Icarus Awakens

The command structure of the Illustrious was a product of the long years they’d endured in the Crest. When the world broke, the previous order of enlightened peers collapsed in the face of unprecedented challenges. The old ways might have survived regardless if not for the catastrophic losses taken during the betrayal. The Illustrious were not the only ones cast into the abyss by the uncaring gods, but they alone survived to this day.

Of those that remained to lead, true memory was valued above all else. That these individuals were the oldest and strongest, capable of extending their lifespans indefinitely, also factored in strongly. For some sects there was a continual leadership struggle throughout the centuries as equally able members of the old guard competed to direct the preparations for the next war. Mavar Helioc didn’t have that problem.

Aside from himself and three sealed in the Astral, all within his local order had been born after the betrayal. Sheltered though they were in his stronghold, only a rare few had been able to join him in freedom from the influence of the Octyrrum. Most couldn’t advance far enough to have the strength to break their chains.

One proud example of his collective was standing in front of a row of armored humanoids. Remir Cassar was defined most by his scars and his choice to keep him. He did not have Mavar’s mastery of form inherent to transmutation specialists, merely benefiting from what would be termed level 6 endurance should he still have his class. The man was beyond that now.

Remir did not wear armor or carry weapons. For protection, he strengthened his skin with mana to be harder than any metal the Illustrious could reasonably find and forge. Should he need to fight, he would have ways other than a sword. He strode back and forth in front of the assembled warriors, muttering incantations under his breath for each one. The beard and stout nature of the man would have been comparable to a dwarf if this world had any.

Each warrior he passed was left changed as Remir applied his buffs in a wave. First they stood straighter, dark eyes gleaming. Then the sea-green armor shone for a moment before fading into a darker green to match the forest on the next pass. A fourth shaped claws out of their gauntlets, giving the warriors weapons they otherwise wouldn’t have. However, Remir paused before the last set of enchantments.

“You’re sure it has Regeneration?”

“Yes,” Mavar replied in a slightly irked tone. Remir, due to his status and position, was one of the few who could act with impudence in his presence. Mavar was no Tyrant, but he expected a general decorum from the collective. “We observed it in battle and it matches what I suspect occurred with the Entropic Agent. Use the parasitic poison.”

“I could make ‘em have a flame attack instead. Cauterize the wounds.” Remir lifted one of the warriors’ clawed hands, the armored figure not resisting. “It’d be a damn sight more effective than the poison, and my guys wouldn’t have to last as long.”

“It is a fire dragon, Remir.”

The other paused for a moment, letting the hand drop back into a neutral position. “Yeah, that would be an issue.”

“By all means, choose something else. If you can grant them necrotic attacks, that is,” Mavar qualified. “Otherwise, it should be poison.”

“It’s just.” Remir sighed. “It’s my weakest damage buff. Anything with endurance not worth shit can resist it. Could you imagine these things running through the woods, hands trailing flame?”

“Enlightened Cassar, we are trying to catch our enemy unawares,” Mavar chastised, using the man’s title.

“Fine. Prime. You sure you Foresaw it right though?”

“As you know, entities that have come into contact with the Entropic Agent are harder to view.” There was a bit of anger in Mavar’s tone now that Remir heeded. Even still suffering from the drawbacks of using Second Life, the Prime of the Illustrious could unmake him should he choose. That would be a terrible waste of potential and resources, but the Prime still considered it at times.

“Fine, fine. Envenomed Weapons: Living Contagion.” A look of disappointment was clear even through the facial hair as Remir made his last pass. “There. They’re as ready as I can get them. Put anything else on and it’ll ruin Battle Hardened.”

“And the tracker?”

Remir exhaled gustily. “I’m getting to that!” He pulled something small from the air around him, hands gentle so as to not crush the delicate thing. “Concealment. Bestow Alacrity. Track Entity: Rorshawd.”

…

Several days had passed since Ashier had felt something beyond the Crest. What, they wouldn’t say, further infuriating Rorshawd. The little Tyrant was advancing quickly, but keeping their powers secret unless they had to show them. They didn’t trust him. That was probably wise. Rorshawd was averaging a death threat once every two hours and that counted when they slept.

He was no longer a servant of the true gods. Time, misery, and unanswered prayers had taken his faith and he was glad to be rid of it. Rorshawd already had his superior form. Would that he could have avoided his hated foe’s flames, or eaten him before they’d issued forth, he would still be free. But from that terrible night he had lost an eye and a wing, along with becoming so crippled he could hardly move. Regeneration had kept him healthy enough to stay alive, but nothing more.

