IMPARTIS (IMP)
Impartis stood alone in the crystal chamber, the silence thick enough to press against his ribs. The air was cold here—unnaturally so—like the room had never known breath or warmth. Crystals jutted from the walls in spirals and ridges, glowing faintly with a pale azure light that throbbed in slow, deliberate pulses. Not alive, but watching.
He stared up at them, the same way he had countless times since claiming Kelborn Tower as his own. He'd long since lost track of the days. The tower did not welcome sunlight, and time twisted strangely inside these old structures. Sometimes he believed months had passed. Other times, years.
The crystals reflected him back—his small frame, his too-dark eyes, his face that never seemed to settle into an adult's shape, despite the heaviness of age he felt in his bones.
This room had been the first to reveal itself to him, the first that whispered Master into his mind when he crossed the threshold. Even now, he wasn't sure why the tower had chosen him. He'd taken the job for coin. He'd stayed because it was the only place where the silence didn't gnaw at him.
Yet the crystals…
They remembered.
The tower was built by Dorothy Kelborn—Bohemian genius, Aether-binder, the first to lace technology with living magic. Her constructs still hummed faintly under Imp's feet, years after her race faded into myth. Aethers Hand was her legacy, and the towers her monument to a future Xeno-Movia never reached.
Then came the wars.
The purges.
Oblivion.
And now? Only fragments. Only ghosts.
Imp trailed a hand along a tall shard of crystal. It vibrated faintly beneath his fingers, responding to him.
He hated how familiar it felt.
He hated how the tower seemed to know him better than he knew himself.
The masters of the towers during the Second War…
Their deaths should have been ancient history. Yet Imp sometimes felt he'd stood beside them. Fought with them. Laughed with them.
He remembered none of their faces.
Except—
A flash seared across his mind. Unbidden. Violent.
A woman with hair like living fire, her eyes molten and sorrowful.
A boy clutching a book too heavy for his small hands, its pages whispering futures no one wanted.
A Bohemian whose presence distorted everything around him, chaos trailing in his wake like a cloak.
They turned toward him…
and spoke his name.
Not Imp.
Not Impartis.
A different name.
One heavy with meaning he could no longer grasp.
His breath caught; his knees nearly buckled.
He blinked hard and found the figures staring back at him from the crystal's surface, their shapes shimmering and unreal. His reflection fractured around them.
A drop struck his hand.
He hadn't realized he was crying.
Imp backed away, wiping the tears so roughly it stung. "This is ridiculous," he whispered, though his voice trembled.
He forced himself to turn from the crystals, walking toward the threshold. Shadows stretched long across the floor behind him, darkening with each step.
At the doorway, he paused.
The room felt heavier now.
Expectant.
Imp glanced back over his shoulder.
"…Maybe not too ridiculous," he murmured.
And the crystals pulsed once in reply.
---
✦ DRILLOHIEM
Snow clung to Drillohiem's boots in thick, icy clumps as he approached the gates of Whitewater. A biting wind tore across the plains, carrying with it a scent he couldn't place—like metal and rot tangled with something far older.
Something felt wrong.
Deeply wrong.
Drillohiem stopped just outside the archway, yellow eyes scanning the sky, the rooftops, the fields beyond the road. The feeling gnawed at him like something trying to crawl up his spine.
"Drillohiem!"
His hand shot to Oathbreaker's hilt before he recognized the voice.
Grodak strode out of the gate, towering and grim, snow steaming beneath his footsteps. The two swords at his side—one normal steel, one glowing sickly green beneath the wrappings—clinked against his armor with each step. A third weapon, the long halberd strapped to his back, rattled faintly.
Drillohiem straightened. "My lord."
Grodak's eyes swept over him, pausing briefly on the armor. "I see you found your father's remains."
The dents and holes in Grall's armor were impossible to miss—puncture wounds left from Grodak's own blade. They were scars of history, and now they rested on Drillohiem's shoulders.
"Yes," Drillohiem replied carefully. "I found… everything that was left."
"And the sword?"
Drillohiem hesitated. Only a moment. But Grodak noticed.
Reluctantly, he drew Oathbreaker and held it out.
He expected Grodak to snatch it. To claim it. To carry it as another trophy from his brother.
Instead, Grodak's lip curled in visible disgust.
"Keep it. I want nothing from him. Not anymore."
