Runeblade

The cellar of the chapel was small. Little more than a box with four walls and a too-white wardlight that hung from a central chain. Once, it might have stored winter supplies for the godly ones who maintained the place of worship above. Those had been cleared out to support the defence.

Arc’theros cared little for the spartan nature of his surroundings. Cushioned duvan, or hard stone floor, it didn’t matter. His carapace left him with little capability to appreciate such things.

All he cared about was the godly presence he felt through the bones of this place. The decades and centuries spent in worship to the gods.

It was the perfect place for rites, and he had many that could not wait.

As was proper, he was alone. Righteousness was for the gods, not the eyes of men. Rieker and Ro had left him in peace — while he could manage the cold stone just fine, it wasn’t appropriate for a wounded man. Especially one who had fought in the defence of those who could not defend themselves.

His thoughts lingered on the guildmaster’s wound, and the terrible blow Rieker had taken to his soul. Arc sighed. The fates were fickle, and as much as he knew that it was not his place to question the gods, he could not help but wonder why.

The elderly holy man he had talked with in the Grandbrook temple flashed through his mind. Arc blinked, trying to shake off the guilt in his marrow. It was… unhelpful — more a sin of self aggrandisement than any true righteous perdition.

His honour was stained, that much was true, but that was his burden to bear. What mattered was he fought to walk the right path.

In solemn silence, he worked through the death he had waded through. Men and beast alike, all who had fallen were innocents, and were worthy of a warrior’s rights. Only the Tyrant alone was damned in his heart, its unnatural meld of scale and chitin a reflection of its monstrous soul.

The fact he would use its remnants to refine his own centre was an irony he did not miss. Reaching into the pouch at his belt, Arc withdrew the crystal droplet. It threw off pulsing light through his clutched fingers. Warping shadows and red light wrapped the sacred stone of the chapel basement in a dripping, bloody vestment.

It was a prize he wasn’t sure he deserved, much like every other Honour the people of the Frontier had fostered upon him. Amongst his own, he was exiled — varohos. Stained, in the wise tongue.

Even if the praise of the Frontier sat with all the comfort of a sandstorm, it was also an Honour he couldn’t refuse. Duty and penance sat at the very centre of his being. He was, and always would be, an oathbreaker — but he did not have to be one many times over. By strength of arm, and wisdom of years, he had sworn to protect the people who had accepted him at his lowest.

The droplet, and the strength it brought, would only help him.

But first, a warrior's absolution for the fallen.

Returning the droplet to his pouch, Arc withdrew three simple wooden bowls. They were ancient, older even than he. An ashen grey-brown, one had a hairline crack that stretched from the lip to halfway down — a remnant from throwing it against the wall of a sandstone cave so many years ago.

Steadily, Arc placed them in a line in front of him, before he bowed his head. The Rite of Passing; how long had it been?

Nearly a century, right after he had let his brothers die.

Steadying the quake in his hand, Arc grabbed his water skin.

“This one gifts his water to the gods, so that they may hear his sincerity,” he whispered, a slight quaver entering his voice. Moving slowly to steady his motion, he filled the bowl with water as it reflected the wardlight above. It was important he didn’t spill a drop.

Staring down at the glimmering dot on the water's surface, he couldn’t help but think it strange. It had been so precious once, in the desert. Even before his exile from the oases, it had been a carefully rationed thing.

He filled the next bowl.

“This one gifts his water to the fallen, so they can sup and rest.”

And the next.

“This one gifts his water to the living, so they may have the strength to grieve and heal.”

Bowing his head once more, Arc quickly downed the bowls of water one after the other — before water could spill from the hairline crack in the rightmost bowl — and finished the old rite of his people.

Finished with his task, he withdrew the Droplet of Tyranny once more and stared into his depths. He sat like that for some time, absorbed in its swirling light as he felt a tug from within. There was a knot in his belly — a tension that had been present for much of his life, though had grown tighter in recent weeks. It was one that he was far too old to allow to hold him back.

Acting on instinct, Arc cradled the droplet over his chest, and reached out to the power he felt trapped within.

**Ding! Consume Droplet of Tyranny, and reverse Soul Crystalisation? This process is irreversible!**

Arc’theros accepted the System’s will in an instant.

For a moment, he caught a flash of red light, the sensation of burning oil seeping through his fingers as the crystal’s resistance in his hands disappeared.

Then he was lost in a sea of fire.

Immediately thrown into his soulspace, Arc saw his soul. It was as he remembered it — a burning aurora captured in a thin layer of frost. It was what he assumed to be the beginnings of the Soul Crystalisation the system had mentioned, something that had appeared after he rose to the second tier.

Potent essence streamed into his soul. It was similar to the Tyrant’s original power that had infested his flesh until only hours ago, but purified. Like every scrap of malice had been pulled free, leaving only the refined potential that the energy bore.

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It was beautiful and enrapturing, a carmine that wrapped his deepest core utterly in its light.

Then it touched the sparkling exterior of his soul, and everything went blank.

An unknowable time later, Arc gasped, surging upright as he returned to his body with the taste of iron on his tongue. There were system notifications chiming in the back of his mind, but he paid them no attention.

He could feel something with him. Structures in his soul. His Aspects, waiting for him to find his Truths. He knew the theory, but he hadn’t quite realised how deeply he would feel a connection to them.

One in particular. He knew it intimately. Animus, the core of his being. It seemed to call to him, croon as it asked him to speak what he already knew.

What are you, stripped bare?

The simplicity of the question made him laugh: a deep, rolling chuckle that echoed off the hard stone walls. How could he not find the humour in it. A hundred years he had pondered that question, always coming to the same answers.

