Quest Shattered Cycle

[Elysium]

Zintila passed the Master of Dusk Tower, lightly caressing his shoulder as she went by. Her focus seemed to be upon Aoru, having heard Alses’ desperate plea for aid. She was akin to Syna in a certain, peculiar way, though her hair was dark as midnight and her eyes were two orbs of shimmering quartz. Alabaster robes swept the ground as she moved to his side, the picture of concern. ”Such a faithful servant,” she breathed, cradling Aoru’s inert form. ”What men will do for a simple infatuation. She clicked her tongue as a mother would. Blood spilled upon her as she raised a hand to mend the wound, pouring djed into the fatal blow. It began to knit itself in a peculiar way however, for instead of skin, skyglass shimmered in the lantern’s beryl glow. ”Aoru of Snowsong Hold, you have an impenetrable heart. Let the flesh reflect the spirit within.” Zintila leaned in to kiss his cheek, eyes gleaming with the wisdom of the heavens. ”Out of my way!” The other three turned at once, stunned as none other but Chiona herself barreled down the corridor, nearly throwing her Father aside. ”Where is she?! Don’t think I don’t know she’s here!” She sounded like a jealous lover seeking their wayward other-half. Her gaze fell upon Alses’ shaking form, drinking in the sight of her quickly forming bruises almost immediately. There was murder in her eyes. ”How dare she!” Ald’gare caught her by the arm, preventing his daughter from rushing headlong at the Anchorite. ”Go to your student. Let our revered Ethaefal deal with the other problem.” The tone of his voice seemed to soothe her savage heart, and embarrassed, she quickly composed herself. ”Yes, of course.” Smoothing her flyaway hair, she floated with dignity to Alses’ side. ”You alright, dear? We’ll be getting you some tea shortly. The worst is over,” she crooned reassuringly. It seemed the unflappable Chiona was suddenly back to normal. ”A cup of Sunrise,” she said with her usual knowing wink. Aoru’s eyelids fluttered as he woke. The holes in his chest were completely filled in, veins curiously visible through the semi-translucent material. He gasped at the sight of Zintila’s smiling face. ”Hello,” he said, grinning wryly. ”I didn’t realize Dira was so beautiful.” She laughed, two radiant tears running down her ivory cheeks. The sound was unreal, like the worshipful songs of the Chandra and Taiyang together, mingling freely. ”Always the charmer,” she whispered. ”I am not the Goddess of Death, but rather, of what lies beyond. Rest now. You’ll be back to the violin soon enough.” He gaped at her, astonished. ”Zintila?” Aoru’s eyes traveled reflexively south and their color shifted, ultramarine to tangerine – bewilderment to shock, and with that he promptly fainted. ”Poor dear,” Talora said, moving to his side. Were he conscious, he'd have been thrilled. Meanwhile, the great wolf sat on its haunches, hovering protectively before Alses' earthbound form. Zintila rose, turning to the Anchorite and her companion, both seized in the interim by Ald’gare and Aysel. Ald’gare had Sayim by the scruff, dark eyes unfeeling while the man struggled. Aysel on the other hand, cradled the Anchorite gingerly, with clear distaste. ”Hayani,” he seethed. ”Wake up, before I toss you.” Zintila sadly turned her attention to the Priestess. ”Hayani. I’ve seen this illness fester. Talora prayed some vestige of humility would intervene, but I had no such hope for your tortured mind.” She rose lightly and began to approach, leaving Aoru to the Synaborn’s gentle embrace. The woman stirred, brought abruptly awake by the sound of her Mistress. ”Aysel too, cautioned against this. But the best of us lives on in Talora’s heart. We gave you a final chance, for you deserved this much. But no more will I abide your madness. You and your servant have danced in the blood of the Fallen. This cycle cannot continue. Let it be shattered on this night.” Aysel placed her on the ground in disgust while Ald’gare forced Sayim to his knees. ”To your knees, Hayani.” Zintila said. Tears sprang to the Anchorite’s eyes. ”No,” she urged, ”please. Zintila, forgive me, please.” She began to weep openly. The Lethaefal yanked her up bodily, forcing her into submission. ”Do not do this,” she cried, in the throes of hysteria. ”I cannot die! It is against the will of Syna, of the Moon-father Leth! They will spite you!” ”Then I welcome their spite.” She said, voice stricken by grief. ”My love travels with you along Dira’s web.” Zintila turned away to the steely ring of a sword unsheathed. In the shadows, one could glimpse her final moments before the swing, body falling still, entreaties no more as her head swept cleanly to the blood-streaked ground. Talora began to cry softly. Aysel sighed, eyes upon his blade. Sayim on the other hand, said nothing as Ald’gare pulled forth a skyglass dagger – and by the Gods, it was that selfsame dagger Alses’ crafted seasons earlier – and plunged it through the base of his neck. Chiona visibly winced, though she said nothing. Instead she reached to shield Alses' eyes, clearly more concerned for her student than herself. "Don't look. You shouldn't have to see this."