The rejection stunned him more than anger would have.
But before he could speak, Grodak's expression darkened. His gaze lifted toward the sky.
"That," Grodak growled, pointing with one gauntleted hand, "is why I'm here."
Drillohiem followed his gaze—and his breath faltered.
The sky had torn open.
Not cracked. Not stormed.
Torn.
A gash of blinding white split the heavens, ringed by thrashing tentacles of warped flesh. A sphere of light—no, a living thing masquerading as light—pulled itself through the tear and plummeted toward the earth.
Before Drillohiem could process the sight, the world shook.
The ground cracked.
And the thing landed.
It towered twenty feet tall.
A writhing mass of tentacles, eyes, and a pulsing orb at its center—beating like a heart.
"What in the name of the Gods…" Drillohiem whispered.
Grodak was already moving.
"It doesn't matter what it is," he snarled, drawing his sword. "It came here. That's enough."
The first clash was a blur of steel, dark magic, and flailing limbs. Tentacles wrapped around Grodak, trying to crush him, only to be severed in bright arcs of metal. The creature screamed—a sound that didn't belong in this world.
Drillohiem scaled the wall, reaching higher ground. His fingers trembled not from fear, but from recognition.
He had seen this before.
Not with his own eyes—with Grall's.
DarkWater.
Its descent.
Its core.
The memories flooded him, jagged and violent.
The core. That's its weakness.
He notched an arrow, leapt from the wall, and fired midair. The arrow streaked toward the orb, striking dead center. The creature reeled back, shrieking. Cracks pulsed across the glowing heart.
Grodak reached for his green blade—
—and screamed as pain ripped through him.
The sword fought its wielder, its power boiling through Grodak's veins. But still he drew it, green light erupting around him in a violent halo.
Drillohiem landed rough, snow exploding beneath him. The creature lunged. Grodak carved a path of carnage through the tentacles, forcing his way toward the core. But just as he raised the sword for the final strike—
A pulse of magic tore through him.
He collapsed, vomiting blood, body wracked with convulsions.
"Grodak!" Drillohiem shouted.
The green blade clattered to the ground.
Drillohiem seized it.
Instantly voices screamed in his mind—ancient, hostile, demanding—but Drillohiem pushed back, snarling through clenched teeth.
"Silence."
They obeyed.
And for the first time, the sword did not resist.
With a roar, Drillohiem drove the blade down. It shattered the orb. Light exploded outward, blinding him, searing into his skin. He hit the ground hard, vision nothing but white flame.
Shapes shifted. Colors warped. His sight returned in fragments.
He reached out to grab Grodak—
And his fingers plunged into a writhing mass of green specters.
"AH—!"
Pain shot through him like lightning. He stumbled back, breath ragged.
Specters surrounded him. Thousands. No—millions.
All drifting. All watching.
All hungry.
---
✦ JARADA
Jarada lounged at the bar counter as though the world weren't ending outside.
The tavern shook each time the creature roared, dust drifting from the rafters. Bottles rattled. The barkeep whispered prayers under his breath while trying—futilely—to push Jarada toward the exit.
Jarada didn't move.
Didn't flinch.
Didn't even look up.
He took a long, unbothered drink.
He'd fought beside Grodak enough times to know the war-chief wouldn't fall easily. And if Grall's son was out there—whatever his name was—Jarada doubted the creature would last long.
"Just because I'm an orc," the barkeep muttered, panting with effort as he tried to shove Jarada's arm, "doesn't mean I know every halfbreed in this kingdom."
Jarada finally raised his eyes.
"Oh," Jarada said, realizing immediately how his question might be interpreted, "I apologize. That isn't what I—"
"I know what you meant," the barkeep grunted. He straightened his spine with a series of pops, rubbing the ache from his lower back. "And besides, if a halfling entered my bar, they'd already be dead."
Jarada smiled thinly around the rim of his mug. The idea of Drillohiem dying before fulfilling what The Source intended for him was unthinkable, almost laughable. Jarada knew every soul that entered the spirit realm and every soul that departed it. Drillohiem's soul had not yet returned. Whatever confusion clouded the future, one thing remained immutable:
Drillohiem would not die for a very long time.
"Another mug of your strongest spirits, my friend."