Ashier had come with their offer and he had accepted more out of incredulity than honesty. He hadn’t believed, or so he told himself. And so, clearly, he’d been tricked. Leashed firmer than he had ever been by his former Lord. They were more a monster than he was for doing this to him. A Tyrant. What should I have expected?

He shook his head, his true head, to cast out the memory. Thinking back on that moment would remind him of the shred of honesty he’d bargained with. Acknowledging that stripped him of any ability for self-pity. The others reacted, and the Tyrant did what made him hate them the most.

“Is it your injuries?” They asked with Kartoss’ voice. The Tyrant and their Proxy were rarely separated. The Proxy was mostly powerless, while Ashier had informed them that they had some potent combat abilities now that they were into the second level. Specifics had been withheld.

Their true form reached for one of the channels black flame had drilled into his neck. Rorshawd bristled, hating how the cool air of their form could soothe the dull ache. “Stop.” Even permanently maimed, his true form was still capable of speech. It was a far cry from the powerful bellows of his former glory, that perfect body he still saw sometimes in his dreams.

“If you are in pain, let me help you.”

“You said you would heal me!”

“I did.” They floated away and up to meet the dragon’s eye. “And you now have an entirely new form as well. You may interact with society. Your smaller form requires less food. You may even mate again.”

“Feh.” Rorshawd looked away, hiding how that last point had resonated with him slightly. “It is not worth the cost. I will find a way to escape your binds.”

“You are mine. That is all. The idea that you are a slave exists only in your head.” The ethereal Tyrant phased out of the visible spectrum. Their Natural Camouflage power, along with the air gestalt’s higher stealth at baseline, made for a potent combination.

“Then what would you call him!?” Kartoss fidgeted under the dragon’s stare, only slightly calmed by the knowledge of Ashier’s standing orders. The avianoid, normally straight-backed and at attention while under control, crumpled against a domed tree. He’d been mostly silent these days aside from when Ashier used his voice. A depression to match Rorshawd’s fury.

“I serve,” he said meekly after some time had passed.

Rorshawd turned his gaze around the area, trying to pick out where the Tyrant was. He always had a sense of the general area, but he wanted to look them in the eyes. “You will never make me that. I will fight and tear at you in every way I can until you release me or I take freedom by my claws! Not you, or your gods-”

Ashier reappeared in front of him, directly in front of his nostrils this time. The gestalt raised one hand and then brought it down. The movement could have been called slashing, only the palm was pointed towards the direction the cloud hand moved. A moment later, Rorshawd’s head jerked violently from an unseen strike. If that had been Ashier, and he saw no other possible source, then it felt like the Tyrant had swapped their relative sizes for a moment to strike him.

Rorshawd picked himself up off the ground, feeling the murder within him spike. But he was not the one in control here. The fire building within him would not issue forth so long as he was close to Ashier or Kartoss. The sudden violence did startle the avianoid as the Tyrant had not shown this degree of control over their subjects before.

Kartoss’ vocal cords were seized by the same grip that held his soul. Anger and spite colored his voice now. “I grow tired of your endless threats. I know you reject me in spite of your earlier promise. You are honorless. Fortunately, I made my initial approach with this in mind.” Rorshawd took in air to protest, provoking Ashier to raise a hand threateningly. “Sit down and listen.”

Kartoss didn’t feel the Tyrant draw on his lungs to yell. The presence that had become familiar by now kept his tone level and simmering. Though a far stronger rage burned in the eyes of the dragon, it was powerless to resist the command. “I know of your history. Your betrayal of the gods. Recanting that heresy on your own has given me the hope that there is still yet a use for one as formidable as you. Even my former champion could not hope to compare. Your insolence against me I may tolerate. Know, however, that our purpose is to make this world right. The mistakes of the one you hold in contempt above all else have put everyone, in every Realm, in mortal peril. You will serve to make this right, either willingly and with my support, or by force with my rancor. Even so, I am a patient master. I will tolerate much. But do not disrespect the gods nor their divine purpose as entrusted by the Octyrrum. Do you understand?”

