Hope

Irwyn swaggered down the dark hallway, summoning dancing Flames across his sleeves to light the way. Not Light, of course, that would defeat the whole purpose of detaching his identity. The orange glow gave his uniform a certain sheen and making himself a bit taller complemented that.

Irwyn had made several other adjustments with the ring Elizabeth had borrowed him - enough that he would not be recognized at sight but not too much. For example, he did not change his hair color but made the cut a bit longer than what he usually wore. Same eyes, minutely different shape. Same facial features, misaligned. Just enough so that words would still result in the same general description but he would be unrecognizable at sight. Elizabeth had assured him that was the case.

This time when he walked into the Guild’s bar everyone went quiet within a moment. Of course they would. The uniform was one thing, the insignia of House Blackburg donned near the visible magic turned it into quite another. The rules around using the imagery were relatively lenient as long as one received permission, such that even an heiress could give on word alone. It was not jewelry nor any other pretense at status the way he wore it, rather a mark of allegiance.

“I have been made aware that the criminal elements of this city persist,” Irwyn proclaimed, the voice not his own. “Graciously, it has been decided that you shall find use in our duty of curbing the Rot. Who is in charge here?”

And as he said that no one answered. How could they? The Guild was more of a loose association which at most helped mediate and negotiate. What central power it had was invested more in neutral bureaucracy rather than leadership, at least in Ebon Respite. The people present were almost all members of other organizations or independent individuals just making use of neutral grounds.

“Well?” Irwyn raised his voice in feigned annoyance as no one responded. He made the Flames he kept alive around him flicker ever so slightly. Just enough that people might think they imagined it.

“T-the Tears have a Fowl,” the girl… Abbey Irwyn managed to recall, spoke, just as they had planned. The nervous stutter, whether feigned or genuine was a nice touch.

“Foul? I have little interest in filth,” Irwyn scoffed, his chin as high as he could muster. They had half included that just to jab at Alice, whether she would hear about it or not.

“No sir, as in, a bird?” the girl asked back, seemingly baffled.

“Ah, a Fowl, of course,” Irwyn inclined his head. “I do now recall something of the kind being written somewhere. So, your… organization would have the authority to speak for this gathering?

“No one will argue there is anyone more fitting to deal with you,” Abbey carefully nodded.

“Is that so?” Irwyn looked around the room, theatrically turning in a half circle. No one so much as muttered a word. “Then lead the way.”

And so she did. Irwyn thought that someone might follow them, though no one dared at least as far as his spell could feel. Kalista and Waylan were also on the prowl just in case. Alas, the lack of any warning signs suggested nothing had gone awry.

That meant up next was Irwyn not needing to do anything while Aaron organized the details of how the Guild may help the army’s efforts. It was best to let people do what they excelled at.

Irwyn was eating lunch with Elizabeth a couple days later when she received the message. He noticed her sudden frown first, then a blooming smile as she read the contents. Before Irwyn could ask what the matter was, she was already sending him off to herd Alice to her.

“I just received rather fascinating news,” Elizabeth said as the three of them gathered not long later.

“Fascinating enough to interrupt my break,” Alice noted, though there was no heat in it.

“You are not usually doing much during the day,” Irwyn rolled his eyes. Things were still stuck in the organization part of Aaron’s plan and despite being introduced as a second liaison Alice’s workload had not increased significantly.

“It is for this,” Elizabeth ignored the bickering and took a small metallic cube out of her pouch, quickly bringing it to the large map of Ebon Respite that hung unused on the wall. The thing attached itself seamlessly right around the middle. “Irwyn, if you would?”

“Of course,” Irwyn raised an eyebrow but approached. Putting his hand on the device it was immediately apparent what she wanted. There was something of a receptacle which Irwyn could distinctly feel the intentions of mana and absorb. The entire cube was deceivingly complex on the inside, with many intentions and individual spells overlaid. Perhaps more than just intentions even, but it did all seem Light aligned or at least adjacent. So, Irwyn funneled Light mana into the receptacle, first a weak flow and then orders of magnitude more when it became apparent the item was quite hungry.

A screen manifested over the map, feeding off of the Light mana to exist. Irwyn in the meantime stepped away to retake his seat - pouring from the short distance was less efficient but not by too much. While the box’s magic drew on a staggering amount of magic for the average intention mage, Irwyn thought he could maintain it almost indefinitely.