Oath breaker. Betrayer. Exile. Craven.

His oldest answers, those he had held for a hundred years — but not the completeness he now knew. He was a warrior of burdens, a penitent of his ancient sins. Never would he escape from the ghosts of his brothers.

But never again would he abandon another to meet the same fate.

His chains were many, but just like the great Jorosh, they would not break him.

A detonation rocked his soul, sending him sprawling back on his hands as he gasped. Power flooded him utterly, one pillar burning with the resplendent light of Truth.

**Ding! Soul Crystalisation Reversed!**

**Ding! Aspects Triumvirate formed!**

**Ding! Pillar of Self Discovered, Animus Ignited. Would you like to initiate Aspect Formation?**

**Ding! Animus Aspect Founded - The One Shaped by Guilt**

**Ding! Significant Feat of Strength performed under Observation. You have been awarded an Honour: Old Dogs**

**Ding! Significant Feat of Strength performed under Observation. You have been awarded an Honour: Enlightened Soul**

Arc blinked, reading the descriptions that waited for him with the solemnity they deserved.

….

Crouching low, Kaius wrapped his hands around a shattered piece of masonry. It was almost as big as he was, a part of the shattered foundation of a long house that had been demolished by the nightscale in its flight through the city.

Firming his grip, he heaved. His legs burned, and the size of the stone made it awkward, but he wasn’t the boy he’d once been. Steadily, he rose, and began his awkward walk to the rough pile he;d been making at the edge of the street.

It was hard work, but it needed to be done. With masons and earth mages, repurposing broken blocks was easy. Moving them was not. Dollies and cranes took expertise to use and the earth mages' time was far better spent elsewhere. With how chaotic the city was, organising the logistics of the clean up must have been a nightmare — one he was glad he had no part in. That said, as one of the few who could comfortably move the larger stones by himself, it was only right to pitch in.

Besides, there was something refreshing about feeling the burn in his legs as he picked up a block of stone that weighed tonnes. Rarely was it quite so evident how physically capable he now was. Even before factoring in his Skills, or the strengthening of his bond skill, having eighteen-hundred Strength meant he was thirty-six times stronger than his already large frame suggested.

Reaching the pile, he did his best to lower the stone gently. It still shook the ground as it thudded home.

Sighing in relief, he leaned on the rock and took a swig from his water skin — just in time to see Ro approaching with a broken wooden beam over her shoulder. It was quite the sight — damn thing was three times the size of her.

He raised an eyebrow, grinning at Ro. He hadn’t expected to run into her — last he’d heard she’d been helping a group a couple of blocks away.

“We salvaging the beams too?”

“If they’re long enough,” she replied, grunting as she threw the beam down. “Carpenters said if they’ve got eight or more strides of unbroken length, they can be repurposed easily enough to be worth the effort.”

Kaius eyed the piles of rubble that made up most of the street. Somehow he doubted they’d find many of them here.

Walking over, Ro leaned on the stone next to him.

“I’m really here to talk about your trip — the Dukedoms are a different beast to the Frontier.”

“Oh? What do you have for me?”

He knew she was right, of course, so he’d take whatever he could get. He would be the first to admit he’d had a rather…provincial upbringing, and he’d heard enough tales of prickly nobles and overwhelming metropolises to be more than a little wary.

“The nobles for one. They’re going to be…ruffled by the Guild releasing Legacy skills. As an independent Silver, you’ll immediately be branded as one of our agents.”

“You saying I should expect a fight?” Kaius replied, frowning.

“No, nothing like that. Just be prepared for arbitrary bullshit to get in the way of what should be simple. Be staunch, but try to avoid making enemies — you’d win the duels, but that’s not necessarily going to solve the problem.”

He groaned — just great. As much as he’d love to say that her warning surprised him, it didn’t. While he didn’t want to paint all of them with the same brush, it lined up with the common opinion. Nobles were pricks.

“Should we try to hide our presence?”

Ro let out a clean peal of laughter, shaking her head.

“Does it rain in the hells? No. You’ve got an aura that’s as subtle as a dwarven cannon, and the rest of your team’s no better — that’s not even getting into the fact that Porkchop’s a damn greater beast, and I doubt he would be happy pretending to be mindless. All of you are far too noticeable, and it won't take long for your exploits here to spread. If you try to hide, it’ll just look like you’re plotting something. Hell, at this point you're better off not even Masking.”

Grunting in acceptance, Kaius looked down the street to where a bustling team of workers was sorting through one of the many piles of salvaged materials. Whatever happened, they’d handle it. Even if the nobility were actual demon hosts, it couldn’t be as bad as what the Tyrant put them through.

He watched Ro out of the corner of his eye.

“You’re going to be okay in Mystral?”

“We’ll survive,” Ro sighed, “I won’t lie and say I'm happy about it, but the fact I still have Rieker is soothing. Many weren’t so lucky.”

They weren’t, and that fact dug at him like a rusty nail.

A sudden shove sent him stumbling. Kaius spluttered, looking at Ro.

“None of that. We won,” she said, fixing him in place with a steely stare. “The Tyrant was a brutal bastard, but its lesson was a true one. Most others in the second tier have already learnt it — the world takes no prisoners. People die. You do your best, make your play to perfection, and they still die. You grow old, moving forward as all the while you lose more and more people as time goes on — either to the gods, or when you turn to look and suddenly realise you’ve left them behind. All you can do is make a choice: do you stop and breathe, or do you jump on the lion's back and hold on as tight as you can?”

Kaius looked away, staring back at the rubble.

That was a decision he’d made a long time ago.