Rorshawd gained some control of his body back, but not all. The commands of the Tyrant had to be made verbally, but Ashier could also institute standing orders they could mentally disable. They did this now as they allowed him to stand. The gods? Rorshawd thought with bile darker than the fog that had wounded him. He had abandoned his former faith, but not the belief that the so-called gods of the Octyrrum were anything other than a mockery of true divinity.

The dragon drew in air as if to breathe fire, ready to deny the Tyrant and be free of them one way or another, before a butterfly landed square on the tip of his snout. It would have been but a momentary distraction except for the fact that it would not flee when he flicked his head to the side. “Get off!”

“I didn’t see that approach,” Kartoss said, distractedly. It carried the same inflection of Ashier’s speech and was likely the Tyrant’s thoughts spilling over into the control they was maintaining on their Proxy. They faded from view, moving towards a new position. Even Rorshawd’s keener hearing and smell couldn’t track them. Air gestalt rarely made a sound, and their scent was identical to the surrounding air.

“You are afraid of a pathetic insect?” Rorshawd brought one foreclaw up to his face, intending to crush the insect between two claws but accidentally smeared it on his snout instead. Snarling with distaste he began to will himself into his humanoid form, only to find Ashier’s intent blocking the change. They must have mentally enforced one of the standing commands that he remain in the form he was in. Typically, that was to stop him from changing into his full draconic form. “Release me,” he growled.

The response to his continued challenging of the Tyrant’s authority was not another punitive strike, but the appearance of Ashier in front of Kartoss. The Proxy found himself uninhibited. “W-what’s going on?” the avianoid asked in his far meeker natural tone. “Wait-!” His cry was cut off as the mist that was Ashier’s body flowed through him, vanishing the man as if he’d been consumed. The Tyrant themselves faded from view, leaving no trace of their first servant.

That’s new, Rorshawd thought. Another trick that cloud has up their sleeve. But why? His thoughts, which were about the only thing safe from the reaches of the Tyrant, paused as danger faintly registered on his senses. He wasn’t as adept at making full use of his attributes yet and was beginning to suspect there were ways he could manipulate them that weren’t possible at lower levels. Nothing he could do now, though.

Rorshawd regretted killing the creature. Not for its death, but because he could have identified it with the powers he’d stolen from Daniel. Was it some form of high-level monster that delivered toxins in a suicide attack? He didn’t feel poisoned, but it was possible. There was no other obvious threat, so what was the point?

He heightened his Balance and Graceful Fall features, remnants of his old class which had been stolen by Daniel in kind. At level 5 the benefits provided would turn him from an ace in the sky to a king. One whose crown was currently in the possession of another.

Rorshawd took to the air, reveling in what he had traded his freedom for. He’d awakened Totem Warrior as his class seven years ago. Time seemed so twisted now, his soul having passed through multiple crucibles since that formative moment, but he could clearly remember why he’d taken the path he had. It was the same reason there’d been a shred of honesty when he’d agreed to this prison.

If you’d asked Rorshawd what power he’d desire most when he was young, he would have answered flight. A dream more common to the avianoid race, but hard to shake for one native to Threst. Now, he was a titan of the air. He could turn around a tree at full speed with his powers enhancing his form’s natural airborne agility. His fire breath would make short work of anything under his level. What enticed him the most, now that his gripings about the Tyrant were momentarily forgotten, was the promise of getting bigger and better in his adult dragon form. If that Tyrant would leave any of my advancement potential to me, that is.

The speedy return of his dark thoughts was interrupted by a slight shimmer in the trees below. Rorshawd and the others had been concealed in one of the larger stretches of foliage that broke up the plains of the Thormundz at the insistence of Ashier. Their refusal to elaborate, either on what they were hiding from or what their plans were, had infuriated the dragon to no end. Now, there was a threat below him.

The dragon breathed in, drawing mana to empower his fire breath. To his surprise, no muscles in his throat seized to cancel the ability. Neither did it feel like there were many inhibitions on him at this moment. Rorshawd still sensed Ashier nearby, but they must have been clear of his target zone. The dragon finished inhaling and then breathed. Flying was his life and joy, but his fire breath was a close second. That destructive power and life-ending energy far outstripped anything he’d had before as a human.

The trees refused to burn. Rorshawd blinked. He was sure the fire had carried down to them. Even with the holes in his throat robbing him of the range and power he once had, the edge of the fire plume had sprayed over the greenery. And they were trees! Trees burned. Everything burned with time. True enough, some of the foliage had caught on the ground, and that fire was spreading to trees further out, but the ones directly below him had refused to catch.