An image appeared on the screen. The scenery of a forest, a mountain barely visible in the distance. First, there was calm. Then there was carnage…

It was cold. Not the bone-freezing kind, nor frigid… just cold. Or perhaps the chills were merely creeping up his spine. Aesseth double-checked that the construct remained properly attached to the back of his retina. He was surely not the only one recording for House Blackburg and the magic would capture merely image and sound but there was no harm in making sure it had not broken. He had nothing better to do anyway as they crept closer… except perhaps counting the trees.

Step by step, nothing changed yet the tension grew. Aesseth could see in the distance the Scar, the mountain peak grasping at the clouds as if to drag them down and devour as it did with most who dared enter. It had been where he was last stationed and it was rather ironic that the enemy gathered close enough to see it… that or worrying. There was no telling what the Scar could spit out. The entire region around it was encircled by two fortress rings for a reason. Why, rumors had it that half the Lich Wars began there.

The inquisitor leading them stopped and they all followed suit. Then it became difficult to breathe, so his lungs adjusted to take in more air. Still, the silence persisted. For seconds, then what felt like minutes. Finally, mercifully, Aesseth perceived it course through his blood: A command.

It would be foolish to use Soul magic for their communication against Liches, after all. The Federation had long found a much more reliable way of coordination against their eternal foe. Perhaps fearless but the undead were hardly ever masters of Life. And so, through his blood Aesseth was made to understand what was required of him. He did not understand how exactly he knew, but he did. So, he spoke:

“And thus shall end,

the delusions we make.

All will bend.

All will break”

His ears did not perceive the dozens of others casting in sync. His eyes did not see where he was aiming. All he knew was that moment of absolute undiluted focus as the concept of BREAKING carved into his very Soul heaved and screamed with the effort. Motes of raw Fate gathered across his skin as he forced them into a purpose. Like a mist he made them surge forth, just as he had been instructed. They met a barrier. By raw arithmetic, it should have withstood Aesseth’s magic. Fate had meagre offensive properties and his spell was, at a glance, essentially just a clamp of raw mana.

Yet the moment the two spells collided the barrier dispersed. It had not been pierced. There had been no exposing of weak points or sundering of the spell’s structure. No, Aesseth merely Wrested the opposing caster’s Fate until his concentration was forced to BREAK. He did not know what exact form that took - Logos was ever fickle in his whims - yet what mattered was that ultimately the barrier was no more.

Aesseth saw several more spells flying through the air in the wake of his own before he keeled over and vomited. Bile ran down his throat for a full dozen seconds as his very soul shook and trembled. Such was the price to pay for grasping above his station. An imperfect vessel hosting something it had never been ready for.

Everyone had told him that attempting to grasp conception with his talent was a fool’s gamble. Aesseth had not cared. He had gathered all the good luck he could, then took a knife to his very soul. His goal was not for it to BREAK. Yet BREAK it did and in that moment of utter desperation, he had wrested his death into a different kind of power...

Power that remained unreliable and painful to use. Grasping the intentions necessary to use it at all had taken him almost two years and still what he had was by far lesser than real conception mages did. He would not be able to muster a similar spell for several hours if that… Which was fine. Aesseth had done his part. All that was left was to watch, muster the occasional weaker spell if need be. He managed to stand up with a small infusion of luck, then stared ahead.

Just in time to see the forest be swept in a cascading wave of Flame. Like high tide, it swallowed everything ahead. Barriers rose, barriers broke. By the time something managed to shatter the large spell the damage was visible for all to see.

Now that it was no longer obscured by the foliage – no trees as far as the eye could see had survived that - it was visible that the horde had gaps. Large wounds of empty space with less than even scorched earth for that Flame from moments prior had evaporated everything down to bedrock and sometimes even further, resulting in numerous pits inbetween. The undead, much like a tide themselves, were already rushing towards them, the gaps filling with swarming bodies. Some humanoid, some repurposed monsters, some gargantuan beasts that should not have been able to hide among the tree line. The mages among them cast spells to counter those of the Federation’s soldiers and yet they were on the backfoot. A step behind, endlessly forced to stop their opponents’ last spell while a new one was already being cast. Quickly they were being picked off by mages dedicated to killing through barriers – or just killing quickly when those flickered for a moment.

