Schuri waited until he rounded a corner towards the port square before he stopped and threw down the large metal box in his hands. He held his right palm to the lock, flashing a quick silver light beneath. After a few clicks and one sizable jump, the box sprang open, revealing a supposedly empty container; this did not dissuade Schuri in the slightest. In fact, the rotund merchant with the squinted grey eyes and sunkissed caramel creme skin was smiling with a boyish joy as he started to tap in very specific spots inside of the “empty” container. If he did it in the wrong order the small locks of varied essence beneath would reassemble with different colors, therefore different properties. An unpickable lock. And he was the only key.

Genius! He had to pat himself on the back often since no one else was around to.

“Schuri” had been waiting a long time for this, for five years the metal box was always taunting him in the back of his mind, no matter what mundane life he took on. One week he’d be a jolly round merchant with caramel skin, then two months later he could be just another sea-weary man taking up arms in the famed Blancana guard. No disguise could hide the man from his true nature. His one purpose. The fingers that tapped in quick succession began to burn as he trembled with excitement. Five years…

The timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

As the last lock gave way with a small gasp, the sound of nearly all fading essence, he quickly began undoing his “Schuri Suit”. Using essence to aid with precision, as well as catching any pieces that strayed on the wind, he started with the clothes. Each golden button on his silk purple vest popped open simultaneously and signaled to obsidian buttons upon his grey button down to do the same. Loose-fitting pants nearly the same shade as his vest dropped with a flick of his thumbs, revealing a starkly naked bottom that differed from the top half immensely. His legs were as muscular and cut as Schuri’s top half was round and buoyant because… they were his legs.

Next he dug his fingers under the false face of the Schuri suit and peeled it off, carefully, but with haste. The flaccid sack of skin with expertly crafted dimples and eyes holes floated deliberately into the metal box. At the same time a black mask made of framework, essence, and tech beyond the imaginings of Noctra’s most gifted smiths floated quickly upwards and stalled before him. The man had crafted it himself, just like the Schuri suit which he tore off, folded, and placed in the false pocket of the metal box before clothing himself in black cloth pants and one steel chest piece. The armor exposed his muscular left arm and framework right, but it was all he would ever need. Once his mask had situated itself on the top half of his face, exposing only a bushy, curly black beard, and one maddening grin, the man took off. Metal box of secrets in hand.

The whole process only took him about three minutes and when he rounded the corner, battle hungry after such a long delay, he witnessed the top half a stone golem explode upwards in the middle of the street and bombard a hooded woman who rolled onto one of the only rooftops left nearby. The man slowed to a jog and slid his metal box under a chunk of granite just outside of some poor merchants' decimated scroll shop. After he willed a small illusion over the hiding place he set off at a full sprint towards the woman on the rooftop. He covered twenty paces in the time it took a normal man to cover ten with the help of some casting in his legs and jumped atop a pile of rubble beside “Schuri’s” shop before springing to what was left of the rooftop with strong one lunge upward.

Oh yeah! Here we go!

He barely held in his giddy excitement as he perched a mere ten feet behind his target. Her hand was aglow with essence, hood pulled too tight to see her face, but he was sure it was a woman. Some of the cloth on her upper body had torn and the bottom of a lone dark breast shone in the sunlight, though the man perched was more concerned with the blood seeping below it. The woman was still crouching with a bright blue glow about most of her body, though only easily visible in her right hand, trying to heal her wounds. The man waited a moment to see if his impressive half-mask could pinpoint anything he had missed but with the woman's face covered there wasn’t much in the way of information. He caught a glimpse of curly black hair hanging down when she stood but she faced away from him.

Guess it can’t be helped.

Casting a slight breeze beneath his feet he floated toward the woman with enough speed to take the air out of her lungs when he landed with his knees in her back. Facedown with no means of rebellion the hooded woman went stiff and stayed quiet. His right arm quivered intensely as it held her wrist down making the metal workings clatter and clang.

No. Not this one. We don’t know who she is. That is not how we work anymore. Remember?

A conversation he had to have nearly every day with… well himself… but more with the thing residing in his hollow arm. A gift from his father. A gift that he had grown more attached to than he could have ever imagined possible. The shaking ceased almost instantly, accepting his refusal. They had a deal.

Good.

As he willed it stone from the rooftop below them rose and encased the hooded woman’s arms and legs, holding her flat as he rose and peered over the roof’s edge. He chanced a look down at the woman from where he stood. She still hid her face.

“The bandaged fellow, where is he?”

His captive stayed silent so he tightened the stone about her limbs, pulling her further into the rooftop. Her nose had to have been completely flattened now but she barely tensed. He saw her steady her breathing. So she was trained and trained well; likely already preparing to cast.

“Hmm… too ashamed to admit that you don’t know? It's fine, truly, no reason to be embarrassed just because you’re... well, inept? You’re certainly not alone in that regard.” He scanned the ground below as he spoke, piecing together the rubble in his mind to try and decipher what had happened in the few moments he was absent. To find the bandaged “man”.

That poor boy…

His mask lit up with red squares before him as the ground beneath the fallen golem opened up and a bandaged head reared itself out, gasping for air.

“Ah... you know what, I think you are off the hook. This time.”

Unnervingly enough the woman laughed, loud enough to cover some of the cries ringing out from below. Before he could turn to see what was so funny she had already disappeared. His wits and estech mask told him she had used no small supply of flame essence to melt the stone and drop down into the shop below before fleeing. Leaving behind a body-sized hole beside his feet. The metal of the right arm rattled again and this time he felt the rage building in his chest, rising up to constrict his throat, but if it got there, it could get to his mind. No. He had to breathe.

A quick count to six in, a quick count to six out, and he was as clear-headed as ever. His arm still and silent once more.

Good.

The man with the black, half teardrop mask waited until his bandaged target rolled into a back alley and passed out before he moved to ground level. It was hard to ignore the carnage around him, even harder to ignore the fact that the man he was saving had been the one that caused all of it. The light rain helped him though, calming his nerves as he hoisted an unconscious “Silent One” onto his shoulders.

I suppose White guards are still not the most creative bunch. What an awful moniker.

He chuckled to himself as he moved down the destroyed roads of Blancana, slipping in and out of crowds of wailing citizens, bleeding with tears streaming down their dirty faces. No doubt he seemed quite the mad man but it was all he could manage. A big smile and a little laughter could go a long way for someone, especially in times of great despair. It did wonders for his mood as he slowly picked up the pace, near jogging with Silent One bouncing on his shoulders, away from the gathering crowds. After about ten minutes of jogging, he finally found the others laid out before a wall of broken marble. Much further down than he had anticipated. The road was unable to repair itself with their bodies blocking the way. All three were bleeding out and he had no idea who the woman cradling her missing leg was but he knew what to do. Saving them would be the easy part.

He imagined none of them would be too pleased about leaving Blancana so suddenly but he couldn’t wait to get the fuck out of the desert. Using his essence, along with some of his own pure strength, he crafted a sled of stone with wheels of marble and pulled all four bodies behind him. The man pulled off his helmet and let his curly black hair fall down to his shoulders, eyes cast to the ground.

To anyone who saw him he would look like just another survivor pulling just another cart of corpses behind him. Though he knew better than anyone that there were thousands of more corpses behind him than could be seen.

And far too many still ahead.