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TEMPEST FERMENTS

Redstone pillars pierced the ground, over a hundred of them, crisscrossing over a winding road that led up a slight slope . Each was rectangular in shape, the signs of time’s wear lighting their surfaces . There was a strange pattern to them, one that an untrained eye was unable to see -- but one that even the trained ones would have some difficulty with .

Lux and Ard, both clad in their respective colors -- silver and black-crimson -- were walking up the path, occasionally stopping and inspecting the pillars . They had rather flattened expressions, their brows occasionally scrounging up, though otherwise remaining straight .

The two were currently four or so miles into the Arid Expanse, a stretch of the burning desert with only a few break-ups of terrain -- such as this one . Though their job was to locate the headquarters of the Great Descent, rumored to be someplace in the Arid Expanse, it was also to map out all the landmarks so it would be easier to orient in the desert .

" . . . what do you think?" Lux asked, her voice strangely melodic . "Natural or manmade?"

" . . . hmm, hard to say," Ard mumbled, his voice rough and low . "Their texture and rate of erosion seem natural, but shape and positioning . . . not as much . "

"Chart it, either way," Lux nodded, taking out a wide canvas and letting it float in front of her, scribbling the section near the border and indicating the distance with a flat line . "What should we name it?"

"Red Pillars . "

"Haii, your sense of naming should really be improved . . . "

"Why?" Ard frowned . "They’re pillar-like, and they are red . Hence, Red Pillars . "

" . . . Red Pillars it is," Lux chuckled lightly, inscribing the name onto the canvas and putting it away . "That’s the fourth one . I didn’t expect the border regions to be as diverse . "

"We should be more careful," Ard added . "Move less during the day . "

"The world is too occupied at the moment to care about us," Lux rolled her eyes at her companion’s paranoia . "We should hurry up instead . How’s your status?"

" . . . still the same," Ard replied, sighing . "If I don’t exert myself too much, I should be able to keep the Curse at bay for another hundred years or so . "

"It’s not a curse," Lux said . "Not really . "

"Whatever it is, it’s debilitating nonetheless . We can only hope Empyrean’s research yields good results . "

"It will," Lux said optimistically as the two began moving toward the exit . "His army is strained as it is, he knows it . Losing us would cripple him too much . "

" . . . hm," Ard nodded, glancing toward the high-skies that were currently lit up in a stretch of colors, forming a Formation . "I can’t believe he managed to actually kill the Devil . We may have underestimated him still, despite all . "

" . . . let’s get a move on," Lux said after pausing and glancing up at the sky as well . "Lots of ground to cover . "

**

Ty was currently standing in a barely-lit room, four walls darkened in the shade, windowless . There was a pungent smell permeating the air, one that nearly caused his own innards to flip out . Strewn across the floor, fourteen corpses lay still, drowned in the massive pool of crimson blood . Fourteen reported rebels, all dead . Not killed -- all committed suicide by slitting their throats with ordinary knives . All belonging to the Eight of Descent .

There was a deep frown on Ty’s face as he contemplated, eventually turning sideways to his companion, an elderly man, seeming in his forties, pale-faced as he had just stopped retching in the corner .

"It’s impossible to confirm their movements following until today?"

"Yes, Lord," the elderly man replied, shaking still, refusing to look at the floor . "The moment we’d gotten your report to lock them up, we tried all we could to track them down -- but it was as though all traces of them vanished . "

" . . . " Ty’s frown deepened even further as the tried to make sense of the situation . Yet, no matter how he looked at it, it didn’t make much sense .

If the cause was to rebel, why not at least stir up more problems instead of hiding and committing suicide? It was the last part that complicates everything -- they’d died without achieving anything worthwhile, at least as far as Ty could tell .

"Lock up the city," Ty said in the end . "Only allow trustworthy merchants to come and go . On my authority, continue recruiting Peacekeepers and posting them around various sights throughout the city . If anyone voices opposition, don’t do anything before first letting me know . "

"Y-yes, Lord!"

"You’re free to go . " the man bowed in gratitude and quickly left, ensuring he didn’t step into the massive pool of blood polluting the floor .

Ty remained standing in the room, his eyes contemplative . Though he was tempted to contact Lucky, he decided against it; this was one of the few occasions where he was given an opportunity to prove himself, and he decided to at least try and take it . If things went awry too much, however, he wouldn’t hesitate . They were at war, and incidents like these shouldn’t be happening .

He left the room shortly after, stepping out into a wide-open wheat farm . The grains stretched for over two miles on the flat field, fenced off toward the edge in a curve . Glancing up above, the color of the sky formation bounced off his eyes, resplendent . He smiled, faintly, before vanishing into a puff of smoke, as though he was never there .

**

A young, teen boy sat behind a hardwood desk, the top surface stacked with books and papers -- as was the rest of the room -- his expression somber, the light of the nearby gem embedded in the wall casting a strange shadow over his face . Cae read the old-looking tome with deep intensity, his focus seemingly unbreakable . Runic characters were strange, unlike any of the modern languages, to the point that it took even him several seconds per word to translate properly .

Mythian Folklore was a fascinating read, yet also eerily reminiscent of some historical records that Cae had uncovered while buried deep in the halls of the library . Though overtly exaggerated and embellished in most cases, the folk tales in the book quite often coincided with real historical events, retold in a metaphorical fashion .

It took the young boy nearly two hundred pages of thorough reading to connect the dots, the ’hallelujah’ moment happening during the read of a simply named tale Spearmasters . It was a direct retelling of the famous Order of Spearknights, one of the most elite soldiers of the Skyhaven Dynasty, and their rise to fame and eventual downfall due to the corruption .

Once he realized the connections, he slowly began drawing from each tale he’d read in the book, trying to link it to a real historical event . Some still stumped him, but he managed to tie the most to one or another, causing him to frown . The book wasn’t old, perhaps a relic of the last Era at the oldest, and it wasn’t remarkably well written, but its accuracy was terrifying . Even the entire Library of the Empyrion lacked some information he’d found in the book, which effectively shouldn’t be possible . Yet, it was .

The author was unknown, and Cae hadn’t recognized the style of writing . However, as it was written in the Old Paehlis, the pool of authors couldn’t have been that large . The language itself has been dead for a long, long time, though it nonetheless somehow managed to endure the test of time, being passed on either in some obscure village or through some authors who relished the language’s poetic structure .

While fascinating, none of this would have truly startled Cae as the world was large and full of various wonders . What did startle him, however, were the few last tales in the book -- the first one, titleless, depicting the beginning of a ’bear lineage’ -- the beginning of the entire species . It was certainly a metaphor, a massive one at that, though Cae was uncertain of what . The beginnings of the species were beyond distant past, of which no records survive . Just a conjecture? No, he immediately discarded the idea, shaking his head . It doesn’t align . . .

The remaining four tales that stumped him were similar -- inception of one or another beast told in a very different fashion . There’s more to it all, Cae was certain, yet without distinct points of reference, he would be guessing blindly .

" . . . I should show it to mom, or maybe brother," he mumbled lowly into his jaw, fixing his spectacles . "It’s too precise to be a coincidence . Aah, I need to figure out who wrote the damn thing . Though writing is not good, the metaphors are expertly crafted . Perhaps limited knowledge of Paehlis? Ugh, that’s going to expand the pool of potential authors considerably . . . aah, doesn’t matter . I’ll just hire a few assistants to sift through the least likely ones . " after gathering his thoughts by speaking them aloud, he turned back to the first page and began reading again, hoping there might be a thread that connects all the tales that may show him the true reality of them all . Maybe .