Bart's feet... Lidia's screaming had stopped. The golden serpent winged down, that gleaming halo still a fiery circlet of power above its brow, eyes blazing.

"It is mine purpose. I am simply what thy offer me," Sikha said, and darted between each person, the serpent seemed to alight near them, and the visible return of warmth and prowess accelerated, Nazir shaking out of the crippling listlessness like a man freed from the grips of deep cold, Lidia breaking into sobs full of thankful, cathartic release. Bart knelt and wrapped her in his arms, and she threw hers around his neck with a wail.

"What did I do?" Bart asked, looking up at the gleaming serpent. Naima answered, touching the nagai's scales fondly;

"Nagai are simply catalysts, it's how we work together. I form the working of the magic in my mind and soul, and he takes it and fires it with the power of our mantle."

"I am her hands. I handle the containing and expenditure of energies so she need not be as hardy as you Paladins."

Naima wiped her eyes, helping Nazir to his feet. "He's holding that working you just made now, inside of himself -- powering it with his own energies, and using his orbit for its range," she said, smiling at the serpent. "Thank you, Sikha... I would never have thought to do this."

"Nay, neither would have I in any circumstances than this one. Where else would I have access to both a Paladin willing to ignite himself as purpose and mine own unfettered access to the Light of God?" he said humbly, twisting and writhing as he straightened once more into a seemingly runic arrangement of coils. "It is an unwieldy working, as I said: I had needs of a sword, not a scalpel. Without the overabundance of energies at mine and The Paladin's command, this working would have slain us both in the making.

"I can see it now," Naima said, looking at Nazir as the lithe man groggily rubbed at his face, blinking and nodding at Naima reassuringly, Lidia's sobs had quieted as well. Naima tilted Nazir's eyes to hers and then jerked her chin down at Lidia. "Her eyes, Bart."

Bart tilted Lidia's tear-filled face to his, and in her eyes, he saw the warm, glow of gold. Flickering behind her irises with a much-abridged version of the same glowing tracers of light his own ignited in when he grasped his mantle. She sniffled at him.

"Wha' did'ja do Bart?" she asked in a hiccuping voice; "I-I feel... warm inside again..." "He gave you his mantle, Lidia. At least, he tucked you inside of it," Naima said, hugging Nazir powerfully, the two twins not needing words to communicate their relief. Sikha bobbed in assent, Rashid and Gram returning to the group in companionable silence, Gram nursing a bloody nose and Rashid a split lip.

"I am simply recreating that broad, ponderous bottle of energies in mine own orbit -- which is far larger than thine," he said, the serpent's golden gaze lifting a bit imperiously; "I had need of thy particular hand -- Naima cannot form energies as such, and Rashid can only direct them inwards," he explained, alighting before Bart as he helped Lidia to her feet, the little thief running to Gram and hugging him tightly. "So long as thee and thine stay close within mine orbit -- it will push back the tidal forces of the Empty Queen's hunger, so long as she turns not her full attention upon us." The serpent said, watching the interplay between the pair; seemingly bemused by it, turning its gaze to Bart once more.

"Thine Lady destined thine ilk to burn, and thy do so with aplomb." "Sikha," Naima said sharply, the serpent turning his head with a bemused look in his eyes.

"I do not speak falsely, mine mother's fair sister designed her acolytes for sacrifice, as must-needs be for victory in this contest," he said, and Naima narrowed her eyes at him as Bart wiped the blood from his cut face.

"Your methods are certainly more... direct than the Lady's," the battered Paladin admittedly grudgingly, the serpent nodding his head.

"Results are mine only concern in this place. Thy art hale and whole, but if I must-needs choose one who must bleed and burn for the rest of these innocent souls?" the serpent's eyes glinted hard as steel.

"Nay, I will choose thee Paladin. Every time."

Bart rocked back in silence from that, Lidia coming back other with Gram and Rashid, the little thief wiping her eyes, and looking once more out at the desolate environs with a bleak shudder.

"Nae, still 'orrible... but it... feels better. Inside. Warm again," she said, moving over to give Naima a fierce hug. Gram shook his head.

"My mind was... not my own," He said coolly, eyes distant. "It was like watching myself unravel, all I could hear was the gnashing and chattering," he closed his eyes a long moment, though everyone else looked at the exposed horror beneath the ground, and the sickly expressions said it all.

"Yes. I could feel myself being... pulled," Nazir said, shaking his head as he wiped his own eyes. "Like there was no reason to hold firm to my flesh and blood self, no reason to fight, just... drift away. Be nothingness," he said, and Sikha nodded in their presence.

"The Empty Queen's presence draws in all and consumes it. Matter. Warmth. Happiness." he said and turned towards the tower.

"In this place, those things are depleted. Devoured. Gone." There was a quiet span where the companions simply... gathered themselves, everyone's eyes hollow, haunted, and filled with a renewed if grim determination. Sikha maintained the Aura, though... Bart continued to feel the pull of it at him, a low-grade draw off his mantle. Sikha was carrying its bulk, but Bart was still the anchor of the working.

