“I won't let you do this.” Tor clenched his bearded hatchets, one in each hand. An unforgettable moment, he'd never been so afraid in his life. He'd heard the tales, they all had – about Tyr. The monster. Bastard primus and butcher. But not only that, he was the judge. The man who could see another for what they truly were, who would weigh their sins and decide how painful their deaths would be before he sent them to the Black. That was what the stories said, at least. He'd been different before, meaner, but capable of sniffing out talent in a man enough to pull them out of the chains and call him a brother. “These are good men. They do not deserve to die!”

“Good men?” Tyr arched a single eyebrow in apparent amusement. “You see good men here?”

“Yes!” Tor insisted, a defensive posture but no urge to press an attack present in his body. He felt like he was going to throw up. The death in this place was so rank and violent, coating his throat with every breath, the bile kissing the back of his tongue as he came to understand that he'd be no match for the man in front of him. Never had been.

“Duality does not allow for good. Only shades of gray, Tor, you cannot see as I can.” Tyr posited. He drew no weapon, but he didn't need to. Tor's head came off with a single backhand. So weak, so frail. So easily fixed as Tyr placed it back on his severed neck and returned him to his previous state. “I've just saved your life, yet I am not good. I had taken your life, or at least brought you close to the point of death, I suppose, and yet I am not evil. I am of man, thus I am gray, same as the rest of you. I--”

Tor wasn't sure what he felt. Rage? A need to maim? Certainly not. He would have never hurt Tyr, not before and not now. He was like... A nephew. A nephew to all of those who'd walked in service to him, and they loved him in their own way for what he'd done for them. That didn't mean they couldn't see the madness. Tor had always known it, fleeing from it at the earliest chance yet never feeling good about having done so. Despite all that, Tor's axe rose instinctively, burying itself in Tyr's skull. Splitting the mans face in twain and heralding a jetting spray of blood.

Surprising Tor even as he'd done it, it hadn't been him. Not a chance he'd have done that of his own accord.

Coincidentally releasing the bonds on the other Brotherhood mercenaries who immediately fled as soon as soon as they'd been given the chance. Pumping their legs with all their might after being cowed by the inhuman force of their bondage. Tyr shuddered for a moment before slowing reaching up and dragging the head of the axe and Tor's arm along with it out of his skull, incredibly gently, obvious avoiding any injury to the man. A grisly sucking noise came next, and Tyr almost looked confused as he held the axe and shaking arm both in his hand, eyeing it as if it were something he'd never seen before.

“Tor...?” Tyr asked, his face stitching back together. “What are you doing here? And more importantly, why is your axe in my head?”

“I, uh, um...” Tor felt near to the point of vomiting again, the grip on his hatchet was tyrannical, only exacerbated by how slow, deliberate, and gentle Tyr's motions had been. “Please don't kill me, brother.”

“Why the hell would I kill you?” Tyr tilted his head in obvious confusion. “We're buddies, after all. Ah, you should come by my forge, I'll make you a new pair of axes. These suck, and I won't even charge you for it.”

“We... Buddies?” Tor shivered, his eyes flicking back and forth in their sockets. There was no escape. He'd seen the tournament. It was impossible to outpace Tyr in a footrace, he was so fast, explosive in movement. A beast. The Brotherhood were all fools, they'd stand a better chance of being left alive attacking Haran than any place Tyr resided. At least the Harani gave face to the accords and took prisoners... Tyr, however, had taken a step and become more powerful than anything a man like Tor had ever faced off against – more than a monster. A cursed thing, a primus...

“Oh, damn...” Tyr sighed, looking around first at the pile of corpses and then at the grinning collection of undead behind him. “It happened again... This time, though, I guess it's not so bad – yeah?”

“What did?” Tor asked, edging away slowly but surely from the giant of a man. Tyr was so tall now, his rate of growth was simply insane. Even as a young adult he'd been statuesque, but he had to be approaching six and a half feet tall now. Tor was tall amongst Oresundians, a tall race of man to begin with, but he was dwarfed by this snowy haired titan. “You don't remember eating those men? Are you cracked in the head?”

“Sure am.” Tyr laughed, not concerned in the least. For what it was worth, he'd accepted what was happening to him. Not once had the other 'hims' hurt his friends or the people he cared about. They came, did what they needed to, and went away. But largely, he was aware of his actions nowadays, slowly the memory of his blank periods would come back – for the most part. He wasn't losing time, it was more like he gave the wheel to another and they went about their business for a while. He didn't always know what said business was, but the conclusion was typically acceptable – and not all of it involved killing. Some contented themselves with adding to his grimoire, before returning to their rest, others barged in quite violently. “Just ask your questions and move along, I'm not sure which one will come out next and I'd rather not stomp your head flat.”

“Tyr...” Tor retched loudly, the man was incredibly hot. Hot, as in temperature, all of a sudden the ground around him had begun to thaw and with it came the rank stench of blood and guts. “What has become of you?”

“How do you mean?” Tyr asked curiously, his left eye twitching fiercely and one corner of his mouth squirming around. “I'm fine. What about you, eh? Old friend? Enjoying life as a Brotherhood shill?”

“I mean...” Tor coughed, a wet one. No use in denying the urge, he turned and vomited a pile of viscous matter on the ground beyond him. Tyr gently patted his back and held the older mans hair for him even, eyes full of concern. “Why are you...” Tor retched again, by gods he'd never felt so sick in his life, not even after the heaviest night of ale. This was evil he'd never seen before, over 800 men dead in the last month by Tyr's hand – only confirmed now, and... “Cannibalism...?”