Something was wrong. At first, Rorshawd was simply annoyed, but then a sinking feeling caused him to fly slightly higher. There was something there, a pattern his high intelligence and wisdom were making out subconsciously that he’d yet to fully realize. Yes, the inexplicable fire resistance was unnatural, but there was something else to it. It was when a portion of isolated fire suddenly and incompletely died that he realized what it was.

The tops of several trees had refused to catch fire. In addition, an area around them had been similarly preserved. There were almost perfect spheres of calm amid the growing inferno that moved without anything visible to explain the discrepancy. It was a power, several, which meant-

Fire rushed up the trees to claim them. Rorshawd, wise now to the danger, felt no satisfaction. Even his improved sight didn’t catch what was coming until it was nearly on him. A glint of the sun reflecting off open air. First one, then three, then a dozen or more. One for every tree that had not burned. Rorshawd could have breathed fire again at them but he was no fool. Arrogant, sadistic, and prideful perhaps, but he had a mind fortified by attributes and experience.

He pulled away in a maneuver not unlike a midair backflip, something that would otherwise be impossible with his bulky frame were it not for his active enhancements. These enemies had been able to sneak up on him and had brought some form of potent fire resistance. It didn’t take too many logical leaps to assume this was an assassination attempt. The vague warnings Ashier had given over the past few days solidified as Rorshawd begrudgingly acknowledged the Tyrant’s foresight.

Whatever was coming for him didn’t slow for all he now appreciated the danger. They had flight as well, or less likely, empowered jumps and had anticipated the dodge. What level are they? Rorshawd thought with some concern. And where did they come from? There was no doubt in his mind these were mortals. Too much coordination and the use of powers perfectly tailored to counter him were the giveaways. Monsters, even other, lesser draconoids, did not have the wide-ranging power set to present this kind of targeted threat.

For the first time, Rorshawd felt naked without Regeneration. It had always been there as a safety net until the cursed Murdon had debilitated it. As a human, he’d been able to risk far more injuries than others would, secure in the knowledge that even grievous wounds would heal after a few days. So long as he didn’t outright die, he’d be fine. That safety was gone.

What he did have was his other powers. While engaging his aerial maneuverings, Rorshawd focused on one of the glints and tried to identify them. A red aura appeared midair, roughly humanoid, although the tag that accompanied them confused the dragon.

??? - (4)

Fucking Unidentification. He glowered in momentary commiseration with Daniel. Marking the others took but seconds, Rorshawd finding that his other assailants had also hidden their names. Why? To hide from his wrath should they survive this encounter? He had to admit that was a wise move. What comforted him was that they were all only level 4, and there were only fourteen of them. He was a dragon, and they didn’t even have weapons! What could they hope to do?

The group of aggressors collided with him. Rorshawd seized one but missed the second he reached for. He felt thick armor underneath his scales that gave some initial resistance as he squeezed. Sighing internally, Rorshawd activated Claw Strike and finished the mortal with a briefly taloned limb. Even though the mana cost was negligible and offered a slight boost to his strength, he hated perverting his pure draconic form. The bird-like appearance on his forelimbs just clashed too much.

Then he registered what the other assailants had done. He’d been mildly successful in twisting away whilst grabbing the now broken body he let fall to the ground, but several had still struck him. Rorshawd hadn’t sensed any bursts of mana representative of higher tier powers, but attacks had still cut through his scales.

None of the wounds he felt seemed different. As Rorshawd circled and laid eyes on his enemies for the first time, he grew puzzled. For one, they’d disabled whatever had made them invisible. They all looked the same, with green armor and wings coming off the back. Not like avianoids, but mortals with six limbs in a mockery of his form. Whatever material made up their armor had been twisted into claws at the ends of each finger. He respected that choice at least; any weapon you carried into aerial combat was one you could drop.

Any further sizing up of the small cluster was halted with a pained hiss. The areas he’d been slashed began to burn. Not with a fire, but a throbbing wrongness as the tissue grew fevered. A power? Did they all have the same power sets? That should be impossible. Who are these insects?

Lost to a sudden, impetuous rage, Rorshawd breathed fire at them before cutting the stream prematurely. Still immune to his fire, the attackers made use of it as cover and shot out of the flame cloud trailing clean air behind them. Not even the black smoke that the fireball turned into bothered his opponents.

