I crouched on a roof, just below the lip of the low stone wall, my ears straining for sounds of approach or conflict. I had meditated on guard for about four hours before Reff had descended the stairs once more with the others to relieve me. The second intense bout of meditation left me about half way back to normal, after a lot of concentration. It was still slow going, but when I thought back to the long hours I had put into creating my Core, I was infinitely grateful that I no longer needed to manually refine Experience into Praxis. And half was not bad, it was certainly well above what I had been able to achieve while weighed down by the chains of Ouhl’s now absent aura.

Despite the strides I had made in getting to a place where I could hopefully finish my channels, my friends had reiterated their desire to come with me. I had pointed out that they were needed elsewhere, and simple scouting was the worst use of time for those already in top form, given that while carrying out other activities, they were more likely to need to use their abilities, whereas that particular job was mostly about not using powers. They had relented, unlike with my plan to visit the Earthen Sky, though it had taken some convincing.

The city had been eerily quiet as I made my way there, moving carefully from rooftop to rooftop and alley to alley where that was not possible. When we had first arrived the day before – which felt like weeks ago by that point – the city had been loud with both the sounds of the wounded and of battle; but those violations of the silence had been stilled, it seemed.

To compliment the strange quietude of Ouhl’s skeleton, I had seen no bodies as I travelled, and it made me wonder somewhat nervously what had happened to all the people; it was one thing to assume they were off fighting when you could hear them, but as things stood, with their absolute absence, my mind went to zombies, oddly, and the horrifying opponents we had faced in the Sha Forest.

Still, I had made it to my destination without conflict, and for that at least I was glad. I peeked up over the lip of the wall at the huge stone block of the Blood Guard’s headquarters. I saw nobody in the square surrounding it, and as far as I could tell the curved walls above the staged gates were empty. It was possible that they were employing some kind of array to hide, like the Earthen Sky, but if so, it had none of the signs I had noticed at the time, none of the fuzziness when placed under focus.

Half an hour had passed with me on top of my building, watching for movement. I was debating with myself about whether it was worth getting closer, or whether I should wait longer to see if anybody entered or exited, but that choice was made moot when the ponderous gates of the compound snapped open and I saw a group of hugely built people in short yellow and brown togas stumble out, their bodies bloodied and their clothing ripped and torn. They looked familiar, and after a moment I realised that this group represented the last sect I had seen in the other square, the Forge of Flesh sect, who according to Loneth specialized in direct physical alteration and enhancement. But whatever methods they used to strengthen themselves, they were being beaten back with a series of bright flashes, forced through the gates backwards before a trio of long-coated individuals in red and white, walking in precise formation. On the side closest to me, a woman walked with her hands held palms held out, a sparking dome of something arching out from them to cover the herself and the others. On the opposite side, another of the three was flicking viridian sparks from his long fingers any time a member of the sect looked like they were trying to act, the minute flash entering their bodies and seemingly causing them to pause momentarily, which gave the third, and central figure time to do his thing in peace. His thing seemed to be great driving shafts of elephant shaped indigo flame that lashed into their stumbling opponents and forced them back, with any of them fool enough to resist being somehow smashed from the inside.

From my vantage point, I could see the bones of their backs press briefly against their skin as they were hit, and I assumed the elephantine attack was somehow acting directly on their innards, which upon consideration, was a decent way of dealing with people who purported to ‘forge’ their flesh. Even on a world of seemingly infinite possibility, you could not account for everything – could not expect everything – and being attacked from the inside with your own bones was a pretty weird thing to expect and account for.

I felt no inclination to help drive the sect back; not only did I not know whether the group had actually attacked, or whether either group were insane with rage, but it also did not seem necessary. The people in yellow and brown were retreating, sure, but none of the injuries seemed life threatening, at least at a distance.

A few seconds later it was over, the collection of injured body builders vanishing down the closest road, fleeing with what would be impressive speed for most people. As they vanished around a corner, I turned my attention back to the Blood and Bones, only to find the woman staring directly at me; I was far enough away that I could not really tell whether her eyes were narrowed or not, but the shiver that ran down my spine suggested she was glaring.

I braced myself for an attack, my will ready at my Core to trigger my Focus, but while the women clearly indicated my location to her friends, they did not attack. After a minute or so of silent staring, I figured that an insane person would likely have already attacked me; those we had come across on our trip to the City’s Edge had not hesitated for a moment, and even my Instinctive Precognition, which has grown more and more sensitive over time could not detect any threat posed by the three, though it was possible they were simply out of range.