“You mean SUFFER AS YOUR FOREBEARS SHOULD HAVE these guys?” Tyr pointed toward the corpses and Tor nodded fervently, reading between the lines of the madness as best he could. “They SINNER aren't humans, they are haemonculi. Man KILL ME, you wouldn't believe how rich in mana LOVE ME the implants in those things are. Legitimately, WINGS AND ASH I do not understand how Hastur did it. But he's been seeding the SLAY surrounding nations with these things for a decade. Replacing REND nobles, merchants, even some commoners. Oh, I see CONVENIENCE HAS MADE YOU WEAK. I get it, these must have been your friends. Well, they are dead, or... I don't know what he does with the originals, really. These are... DOMINATE. They are just copies. Little nuggets, clones maybe, that Hastur has created to seed WALLS OF TEETH power and influence in the region. Don't worry, I gave everyone who accepted my offer of PROTECT THE INNOCENT surrender the opportunity to be held in a camp. Humanely, of course. Alex said I should do that so I try to keep to that code. Fortunately, every single man in this outpost accepted my offer, which is fortunate. Except for the haemonculi, of course, common men don't have MEAT implants – expense and all. I can understand how disgusting it might look LOOK AT ME.”

“Are you okay...?” Tor asked. Tyr's inflection would change drastically and he'd growl these insane phrases in the middle of an otherwise coherent and amicable elaboration of his purpose here...

“Of course not, but who gives a shit?” Tyr shrugged in disinterest. “I've known I've been dying for a while now, just wild that it happened like this is all. Anyways, Tiber would never allow me to go around harvesting people like this, but I need to in order to sustain myself. Eat artifacts, I mean. I don't know how else to describe it. I need to eat magic or I'll get even worse, but eating literal mana in the form of spells hurts. So for now, that's what I'm doing, and these haemonculi kill two birds with one stone, chock full of implants. I like efficiency. I hate playing around. Thus, I had a friend of mine create these intermediate undead out of parts I forged and enchanted myself, pretty cool – eh? Each one of them is about half as strong as a death knight. My magic has really taken strides these days, but I'm not so great with darkness – still a work in progress at this point. Want an ale?”

“Er... No thanks. On duty and all.” Tor coughed again, spitting a wad of bile slick saliva from his mouth and smiling nervously.

“For sure, that makes sense.” Tyr laughed, bright and sincere. Leaving Tor, not for the first time in a span of several short minutes, confused beyond belief. Tyr never laughed beyond a hoarse chuckle or raspy bark, everyone knew that. What had happened to him these last few years? “Alright, brother. It was good reconnecting, but I don't want to keep you. You should probably rejoin with your uh... Legion?”

“Platoon.” Tor corrected, but he did as Tyr suggested. Running as far as fast from that place as possible before the insane man that he'd communicated with changed his mind. There was something inside of him that regretted so powerfully, though. Commanding him to stay with Tyr at all costs, a magnet. He wouldn't do that, but he knew well and good that he'd never return to service in the Brotherhood. It was time for him to leave this land entirely, before what happened – happened.

A storm was coming. A wise man would hit the root cellar and wait it out. And if by whatever fel chance it didn't blow on by, at least that man would die with a drink in hand.

Tyr watched him leave, making no attempt to stop him. Why would he? He didn't understand why people feared him so, especially someone like Tor. Tor was a special case really, he'd seen a little bit more than the rest, long ago. And now... Tyr supposed.

Tyr reached his hand out to cradle the orbs of compressed mana hovering in the air. Seven orbs of soft, milky-white. Tyr often wondered if mana had a natural color, his was a deep blue when he reached for it, a lot brighter than this. But most mana both looked and felt the same color as an element except in special cases. By observation, he wasn't controlling the mana, he'd simply used his spira to break the projectile component, leaving it as a perfectly normal spell with no velocity. Then it was just an orb, and the unbalanced nature of mana bent to a specific element gradually faded away until it was nothing more than raw energy. Not very much, but he sucked it through his mouth all the same.

'Spellbreaking', a power that he'd always had but had gradually begun to improve with during his drills with the class, and Sigi who excelled with rapid fire lower level spells. Compared to her, these mages were as children playing with sticks.

“No.” Tyr shook his head at Orlando and the others approaching to 'clean up' the few brotherhood soldiers he'd 'killed'.

Miraculously, these undead appeared to be sentient. Only at the intermediate level in terms of their creation, making it theoretically impossible, yet it had happened. Undead didn't typically awaken until they became 'greater' – if that. He wondered why, was it because he hadn't used darkness magic? Tyr couldn't use it all that well no matter how hard he tried, so he'd implanted them with a pseudo core made of light magic wrapped with the common elements. Everything but space, darkness, and anima. They rose, more like golems than undead, but that made it even stranger. He'd managed to copy the fomorian memory matrices, albeit crudely, and contain the lingering souls of the deceased. Their cores, or 'hearts' if they could be called such, were cubic artifacts serving as soul anchors buried deep in their chests. Only Orlando, somehow, had maintained his human personality – or at least a shred of it, his soul had dove into the matrix and torn that of the fomorian inside apart... “Just leave them be. No need to chase them.”

Orlando inclined his head in understanding, the first to rise. The first knight in a legion of soldiers that could never disobey or betray him, undead didn't have rights. Or... Unliving, like him, Tyr had tried to bind himself to common undead but they'd burn up and wither passively in his presence. In any case, Tyr tried to treat them as best he could, they'd been living once – that had to mean something.