He killed two of them this time, snapping one in half with his jaws while battering one to the ground. Even so, the others came on without pause or grief for their stricken friends. Their natural weapons cut him too easily, delivering some kind of poison that bypassed his formidable defenses and caused the flesh underneath to writhe. The effect was too strong for level 4, but they at least died like their level and Rorshawd had never seen his identification power lie before.

Yet, every slash he received in kind did more than it should. These mortals were striking out with glorified claws of their own, it would take minutes for them to dig through his flesh and strike at anything vital. What truly threatened him was the poison each carried. It ate at the immediate area but, worse, struck at his hearts whenever it found a blood vessel. He could feel his pulse slowing even when battle lust should make it race higher and higher. Both were affected differently as well, throwing off the coordinated rhythm necessary for optimal flow.

Fear entered him, one of the legacies of his defeat at Roost’s Peak. Rorshawd had wallowed in a broken body for weeks before Ashier had found him. He knew that losing a battle could end in something worse than death. He wanted to flee then, but they were faster! Immune to his strongest weapon. He still would have tried if Ashier hadn’t enacted one of their standing orders at that moment

Rorshawd shrank dramatically while in mid-air, returning to his lesser form. Ashier had also locked him into it, preventing another transformation. It did remove the sting of the toxin, though that would remain in his dragon form until his body fought it off. What was the Tyrant thinking? Even a level higher, I cannot resist that poison in a body this small!

Oh, and he was falling. His powers would let him adjust and minimize his fall damage, but the enemies had wings! They flew towards him, surely confused but still with murderous intent. Then, Rorshawd felt a tremendous amount of mana leave him as Ashier siphoned it off. The Tyrant suffered a conversion cost for doing this like they did from stealing his advancement potential, but with Rorshawd’s massive mana pool that wasn’t too much of a concern.

The neck of one enemy snapped, and then the body crashed into another to take both out of the sky. Ashier had stolen his Telekinetic Reach and was using it to outright kill these enemies at the cost of the majority of his mana! “What are you… no, stop!” His lesser voice roared as he continued to fall. Powerless to resist, he saw two more fling towards others without the lethal initiator. Five enemies altogether were felled, most alive, but that left more than enough to finish him before he hit the ground.

…

He never would. Ashier had watched the battle after securing their Proxy. Kartoss was normally a massive liability in any fight. They preferred to keep him hidden if at all possible, though this day had called for the use of Cloudborn Sanctuary. It was an interior space that provided powerful protection, though only to those affected by Vassalize.

While Rorshawd had his suspicions about the beings attacking him, Ashier had spent a few careful moments inspecting one of the fallen corpses before taking again to the air. Even with Tyrant’s Bearing, an improved variant of other form-bolstering powers air gestalt could receive, they could not survive the inferno spreading across the forest for long. The Tyrant ascended until they no longer felt the edges of themselves being cast off by rising thermals, took brief note of one spot in the forest that still refused to burn, and then came to the aid of their champion.

He’d done well enough, slaying three in a minute and avoiding lethal damage. The Tyrant thought to leave the dragon to it until they saw sickly green taking root in the long slashes that had been inflicted across his body. Poison, they realized, and strong if it were acting so fast. Those few strikes might have proven lethal if Rorshawd still had Regeneration, though he would have to be saved from further damage.

The Tyrant knew all of his powers, of course. That had been one of the first commands they’d given. A few strategies had come to mind, such as this brutal use of telekinesis. The former was necessary here to quickly eliminate as many combatants as possible. As they issued orders, Ashier positioned themself below the falling dracanoid.

Their enemies stopped when Rorshawd vanished in midair. With his mana siphoned off and primary attack form poisoned, Ashier had no further use for him until he recovered. His attributes and powers, on the other hand, could still serve.

It is well known that Tyrants eclipsed other classes in terms of raw power, enabling them to directly contest others above their level. A less widespread fact, something approaching a secret of the class, was that a Tyrant’s true potential lay in how their powers interacted with their followers.

One mortal could not build a kingdom on their own. Murdon had been right to fear the influence spread as a result of Heldren’s evolved power, but even that had been a secondary effect of Vassalize. Ashier had grown with time, awakening other powers and reaching their second level. That all their powers were received directly from the Tyrant class, rather than being evolved versions of prior forms, was equally important even if that left them with little to directly attack enemies with.

