Fahlnem made sure to wave at the rebels as he passed through the Maw's checkpoint. They were all cheery, friendly folk and he respected that. He didn't believe in caving into circumstances or panicking. To him, keeping a cool head was the bare minimum.

He hoped he wasn't waving at dead men.

It wasn't long until the train arrived at the Maw, which he was thankful for. A multitude of people got off the train, and he could see individuals from the Maw gathering behind him to get on after him. Once the train was clear, he stepped on. Right as he did, there seemed to be a commotion in the crowd behind him. A train attendant ushered him further into the train, suggesting that he find his seat.

"Don't worry about them, sir. Likely just an issue with the barbarians trying to cut in line." The Human attendant smiled at Fahlnem.

Fahlnem meandered through the train, pondering what the attendant said. A bizarre example of forced cultural appropriation. A Human, calling another Human a barbarian.

After the train started moving, Fahlnem began to become suspicious of how quiet it was. Sure, his railcar was empty, and that was nice and all, but-

So were the other railcars.

He got up from his seat, adapting his novice sea legs to maintain balance on the bouncy train. He had set himself up near the middle of the train, and he didn't see anyone walk past him to the rear cars, so he stepped to the door leading to the frontal cars and made his way through the first. Nobody. Not a soul.

"Huh." Fahlnem set his bag down. "Goofy."

The door ahead of Fahlnem, leading to the next railcar closest to the engine, slid open. A towering figure clad in ivory plate stepped through wielding an Elven quarter staff . Fahlnem took a few steps back, alarmed. Her armor reminded him of porcelain dolls. It had been adorned with, instead of purple stamps and ribbons like Forgo, purple lines and Elven runes inscribed onto the surface of its plate. Disturbingly, her helmet- Fahlnem could most definitely ascertain that the Spear was a woman- had a face carved onto it like that of a doll.

"Fuck me. Which of those Spear mother fuckers are you? The Seventeenth, I bet?"

This one doesn't actually have a Spear on her. It makes sense for Alabaster to have an actual spear, but Forgo had one too. Does that just make Forgo... basic?

The female Pale Spear was still slightly taller than Fahlnem due to the armor adorning her, which also covered any obvious defining features.

Covers just about fucking everything, actually.

She spoke, and it made Fahlnem flinch.

Fahlnem dispelled Argus' incoming fireball a half-second before it made contact on his chest.

"The goal, pupil, when fighting an unarmored opponent is to catch them aflame and force them into a panic."

Fahlnem was wearing very flammable robes for the test. He was to defend against Argus' own attacks, both magical and not, and prove that he could handle himself with his magic. He had just reached Tier Three of Pyromancy the prior month, the tier at which mages typically begin researching and progressing on their own, potentially acquiring their own student.

"For an armored opponent, you have to get crafty and imaginative. Fire lacks the force seen in Earth magic, or the penetrative beauty of Water magic and its Ice spells. Only the most powerful spells deal direct damage on impact, including lightning abilities."

Fahlnem sidestepped a jab that Argus landed against him. "Because of this, Fire mages are dead when someone gets close." Argus demonstrated by drawing a knife from his belt and pulling it up to Fahlnem's stomach in a mock stabbing. Fahlnem acknowledged his mock death and returned to a standing posture.

"So what do I do if someone gets close, then?"

"You die." Argus held a serious expression. He almost lost to the Keeper Champion, Coribus, because of the gap that was closed. "You can use spells such as heating up your hands or discharging lightning via touch, but it's unlikely that you'll get that far. Don't let them close the gap. And don't let them shoot at you from a range, either. Fire mages can't block arrows like Earth mages can."

Eventually, he managed to find workarounds for each of these conundrums as a Fire mage when he discovered Combustion spells which actually inflicted tangible kinetic energy on impact. He wondered if Argus had just kept his best secrets to himself.

"I am the Fourteenth Spear, the Spine of Affliction." Her voice was melodic and powerful, booming through Fahlnem's chest. It alarmed him because it was still such a sweet voice, especially for an Elf, but it held an excessive amount of control.

A dominatrix. Got it.

"Oh, I get it. Spine, cause of the staff, right?"

The Fourteenth Spear approached. She didn't have a fireteam of Rites, which Fahlnem found peculiar. Was the Crown adjusting its tactics for him, or were each Spears more individualized than he initially thought?

"Your execution has been ordered by the Violet Crown of the Magisterium. If you resist, your pain will be drawn out extensively."

Fahlnem backpedaled away from the Spine as she approached. "If you're the Fourteenth Spear, does that mean you're a newer recruit or just bad at your job?"

No reply or visible response. He was sure that the jab stung her though, eliciting a frown from behind that pretty white helmet.

"Do you know Forgo? He's the Twelfth Spear. He and I are good friends."

"I am familiar with the Forgotten of Vows."

Fahlnem discarded his cloak, tossing it to the side where it fluttered onto his knapsack. His monochromatic armor featured jet-black drake scales adorning his body in the form of vambraces for his forearms and layered platings for his chest, back, and legs. The drake scales mounted to drake leather dyed white, with orange-red Elven inscriptions along the seams for looks. He extended his right arm to the side, pushing mana out of his reservoir and through his body to his hand. The mana coalesced into a dripping ball of fire stuck to his palm.

A warning.