In the meantime the Federation’s weaker mages curbed the legion. No lessers among them as the battlefield was simply not suitable for those without magic, no matter what the Duchess may advocate. Aesseth watched as a wheel of bone and sinew charged forward faster than his allies expected and willed his magic to make it crack on a nearby rock. He beheld a centipede constructed entirely from human heads suddenly falling to dust. He witnessed a leviathan as tall as six stories of decaying flesh unburrow from the earth only to be instantly set aflame and devoured by their incinerating hunger just moments later. Some of the undead simply dropped, their defiled souls extinguished by the inquisition’s more subtle magics. In the distance, the sound of battle screeched in every direction as the undead kept coming and coming.

Thousands were felled, then ten times that. Then ten times that again. Aesseth counted the hours passing as he slowly recovered. No matter how much they killed, the line did not move an inch. More charged at them stopping the mages from taking a single step. Every undead caster slain had another replace them in the same breath - the only reason there were not more was that they physically could not fit without being so close together that any area attack could wipe several out.

Then, at some point, the onslaught slowed. The enemy's magic faltered. The horde no longer charged ahead quite as quickly as it was being destroyed. Everyone noticed. Even the many mages on break, recovering their exhausted Vessels - or even Reservoirs in some cases.

The Duchy Federation took a step forward. Then another. Soon they were moving at a walking pace. Every second the tide thinned as more and more of the Rot died. There could have only been so many that fit in the secret stretch of woods despite the countless tricks that had been undoubtedly deployed.

At some point, Aesseth looked into the distance and saw other humans on the other side. Just like them, advancing one spell at a time, keeping a safe distance, watching out for burrowed and latent threats. The undead mages slowed again, then cut off entirely. The last few were inevitably hiding their power, hoping to perhaps ambush someone careless up close.

And eventually, the enemy was no more.

The soldiers raised their hands. Their remaining mana flared. Their throats screeched. A cry of victory and glory echoed so many times over it might be audible all the way to the Scar’s fortresses.

The Duchy Federation had won the first large battle of the War. It was best Aesseth ignored the voice at the back of his head suggesting that it had been too easy.

The recording ended. It had taken over three hours, most of it continuous, unending slaughter. It would have likely gotten almost boring had the three of them not had plentiful opportunities to bicker. Which in itself was a strange realization. Several hours of near perpetual battle yet somehow it managed to feel mundane. Repetitive.

“Oh, it’s over,” Alice noted as if she had not been paying attention. Perhaps she had not. All three of them could reasonably focus on both a screen and a conversation but could as well choose not to.

“Are those numbers good?” Irwyn asked, glancing at the screen. At the end of the recording, the post-battle ‘estimate’ casualty report appeared. The Federation had lost one intention mage for every 28 slain. One conception per 20. And no attrition of domain mage against the Undead who lost three. No mention of those carrying lesser or greater powers –no one could have reasonably counted the sheer quantity of lesser undead. Those would definitely be incredible numbers… against anyone but the Undead.

“Far better than most battles,” Elizabeth nodded. “About thrice as good as is needed for a battle to be considered a tactical victory. That is not necessarily positive”

“And that at the bottom?” Alice pointed. There, indeed, in bold text were two short phrases: ‘Tactical victory’ and ‘Inestimable strategic impact’.

“We don’t know whether the undead were doing anything besides just gathering,” Elizabeth shrugged. “It could have been a hidden force preparing to strike something important just as easily as it could have been bait meant to distract us from something else. For all their numbers, the majority had been fodder. The Federation has severely overcommitted the forces needed to win the engagement in both numbers and powerful mages. Those mages could have detected some kind of subterfuge that would cause far more damage than this entire legion.”

“Or we could have genuinely ambushed them and destroyed the army with no downsides,” Alice suggested.

“It might be the case,” Elizabeth nodded. “Either way it is going to be positively received by more common soldiers. This was technically the first real open field engagement of the Lich War. Winning decisively will raise morale.”

“Will they all see the recording?” Irwyn questioned.

“No, it is restricted,” Elizabeth smiled. “The estimates of losses on both sides are obviously not to be shared with others either. The official announcement will be made at dinnertime. But while seeing it might not be equal to being involved in the battle, it could be educational. I have not played this wantonly. A proper undead horde has many facets to it and much to learn from them. I have done this with tutors in the past so therefore…”

“Oh, no,” Alice immediately squirmed with terror at the implication. Irwyn did not share her hesitation.

“...We will be analyzing the recording,” Elizabeth smiled, her glare locking Alice in place. Irwyn did not understand the reaction. It sounded rather exciting.