The companions set off in silence, Bart left to contemplate how this limited him -- and setting himself at the front of their march. The battered, bloodied, and scuffed Paladin; white surcoat dyed grisly rust-colored by gore and filth, silvery sheen marred by dust and grime -- yet he stood proud, shoulders straight in spite of it all. He would lead them home. Sikha was right. It was his place to burn. Burn bright.

The white, scabrous bone plain stretched before them in a vast emptiness. No trace of any recognizable landmarks or topography remained, even the river had sealed shut like a fleshy scar, a visible seam of corrupted terrestrial meat the only hint it was once there. As the distance closed, what had looked like more pockmarked fleshy polyps, instead resolved themselves into figures as they grew closer. Immediately everyone was under arms as they saw the line of pale, shuffling shapes... but Bart felt something rise up in him, some sudden feeling of pity. He raised a hand.

"Wait," he said as they approached, the looks he got were full of incredulity, and yet... Bart walked apart from the group, his mantle and faith shielding him as he approached the figures.

There were perhaps a dozen or so, he did not bother counting closely, each hunched and stooped under heavy, all-encompassing shawls seemingly made from the same off-white flesh and bone of the lands around, stitched thickly together like sutures on fresh wounds.

"Hail," He said at a distance... and was given no response. The hunched figures moved past him in a procession, the familiarity stabbing at his mind like an insistent itch. He watched them shamble further past, heading towards some outcropping of strange, bone-sheathed pillars in the near distance.

"I said hail, travelers. Do you know this land?" he tried again... and again, ignored. Bart felt a surge of irrational anger flow through him, and he reached out and grasped the shoulder of one, wrenching them to face him.

"You will speak to m-" his words were cut off by his own choking surprise, as he whipped the the figure around, its overlarge hood falling back from its strange skin-like robes.

A Ghul looked up at him, cowering its odd paw-like limbs held above its eyeless head as it recoiled from him. It was... small. Emaciated. Not a child, simply... diminished. Bart jerked his hand away, the Ghul pawed its hood back into place and scrabbled back into its line, the procession continuing past Bart's stunned figure.

"What is it, Bart?" Nazir said, having joined him at the fore, his mustached face set in wide-eyed alertness.

"Ghuls," He said in a quiet voice. Nazir's hand went to his weapon, but Bart stayed his hand with a firm grip.

"No, Nazir," Bart whispered, watching them reach the strange meat-like monoliths; each one seeming to grow up out of the ground, wrinkled, gnarled flesh showing at their bases like digits or limbs, the ossified flesh cracking and oozing around them, each one vaguely rectangular, the edges softened and then scalloped by oddly ribcage-like growths along the surface -- a single thick, visible seam along the center-most. "They are harmless," he said, sorrow in his tone.

"Those monsters? Harmless?" Nazir spat, the southerner's personal history with the beasts oft-tempering his anger, but not here. Not now. Bart only nodded as they watched them array around the odd pillars, the one in front raising its arms, the others bowing down, groveling. Genuflecting.

"She eats her own," Bart said mournfully. "They are... withered. Lesser." Nazir took his hand away as they watched them praying, begging before the monoliths, the surface of the center-most one opening in a gruesome, almost sexual orifice -- and out poured a hideous, red slurry, one that they quickly gathered in ramshackle bowls of bone and chitinous plates. Bart felt himself grow ill watching it, as the creatures began to voraciously consume the offering.

"She feeds them as if they were pets. They sit and beg, and are given treats," Nazir said with open disgust, whether at the ghuls or the Queen's behavior, it was hard to say.

"This is worship. Communion." Bart murmured, "Pilgrims." "What a blasphemy to visit upon the very idea of faith," Nazir answered, taking Bart's arm. "Come... you are right, these... sad creatures are harmless. Let us be away," Bart nodded his agreement, letting himself be drawn back to their companions, his eyes lingered on the debased ritual though... he felt not the disgust he expected, the mark in his soul tugged at him like greasy, itchy rope.

He mourned them. To be so lost as this... truly, oblivion was a gift.

The companions passed the pilgrims and their unclean feast, the strange symbiosis between the twisted lands and its squalid inhabitants only added to the desolation of the place. They hastened their pace, making for the pillar with all due speed. It rose above them, seeming to grow even more massive than possible as they grew closer, the height climbing far out of sight into the yawning black tapestry above them, at its base an obvious ramp came into view, obscured by the scale and distance at first, but clearly creating a flesh-earth causeway up to a large, ornate entryway -- a great gate.

It was truly massive, each towering door a slab of strange ossified flesh, bone, and tooth-like enamel. It seemed more like a maw itself as they drew closer, space and distance feeling... disjointed. They had traveled not overlong, and yet they seemed to have covered a league or more of distance -- the very concept of space and time breaking down in this reality by bits and chunks.

