Men, women and otherwise from all the races representative of Lyra's so called 'melting pot' crowded the streets. First, the population had been dense. Then, it had been near bare. Now, it was practically overflowing. So many people that the structures in the city could not support any more. Even with the tower and guild halls occupied, and all residents required to share two beds per household. Shoulder to shoulder and backed in like sardines, the army and more adventurers than he'd ever seen in one place were here now. From many countries, not just Lyra, even a few college mages, probably apostates – people Tyr thought he'd be wise to avoid.

Aurora had been secured, dumb luck had ensured that while they certainly hadn't had the easiest time – they'd gotten through it better than the others. At the moment, fighting was still happening all over the country, but they couldn't ignore an active astral gate threatening to cause another break.

“How many?” Tyr asked. He stood side by side with Tiber acting as his advisor, facing Gerald, Daito, and Rafael. The leading authority figures present in the city. He was simply given leave to join their conversation based on his perceived status and Tiber's presence.

Surprisingly, before they had properly met, Rafael had known his name. Haran's finest, only eclipsed in skill or ability by those few of the kingsguard. Even all the way out here, they'd heard of the blackguard of Haran, most of it not being very good. Tiber had already been a man of great fame as a Sicario, even before taking an oath with the empress of Haran. Tyr was always surprised how complex the old mans past seemed to be.

“Total?” Rafael questioned him in the rhetorical. “Fifteen thousand soldiers. An uncounted number of adventurers, but I wouldn't count on them for the coming struggle. Granted, I use the term soldier loosely, but at least three thousand are previous enlisted, ex-legion men you could say. They'll keep to formation, at the very least.”

“What of the citadel guard?” Tyr asked. He'd heard no word from the place and despite the returning of the power, it had been eerily quiet. Gerald sighed, slowly shaking his head in resignation.

“All dead to a man. We don't know how, but it happened. There were about seven hundred on duty station, and we've confirmed two hundred killed in action. As for the rest....” He had no need to elaborate. They knew it, conclusions could be drawn. The attack had come from inside the city. The exterior gates had not been beached and the wider wall ran on its own power. None of them had been touched or tampered with. The lycan's they'd been fighting very likely had been guards. The rest, simply effected by the outbreak, from the inside out.

“Bertrand?” Tyr asked out of concern.

“He's fine. Hard at work. Been grumbling about working triples all the while. Says the stamina potions taste like horses piss. Not sure how he knows what that tastes like.” Gerald smiled. Tyr, however, did not.

“What of your republics finest?”

“Blade masters?” Rafael asked, his eyes flickering suspiciously toward Daito in the process.

“The clans have their own problem, but I suspect we will receive very little in the way of help from them.” Daito replied. “Despite what you might've heard, while they live in Lyra, what you call the blade masters see themselves as extra-nationals. You can think of them like an ethnic population, largely independent. In any event, they are along the southern and western coasts – not anywhere close enough to solve this issue for us. Those who've opted to provide aid are already engaged in all likelihood.”

“That's not ideal. What's the plan then?”

“We'll barricade the tunnel and wait for primus Vidarr to arrive. The problem is...” Gerald paused, not even Rafael and Daito had been apprised of his findings. “Navi's reading indicate that something inside of the astral gate is attempting to anchor it.”

“Anchor it?”

“Aye.” Gerald scowled. “To make it a permanent installation. It's hard, mind you. Near impossible, but as far as we can tell they are succeeding. Whoever they are. It's never happened before, but somehow... They've managed to stabilize an astral singularity and its holding steady at what we call the bridge point. Refusing to budge when we push it, or rather Navi pushed it, we have no ability to stop the process from our end. To add insult to injury, we are getting no response from the other side.”

“What does that mean?” Tyr asked, cutting to the chase. Gerald was an eccentric to, a mage dedicated to the scientific study of 'the astral' – which was the fringe science at the root of all mana phenomena according to him.

Gerald frowned. “We have to go inside and find whatever it is that's doing it. Recovering it and taking it to our world would be best. Would save a lot of lives across the republic. Destroying it should be the secondary objective, but we can't.”

“We can't?” Tyr asked, confused.

“We can't.” Gerald asserted. “This mana signature, or the brief static-laced readings we were able to gather is incredible. Like... Pardon any perceived hyperbole, but it's like a god is on the other side banging on our door. I'm not sure if we can stop it, but I've a plan for that. Might work, might not, science is rarely as convenient as it seemed to be”

“Okay.” Tyr nodded. “So we hold the gate on the inside for as long as we can in anticipation of the arrival of a primus, do I understand that correctly?”

Gerald nodded. Rafael, too. There wasn't much more to say than that. A simple meeting after all.

–

Tyr had never seen so many men in one place before. All told, it was about eighteen thousand, adventurers mingling on the flanks in loose lines. In stark contrast to the tightly arrayed blocks of republic soldiery formed at their middle, comprising the bulk of the 'army' by a vast margin. They were back in the jungle. In the highlands, but not on the exterior of the astral space. They looked down over the hidden valley containing the grand ebony tower. Despite his attempts to rouse it, it was silent, though it was expelling insane amounts of mana so as to prevent the mists from coming any closer.