Unwilling to let myself hesitate for much longer, I slipped over the edge of the building and landed with a dull thud, a shallow but lingering pain echoing in my ankle and arm, them being as recently broken as they were. I did my best not to let the pain show on my face, keeping it stoic as I did not want to show any weakness... just in case. The fact I had not been attacked did not mean these people were entirely free of influence, as much of a good sign as it may be.

As I approached the three, the woman’s eyes left me, going back to searching around us as the other two focused on me completely, flickering traces of their powers edging along their hands. I could see tension in the lines of their bodies; their rigid postures and hard eyes. I held my hands up to make clear they were empty and hoped that was a thing on a world where people could shoot energy beams from their open palms...

“Hello! It’s, uh, nice to see you... not rampaging. I’m Hunter – I sort of know the Blood Marshal. I was out of the city when it, well, exploded or whatever. Are you... okay?”

They did not answer immediately, and I carefully walked forward until I was only a dozen or so feet from them, stopping and waiting for a response as I felt my spine tingle at having my back to an open road, down which potential enemies had just run.

After a few seconds of further contemplation, the man in the middle spoke, his voice gruff and a little tired; it was deep, though not as deep as my own and slightly clipped in a way that indicated to me that he may have been from a noble family, at some point.

“I do not know you. You say you were out of the city when the... event occurred? What is your business in Ouhl?”

“I came with Jorl, the Apex of the Crystal Drake on a mission... I was actually looking for the people who did this,” I gestured around myself with my chin, hands still held up, “and found one. He told us something was going to happen, so we were rushing back when it happened.”

“...You have one of the people responsible for this? Where?”

“He’s not with us. We left him at the Inverted Mountain; we thought it more important that we try to prevent it than to bring him with us. He might still be there though.”

“The Earthen Sky sect are involved? We’ve had some issues with the other sects, but we thought they were merely taking advantage of the chaos. If they are involved, the Marshall needs to be told. This way.”

The man turned sideways, gesturing me to move past the trio, but I hesitated for a moment; they seemed lucid enough, but I still had no idea why they were not raving along with the rest of the city, and a part of me wondered if they had been in on it.

“How did you say you lot aren’t affected by all this again?”

“We can explain inside. Come, the doors will be repaired by now.”

I looked past him, through the open gates to the doors with the huge weight above them. With a reluctant nod, I moved around the group, walking slowly as I approached the doors, my mental attention on my Instinctive Precognition, waiting for any indication that I was doing something stupid. I felt nothing, though I barely kept myself from jumping as I heard the gates behind me began to shut with dull thuds, one after the other, sealing me inside.

Of course, I was not really being sealed inside – if I needed to, I could jump out of the enclosure; it may not have been possible, normally, with the walls being manned, but in their apparent absence, I should be able to manage. I glanced up to comfort myself with that fact and almost came to a stop as I saw the huge crossbow-cannon things following me, despite the lack of people to aim them.

Wondering if there were invisible people up there, or whether the structure had truly automated defences, I looked down in curiosity, trying to understand why I had not seen them firing when the sect was leaving, if they were really automatic.

The ground was littered with scorch-marks; dark fading circles touched by the occasional pool of flash-dried blood. Clearly, the cannon-things had taken out a number of the attackers, though in the absence of bodies it was difficult to see how effective they were; it was possible they were only strong enough to knock a person down, but I knew that even that much would be a marked advantage to a defending force.

Moving past the marks on the stone, I finally approached the doors; I could see signs of recent repairs, but they were so well integrated that I did not think they would lose any strength because of it. The weight above them still made me nervous, but my Instincts were quiet, so I pushed through the nerves and doors and once more into the maze-like interior of the Blood Guard headquarters.

The trio followed after me, the woman walking backwards behind the others until the door swung closed when she seemed to relax slightly with a sigh. I was about to ask how often the attacks had happened, or that was the first when a deep grinding sounded in the entryway, followed by a thud that made the floor beneath us shiver.

“What was that?”

“It was the siege stone being lowered.”

“Wait, you mean that giant slab above the door? Can it be lifted again?”

“Of course. It can be lifted at will; we normally do not bother due to the level of traffic, but under the circumstances, it seems necessary.”

“Can’t be very effective if that last lot got through it though, right?”

“They caught us when the stone was lifted, as we awaited the return of one of our teams.”

“Right. Well. Take me to your leader, I guess?”