"Unguarded," Rashid noted as they began to crest the path upwards, Bart's eyes rolled skyward, feeling an uneasy sense of vertigo as as he stared up its staggering, impossible length, too thin, too narrow to be so tall -- and yet it stood, defiant and wrong.

"To whom would she need to guard against at this point?" Gram asked, visor still down as he walked near Lidia, polearm in both hands at the ready.

"Us," Rashid stated simply, as was his way.

The gates shuddered as they approached, getting everyone's attention immediately, the walls of the tower and doors alike_breathed_. The entire assembly of limbs, flesh, and bone stretched and bulged nigh-silently outwards in a slow, uneven rhythm that clawed at the mind with its fleshy, organic motion, rippling outward from that hideous entryway. Each door was vaguely oblong, the opening itself looking like for all the world, the most blasphemous twisting of feminine anatomy, the vulgar, vaginal design somehow intersecting with the tangle of fused limbs, bodies, and plates that melded into the walls of the sickening spire to straddle the line between a lurid, obscene familiarity and an aggressive, almost maw-like shape. The doors themselves were ribbed, inset with seams and plate fused grossly together, visible threads of bare sinew taut between each plate and the bone-fused bedrock of the tower's bio-mechanical nightmare of shapes and dimensions.

A hollow boom answered them as they ascended halfway, and the massive portal once again shuddered, the doors flexing, cracks in the surface letting out ages-old dust and fragments as those ropy cords of tendon suddenly drew tauter still, and the doors _spread._It was a disquieting thing to witness, the sound itself was that of loud, wet flesh against flesh; sliding and sucking noises of sinew and too-soft meat. Yet also, there was the grind of bone on bone, the sound of teeth grinding in one's skull on a magnitude never meant for human ears. The doors spread apart grotesquely, the lines of sinew peeling the bony gates apart like folds of flesh. The gates bending and flexing along the scalloped, inset seams -- not decoration but points of movement, peeling and flexing outwards and flattening as if it were parted by two titanic, invisible fingers, revealing the dark, ribbed, and cavernous passage beyond... and within then, a massive figure walked free. A familiar figure.

"Ho ho ho ho...." Bart felt his hackles rise in a chill of fear, the same shudder running like a wave through his companions as weapons were readied, Bart's own sword taken in both hands as out of the shadows walked yet another beast of nightmares past.

"Welcommme to the ennnd, littllle onnnes." Humbaba the Everliving rumbled, striding out of the darkness, not the ragged, tattered, ancient-looking being they'd seen before. His finery was replaced by a sheathe of pale white flesh, his whole body a broader, more purpose-built machine now, the tower's own twisted nature seemingly imposed upon him, shaping the Ogre-Lord, remaking him in its image. His armor and crown were gone, replaced by ossified plates of bone and enamel that rose from his very flesh. Faces of the doomed and devoured pressed out of his gross belly, locked in an eternal rictus of torment and fear, hardened into his very being, robbed of their identity as more than brick and mortar for this hellish revival.

The creature's face was a nightmare of nightmares, no longer was it festooned with a full beard and disturbingly human visage; instead it was plates of chitinous bone fused to ossified meat and sinew, a lipless mouth full of razor-edged teeth and too-human incisors, its fleshless smile extending hideously up the sides of its face in a too-wide rictus of murderous hunger. Its whole body was covered in that same strange, plated armor as the other, giving it a naked, flayed look -- as if something had peeled all the flesh from a grotesquely fat man, and then wrapped him in hide and bone, stitching and gluing it all in place as a new, horrific skin, leaving its extremities bare. In either hand, it clutched two massive blades, wrought not of the iron they had been -- but bone and flesh, ending in razor-edged teeth that twitched and vibrated with murderous glee in its grip. It grinned wide, or at least it seemed to, its jaws splitting and that voice... coming from a set of lips nestled inside of the fangs and flat, human teeth -- lips too soft, too sumptuous for the voice that graveled its way from their depths.

"Yooou havvve beennn annnticipateddd....." the monster purred in a voice like a bear gargling caltrops and broken glass. Its eyes were lidless abominations, staring white and milky, but they undoubtedly saw, their gaze raking across the companions like a thonged whip to the soul. It raised those great fanged cleavers above its head, banging them together in a horrid clash that split the too-silent air like a thunderclap, stomping its heels down, setting itself between the doors and the party.

"The Ennnd of Alll thiiings, the laaast meeeal. Welllcommme," it cackled, grinning down at them in hunger, lust, and a grisly sort of reverence.

"Offerrrr thyyy meaaat and booones to the Motherrr, be eternalll with herrr graaace." The laughter of the beast rang out, mocking and sure as the doors locked open with a wet, fleshy boom, and behind him, the darkness yawned hot and muggy, steam and a fetid mist rolling out past his ankles towards the companions. Beyond: their goals and perhaps a chance way home. There was no other way, no other path. No other choice.

Humbaba's laughter echoed out mockingly.

The empty cosmos above offered no reply.