The stalkers of their champion could not appreciate this. At present they flitted about in the air with a loose searching pattern, anticipating an invisible enemy. There was a moment where any of them could have struck an ending blow to the Tyrant while the air gestalt was focused on stealth. In the time they spent failing to do so, Ashier activated the necessary powers to end them.

Kartoss emerged mid-air a short distance from the closest stalker. From his perspective, it had been moments since his master had shielded him from an incoming threat. For a second he hoped the danger was over. One look around was enough to dismiss the only optimistic thought he’d had today. His scream was cut off as he fell through the Tyrant, who had jettisoned their Proxy above their current position. Rather than envelop him again in a similar manner to Rorshawd, something else happened.

To an outside observer, of which there were a few, it looked as though smoke began rushing into the avianoid despite the furious exhalation of his lungs. In this way, Ashier took a more direct control over their Proxy than the already soul-forged magical bond between them allowed. In the time it took for the Tyrant to fully suffuse Kartoss’ body, the closest stalker had gotten within arms’ reach. The avianoid, whose attributes had only been improved to 10 through the pact made with the Tyrant, couldn’t hope to withstand level 4 strength.

He did. The tips of the gauntlet’s claws still slashed at the skin, but feathers stalled the attack to the point that it was a mere graze. Kartoss was poisoned, but neither did this slow him. White mist gathered in a haze around his body, thickest near the eyes from where it very slowly seeped. The stalker tried to pull away and rejoin the others before making a combined assault, only for a hand to grab its neck.

Ashier, using Kartoss’ other hand, latched onto the front of the stalker’s helmet. With a thought that hand’s talons momentarily became elongated, digging into the enemy before tearing off the mask that hid all but the hateful eyes. Their attempts to get away were permanently halted by the left hand breaking the neck. Ashier looked between the mask in their hands and the face of the stalker, confirming what they suspected, then letting both drop to the ground.

Even with the sight of this, the others didn’t retreat. Kartoss, imbued with his master’s form and the stolen attributes and powers of Rorshawd, was more than their match. He flew through the air, something that would have normally filled the man with joy if he were not overcome with terror. The Tyrant kept the body in check even if the mind would have driven them both to the ground. Ashier was in control, all else was unimportant.

Put in Earth terms, the resulting aerial battle was a dogfight between one ace and a handful of rookie pilots. Rorshawd could have done as well with the full information and fewer enemies Ashier had, but as befitted a champion he had been spent reducing the threat to the Tyrant before their might needed to be used.

The end of the battle saw the Tyrant alone in the skies. One of Kartoss’ arms had been sacrificed to shield blows for the other and was more yellowish-green than normal. Where the coloration was deepest, small thread-like parasites were beginning to fester. Of the stalkers, only one remained. Ashier, ignorant of the pain her Proxy was still suffering, observed one clearing in the forest fire below that began to move to the east. Whoever had sent it hadn’t anticipated the fire protection enchantment spoiling its invisibility.

…

“Hmm.”

Remir looked up from the large quadruped with kinetic-conductive crystal capping a gyrating tail, a turbine bellower to use the name given by this region’s occupants. “What? They coming back yet?”

“It appears all of our stalkers were defeated.”

“Fuck! I told you we shouldn’t have gone with poison.”

Mavar considered what he had seen in the projection in front of him before tsk’ing. “The template was not strong enough. I’ll have to forward my suggestions to Sasha. Regardless of your improvements, I fear the result was set. I had hoped to capitalize on the dragon’s weakness but it appears my Foresight was once again incorrect.” To most of his subordinates, admitting his weaknesses was something Mavar did readily. Truth above all else, after all. Remir was the exception. “From my observations, the dragon no longer has Regeneration.” Mavar didn’t turn away from the orb in front of him. “And Remir, when I said all of our stalkers were destroyed, I meant all of them.”

The former Beastmaster paused for a moment. “Hey Prime, you’re still watching that scrying thing, right?”

“Yes.” There was a peculiar inflection to Mavar’s words.

“So, well, not to question your wisdom or whatever, but is there still something to see if that stalker’s going up in the fire?”

“Oh yes. I believe, one way or another, this is going to be interesting.”

Remir peered at Mavar suspiciously before backhanding the rump of the beast in front of him to get it standing. On alert, he strode over to the man with iridescent robes and looked into the orb. “Gah, fuck!”

Whirling around, he saw Ashier as the Tyrant, still piloting Kartoss, materialized above them. “I think,” they said with Kartoss’ voice, “We need to talk.”