[Alses]

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“We would never have asked him to,” Alses sniffled, even as Zintila's gentle hands took over, ghosting across the flesh of the grievously-wounded Aoru and heedless of the blood that sluiced over Her robes and hands, a spreading red stain that spoke of the slow exudation of life with every drenched centimetre. Her movements were unhurried and yet precise, care paramount in every motion. Concern was etched on the Alvina's face, rendering it suddenly timeworn, a sense of aeons of existence normally veiled behind timeless beauty coming to the fore.

Power gathered swiftly, easily visible to an aurist, a million million pinpricks of swelling light moving like a great river through the inky black firmament of Zintila's vast aura to tangle about Her fingers, djed not gathered from the ambient nor sourced from the stuff of life itself, but instead pulled from somewhere other – the Ukalas, if Alses was any judge of such things, the wellspring of divine power. Zintila had been one of the greatest of the gods before the Valterrian; small wonder She still had the means to tap into the Ukalas and drink deep of its heady essence.

All at once, without warning, the tapestry of stars that wove perpetually about Zintila flared with supernova light, a positive torrent of divine djed pouring forth from her outstretched hand, shimmering into mundane existence as thin slivers, then flakes, then spires and tendrils and finally whole sheets of celestial skyglass, rainbowed with the full panoply of Zintila's power and merging seamlessly with torn skin and shattered bone and broken blood vessels until a perfect patch of rainbowed brilliance had closed the gaping wounds, the fine tracery of blood vessels and veins and organs cradled by skyglass half-visible through the shimmering translucence.

“Your works are wondrous,” Alses breathed – such healing could only have come from divinity. “Thank you.”

The moment between blood-drenched Ethaefal and celestial Alvina, an instant of understanding over a wounded mortal, broke quickly, though, with the whirlwind arrival of Chiona Dusk, garbed for war and with a slender sword resting companionably in her hand, gleaming and ready to cleave flesh from bone in an instant. This was not the elegant and assured Lady Dusk Alses was used to, no – this was the one who normally only manifested in the sparring ring, a far wilder and more dangerous creature who often made mincemeat out of the regular House Guard with the synergy of her auristics and martial talents.

Even her voice was different, a harsher and more imperious bark that bounced and rolled from the high ceilings and skyglass walls of the Temple atrium as she charged forward with murder in her eyes, only redirected at the last moment by her father's tempered, moderating influence.

Some things didn't change, though – the default comfort for Lhavitians after a disaster or a crisis of any sort was still tea, and Chiona offered it almost as soon as her friendly arms cradled Alses, a shield of flesh against further attack and the world in general.

It brought a weak and wavering smile to her face, a sense that perhaps, just perhaps, blessed normality was asserting itself again. “I'd prefer Sweet Oblivion,” she rasped in reply, voice still reedy and quavering, the bruises coming up nicely black and purple on her pale neck. “Or failing that, tea and brandy.”

Darkness was encroaching, the urge to lie down and simply sleep, even with most of the city's executive government clustered close about, but Zintila's heavy-hearted pronunciation of justice was something that she felt, instinctively and in her bones, bore remaining awake for.

All the fight had been knocked out of Hayani; she sprawled in Aysel's distasteful grasp and, with his mistress insensate and captured, her Kelvic servant? Bondmate? was also sullen and quiet, held none-too-gently by Ald'gare Dusk himself, the pair of them awaiting whatever punishment Zintila would mete out.

When it came, judgement was final, and as sorrowful as it was quick: a simple and deadly arc of light through the air put an end to five centuries of life and influence in a spurt of silvery blood.

Anchorite Hayani's head landed with a sickening chime on the skyglass floor near her lifelessly-falling body, still coldly beautiful even in death. Her expression, spattered by silvery drops of her own lifeblood, bore the slackness of life extinct, but the twin glittering eyes stared out accusingly, boring into Alses' own, malicious even though they were now, surely, only meat.

Even as she watched, transfixed by the baleful stare, the ornate horns that spiralled so beautifully from the Anchorite's temples began to shimmer and grow insubstantial, deliquescing into the air with a puff of shining particles and, abruptly, leaving no trace of their existence around Hayani's dead face.