The barkeep scoffed but obeyed, stomping back to the counter. As he poured, the thunder of distant celebration rolled through the streets—victory shouts. The barkeep muttered under his breath and returned the mug with little ceremony.
Jarada took it, staring into the swirling liquid as the cheers outside grew louder.
His smile dissolved into something mournful.
"I pray you survive," he murmured, letting the words dissolve into the alcohol's rising fumes. "And that most of your soul remains intact, my dear War God."
---
Adrian
Adrian had barely crossed into the snowfields beyond Whitewater when the tremor hit—deep, bone-rattling. He froze. Starlight, his silver-white dragon companion, lifted her head sharply, pupils narrowing to slits.
"What was that?" Adrian asked.
Starlight turned, motioning with her snout.
Adrian followed her gaze—and felt his heart plummet.
A creature stood in the distance. Twisted. Pale. Wrong. The same type Grall and Grodak had described when DarkWater first appeared.
Fear stabbed deep, instinctive and primal. Adrian rarely felt fear. He usually welcomed danger like an old rival.
But this thing—
It felt like staring directly into the maw of a nightmare.
He forced himself to inhale. Then exhale. And again. His pride warred with the cold terror worming into his ribs.
This thing is not my master, he told himself.
He glared at the creature. Forced himself to look. Forced himself to endure.
And slowly—slowly—the panic lessened.
He turned away.
Starlight chuffed at him, confused.
"Starlight," Adrian sighed, rubbing his palms together for warmth he didn't particularly need. The cold didn't bother him like it did others, but even he had limits. "We're not going back. Even if we turned now, Grodak would have killed it long before we arrived. That would waste time. And time is the one thing we don't have."
Starlight pawed at the snow, scales flaking off like silver petals.
Adrian smiled and patted her shoulder. "I know. I don't like him hogging the fun either." His grin widened. "When we return, we'll challenge his soldiers again. Would that make you happy?"
Starlight stared into his eyes, long enough Adrian wondered if she planned to argue—before finally nodding.
Adrian mounted her, looking toward the frozen, barren field ahead.
"That's where the last Demon Lord appeared."
His voice quieted.
"And where Grall died."
He tightened his grip on Starlight's scales.
"Maybe he'll grant my wish."
---
Tyril
Tyril staggered over a demon corpse, boots slipping in the slick black blood as the cold air burned his lungs. His body trembled, not from the temperature, but from exhaustion.
Six years.
Six years in hell.
He still remembered the moment Grall—or The Reaper—tore through the demon hordes and threw him down here. Tyril had survived the fall by sheer chance, landing in the lowest layer where demons were… kinder, in their own way. They didn't rescue humans or wraiths out of compassion, but they didn't kill you for sport either.
They reminded Tyril more of humans than most humans he'd met.
Once he recovered, he started climbing toward the upper layers. The demons below claimed Grall had slaughtered everything above.
They were wrong.
Hundreds still lived. Cruel ones. Ambitious ones. The kind that made Tyril's blood freeze in his veins.
He fought for scraps. Hid in caverns. Slept in dirt. Killed to eat. Every layer was a new hell, each demon lord candidate worse than the last.
Time eroded him.
At first, he noticed only small things. His fingers cramped when gripping his sword. His back ached. He told himself it was age—eight hundred years would do that.
Then everything failed at once.
One day, mid-swing, his sword arm simply went limp. He watched—paralyzed—as a demon tore through a group of younglings he'd been protecting.
Their screams broke something inside him.
After that came more failures. More helplessness. More reminders that he was alone in hell and no one was coming to save him.
His mind frayed.
His purpose decayed.
But his rage?
That endured.
Now Tyril slammed the hilt of his sword into a demon lord candidate's throat, driving it backward with a wet crunch. The monster clawed at its crushed windpipe, gurgling, choking.
Tyril didn't remember if the expression stretching his face was a smile or a grimace. He hadn't felt a true smile in years.
He raised his sword and, with a single savage strike, removed the creature's head. It rolled across the stone floor, tapping against the foot of another demon.
Tyril looked up.
And saw thousands.
Rank upon rank of demonic soldiers filled the cavern, weapons drawn, eyes watching him with a mixture of horror and reluctant respect.
His shoulders sagged. His head drooped.
Then his body trembled—small at first, then violently.
And Tyril threw back his head and laughed.
A sound so raw and broken that even the most hardened demons felt the touch of cold run down their spines.