The Spine paused in her tracks and aimed her quarterstaff at Fahlnem, curving it into the pit of her arm.

"You improperly wear the holy color with arrogance and misplaced pride. I can see it in the grin on your face; you wallow in your sin, tarnishing the white that you dress in." She lowered her quarterstaff and her center of gravity into a stance. "I lament that your blood appears a delicious crimson and not a cleansing purple to cover your sins, warlock. You will drown in it nonetheless."

"Heard it all before. Not super worried about your threats at the given time. Let's just keep this quick so I can take a nap before we hit Railsource, alright?" He glanced out the window. Still firmly in the barren wastes bordering the savannah. Fuck. Let's hope these Spears are actually killable. I survived a few rounds with the best of them, so the Fourteenth can't be too bad, right?

The Spine launched at Fahlnem with a forward jab of the quarterstaff. He sidestepped, warranting a whack in his ribs which stung immensely. He dropped the fireball to the ground, but he managed to maintain control over it. He stumbled backwards and ran his right hand upwards, sliding the glob of napalm across the railcar floor and up at the Spine. She deflected the glob, converting it to sparks and raining droplets of liquid flame that danced across her armor.

Fahlnem saw the Pale Spear launch through the sparks at him, rotating the quarterstaff in her arm to hit Fahlnem in the side with the rear end. The attack's success led to a follow-up aimed at his head, which he ducked under. He needed to separate himself from her.

This railcar is way too fucking tight. I can't keep my distance.

He stumbled around the Spine before backpedaling away from her, forcing her to turn around. He snapped a finger at her, exploding the trail of mana he had led around her. A chunk of white plate clattered to the floor. That's a good sign, he thought, before she danced out of the smoke and back into close quarters. He knew it would be impossible to overpower her, especially as a mage, but he was sure that his armor could take the majority of any kinetic energy from the quarterstaff. He raised his left arm to block the next attack aimed for his ribs, stepping forward with his right hand in an attempt to place it on her chest and eject a blast of mana onto her. She retraced her steps in that instant, turning sideways and retracting her quarterstaff from the place of impact on his forearm. Fahlnem stumbled forward, unused to the agility of an Elven opponent, and the explosion from his hand whiffed past her and blew a horse-sized hole in the wall of the train. A number of seats flew out of the hole with the rest of the debris.

The Spine then twirled about once again, whacking Fahlnem on his lower back. He stumbled forward with a pained grunt and turned about to her, quickly forming a small fireball in his hand and lobbing it at her. She twirled it into nonexistence with her quarterstaff in one hand, rotating her hips to land a punch in Fahlnem's side with the other, knocking the air out of his chest and sending him backward. She was elegant and nimble, and he was rusty and aged.

She's an amateur mage hunter and I'm getting fucking played.

The Spine then launched a flurry of heavy blows at Fahlnem's sides, alternating the hits with the front and rear of her staff. She managed to elegantly land each hit, slapping away any hand that attempted to block them, all while avoiding contact with the tight corridor of the railcar. After suffering through a great number of hits and feeling something in his left side break, he pushed a hand forward in desperation and set off a blast that sent her sliding across the floor away from him and put him on his back. Before he could even roll over onto his stomach, she stepped forward and slammed her staff onto his left hand. He yelled out with a groan and kicked at her with another explosion, which slid him further away from her and gave him a chance to stumble to his feet.

Fahlnem hopped backward away from her once he got his footing, lowering into a combative stance. He raised his fists and spread out his legs as she approached with another attack, a whack aimed at his right knee. He let his armor take the hit, leaving a bruise, before lowering himself further as she pulled the opposite end of her quarterstaff forward to hit his left knee. He raised his right leg up to her chest, drawing mana out of his mana pool and channeling it into his drake skin boot to push out a combustion spell. The explosion charred her armor and shoved her backward. The same would have happened to him if he hadn't braced himself with his hands.

He took the opportunity to stand up straight, lobbing a fireball at her face as a feigned attack while drawing electricity to his index and middle fingers, which he then jabbed into the gap in her armor where the shoulder connects to the torso. He discharged the attack and hopped back as she recovered. A shame her armor isn't conductive, or she would have fried in it.

She recovered more quickly than he had hoped, grappling onto him and pinning him against the wall by his shoulders. Somewhere along the way, Fahlnem figured, she had dispelled her quarterstaff, for she had resorted to punches imbued with fury aimed at his jaw. She moved one hand onto his throat and another was relegated to socking him in the face over and over.

He felt his nose get knocked out of place before he could aim his palms at her midsection and fry the armor's exterior with consistent pillars of flame erupting from his hands. His left hand, which now had several broken fingers from earlier, shuddered and shook as he struggled to keep it more or less in the right orientation to maintain the flamethrowing spell. The flames were disrupted with each punch for the first few hits before he began to take in the melody of it. The consistency and symmetric nature of getting socked in the face over and over allowed him to enter into a half-meditative state, and his flames slowly turned blue with vindication. The bloodying of his face began to accompany a panicked and injured breathing coming from the other side of the Spine's porcelain casque, and her punches became desperate. Fahlnem grinned through the suffering in his face and dispelled his flame spell into an explosion, bisecting the Spine at her waist and pushing Fahlnem up against the wall behind him. The back of his head hit the wall with a resounding clang, and he slid down the wall into the railcar seat.

He stayed asleep for a while.