A strangled cry – of fear, rage or sympathetic pain, she was never entirely sure – burst from Alses' lips and she cringed backwards, shivering, into the warmth and safety offered by Chiona and Talora and the unconscious yet healed form of Aoru.

“Hayani was enough,” Alses agreed queasily, relaxing into the obscuring darkness brought about by Chiona's shielding, obscuring hand and doing her level best to shut out the sound of tearing flesh and the soft ungh of another life departing for Lhex's embrace as Ald'gare Dusk did the needful thing and bathed the Temple in yet more blood.

"What now?" she wondered, after some little while, eyes still covered and only half-aware she was speaking aloud. "What becomes of Koten Temple? What about Lhavit?"
e

[Elysium]

Chiona held no qualms about cradling the Ethaefal in her arms, hiding her from the brutal realities of the world. Alses did not deserve this; she’d never even asked to come back to Mizahar in the first place. And on the whole, she smelled like sweat and roses, not a wholly unpleasant combination. But in the end, her embrace lightly broke, allowing the rising star (for lack of a better term) freedom to move. ”Sweet Oblivion,” she assented, clearly without argument. Even she would take a dose of the stuff, right about now. ”Lhavit will be fine, as it’s ever been.” Talora’s voice was a girlish soprano, reinforced by the weight of sadness. ”You on the other hand, need some rest.” With sympathetic eyes, she approached to examine the wounds on Alses’ throat, oblivious to her own mortal seeming. ”Ah,” she said, smiling as she drew near. ”Attar of roses. You must keep a garden somewhere, provided you distill it yourself.” Aysel sighed again, this time in gratitude for the idle chatter. He pinched just above the bridge of his nose, as if to ease sinus pressure in the case of a migraine. ”This whole affair has given me a headache.” Ald’gare nodded, wiping the stain from his blade with a brilliant blue handkerchief. ”I can imagine,” he replied, approaching his daughter. ”We will rebuild,” the voice of Zintila sang. All looked to her. ”Alses,” she said, ”you have done well. You have proven your resourcefulness and your loyalty to my city. For that, I feel you should be rewarded.” In all her resplendent glory, she presented two empty, upturned palms and closed her eyes, blue flame dancing across the gleam of her ivory flesh. The shimmering outline of a stick began to appear, then to grow, until the inert form of an ornately crafted skyglass polearm took shape. It was a quarterstaff, about seven feet in length and along the head of each end, there were designs of the sun and moon, a depiction of the phases of the sun and the union of Syna and Leth. ”This is the Morningstaff, something I have pondered crafting for some time. It is yours, Alses, Sorceress of Lhavit. The staff’s true magical characteristics will be yours to ponder,” she said wryly, ”as I have no doubt you shall desire to magecraft it to your liking. When you have decided that you’re strong enough and just what you wish to do, contact me. I will obtain the reagents you desire.” She allowed Alses to collect her prize before turning, inky hair lustrous in the cool light. ”We shall be off. Shara,” she said, turning to the wolf. ”Be a dear and notify the Catholicon.” The beast gave a low bark and took off, clearly eager to serve. ”I wouldn’t have you stay here,” Talora said to both Alses and Chiona. ”Let’s relocate somewhere a little less…” Tears threatened to fall again. ”Hostile.” The lot of them got up wearily and moved to the next room, turning their back on the cycle, for good or ill. FIN Gah!I'm so so so so so so sorry that it took me two seasons to get this finished. I'll grade it shortly. Forgive me!

[Elysium]

Alses

Experience
Observation +5
Auristics +4
Rhetoric +3
Persuasion +2
Running +1
Investigation +4
Leadership +3

Lore
Elzai and Alaja of the Ethereal Opera House
Ayda the Ethaefal
Seeker, Clay Warrior
Illia, Hummingbird Kelvic
Lena, the Fallen Lethaefal
How to Persuade the Grieving
Lena's Journal: Last Words
Anchorite Hayani, Gone to Madness
Sayim, Murderer and Okomo Kelvic
Zintila, Alvina of the Stars
Aoru's Sacrifice and Zintila's Mercy
Talora, Lady of the Sun
Ald'gare Dusk, Patriarch
The Execution of the Anchorite
Weapon: The Morningstaff

Awards and Penalties
Alses has received the following as a reward from Zintila:

• The Morningstaff

Likewise, she has become badly bruised around the neck. The formation of the bruise is in the shape of grasping fingers.

Notes
Despite all others dropping out, you stuck with it! Congrats! You deserve all the bounty and more. If you have any questions, please let me know!