It was all around, now. A circumference of perhaps five miles or so, and that was all that remained of the space not yet absorbed into the storm. “I've always been curious about what the fog is.” Tyr mused to nobody in particular.

“It's mana, essentially.” Gerald's voice was muted. An echo across the dim atmosphere, bouncing between rocks as if to display that the space was truly far smaller than it appeared to be. As if the hundreds of miles of space no longer existed. “Wild mana, to be precise. We know that mana comes from another reality, right?”

Tyr nodded.

“Many believe that 'the fog' is this extra-dimensional mana pressing down on the boundaries of our reality. A veil. Presumably, it's 'goal' if there even is one, is sort of... A truly titanic astral gate that will transport our world to the dimension beyond. Of course, we'll all die in the process considering there is no independent anima on the other side, so we don't want that to happen. Hence the wards all around the continent to prevent dimensional magic. They are like walls that anchor our land to the world to prevent it being broken up into pieces if ever there is a spatial cascade. See, Trafalgar had no wards once upon a time. Now it's gone. This space seeks to compress itself down to nothing, and then it will invert. A singularity. Once it does so, it will suck our world through the gate. Turning it inside out and combining the two on the other side into one single planet. Extremely fascinating.”

“Sounds it.” Tyr replied sarcastically. It didn't seem fascinating at all, it sounded horrifying.

“You know...” It was Gerald's time to muse, now. “Some theorize that there is an intelligence on the other side of the veil. Our dimensional magic, that which we can use, skirts the line between two worlds. Folds space, essentially. It allows us to feel their presence, but I'm not sure if they exist or not.” He frowned. “Regardless, this place is a source of incredible data. I doubt we'll ever get a chance like this again in my lifetime.”

“They exist.” Tyr replied. He knew, he'd felt 'them'. He was sure they were gods, though, or whatever a god was. Higher beings that cared very little for their insignificant parcel of reality. This was just a natural reaction between two realities converging. Hence the existence of spira, or at least that's what he thought. Spira was his own worlds defense mechanism against it, whereas mana borne wards were just another part of it. “Ellemar said that he'd seen them.”

Gerald frowned, turning to look at him. “You should not speak that name.”

“It's fine.” Tyr replied. “I've read his book. He said the same thing that you are, only in less easily digested terms. He said they were dangerous, but not evil. Like a force of nature, as if our world was perpetually looking into the eye of a cosmic hurricane. Obviously, you wouldn't want to walk through the wall of it. But then, he went insane and it became hard to understand so I gave up.”

“You've read a black book?” Gerald raised his eyebrows. Thankfully, there were none around to hear them such was the sound of the army marshaling. Camps were being constructed beyond the gate and men were shouting back and forth, laying dimensional wards and digging earthworks. Rafael and Daito saw to the organization of it, while Tiber stepped into the position of drillmaster without question. Every hour, more arrived from the other side. As the country stabilized, it was all hands on deck in lieu of eliminating what they'd call 'lesser threats'.

“Two of them, started on a third... I'm about a quarter of the way through, but it's so....” Tyr puckered his lips, unsure how to phrase it. “Veda's Opus. It's very romantic. It reads like an erotic fiction though, it's very bizarre, all she talks about is love and other applications of the emotional spectrum. One moment its a poem, and the next its a long strong of jargon I have no inkling as to the meaning, about light magic and mana formations.”

“Your father knows?” Gerald asked. Tyr was a primus, or... At least he was party to their secrets by association, Gerald didn't really know and didn't care either. Admitting openly to reading a black book though was strange. Too honest. He wished he could do the same, but didn't much fancy the idea of scrawling his blood on the walls and raving about whatever it is the book said. He'd seen a mage fall to the temptation. Well... Not seen, but the senate magister a decade or so ago had read of Feltris and killed himself shortly thereafter. Before Alexandros could reach him, and he did. Dismantling the legacy of a true archmage overnight without mercy, burning the taint away.

Tyr nodded. “Of course he does. I think he knows everything. I used to think my fathers aspect of strength just meant strength of limb, but I'm not so sure now. I think it's more complicated than that. He sees everything, is strong in all regard. Such is his sight. We do not see eye to eye, and I have foul words for him if ever we meet again, but he is nothing if not competent.”

“Deus primus.” Gerald nodded. God's heralds. An arcane saying if the translation of the ancient language was correct, and he knew it was. To study mana phenomena at its most natural state, the astral, was to study those in history who lived in closer concert with it. Not 'herald of the gods', but herald of God himself. That universal deity that existed only in rumor and myth. One who was not worshiped, but feared as the one above all.

“They're coming.” Tyr grimaced. He could feel their presence again. Countless in their number, shadows barely visible through the fog. Fogmen. That's what they called them, but they certainly were not men of any kind Tyr had ever seen. And something else. Something far worse, but far easier to relate to. Actual men, he thought, and they were those that would come first, though they were empty husks of what might make a 'man'.