“The Severing?”

“…Yes. The Severing. Either someone made a mistake, a colossal mistake, or something didn’t enjoy the fact that there were those who were picking amongst their home.”

“I still don’t understand how this constitutes something called, The Severing.” Alastair says. Derek sighs heavily, prompting the young man to wonder what could possibly elicit such a response.

“All contact with those colonial expeditions’ were lost. Every single one. All of the races couldn’t believe that their efforts had simply disappeared. They wanted proof. And, as every nation does when they want something, they send out forces to get it.

Derek inhales, a slow steady breath as the stress accumulates upon his brow. The exertion of the travel finally staring him in the face.

“I take it they found something was amiss? Something that impeded their approach into the region of Space?” Alastair asks, hefting the girl up as his grip weakens. Derek nods, slowly.

“There was a wall, although I use the term… loosely. Ninety percent of the ships sent were either destroyed outright, or hollowed… from the inside out. Those who survived reported possessions, hallucinations, and material transference of monsters… monsters that could only be repulsed or defeated through sufficiently powerful psionic individuals or specialized armament. Either way, the information wound its way back to the various capitals around the galaxy.

Not knowing what this meant, only one race had acquired an answer. The Mont’a, a grey skinned species, asked their priesthood, the Dhankā, what the problem was. Only, they found all their senior dhankā gone and the lesser of their kind frantically bashing their cores out. It appeared that whatever had caused the falling of their ships had such a profound effect that even the psionic priesthood were terrified.”

As he paused, he took a flask out and drained it before continuing.

“Each time their people had managed to shackle one from harming themselves, which by itself was a strenuous effort considering how much they revere their priests, each would repeat the same prophetic rhyme. A rhyme that would spurn a race of preparation.

At the turn of our peoples last age,

Comes the death of the Unbowed Sage.

A convergence of worlds and a’locked of minds,

leaving unsallowed lovers entwined.

Uncountable spheres of loch’st heed,

broken and torn on Janus’ deed.

And where the horns of evil spread into light,

A burning of change released, neither steadfast nor bright.

And whilst the fires of conflict scatter to the wind,

families once united, are battered in sin.

A conjoining of spheres, this will amend,

An adventure to the Old Gods’ home, Vorago, World of Hollowed End.”

Derek takes a moment to collect himself. Looking ahead, he notices the turning of the trees from normal lengths and bushiness to majestic, overbearing, colossi of changed thickness and color.

“That’s enough for now,” Stepping forward, he walks a fair bit before throwing a casual grin over his shoulder, “the Great Game awaits.”

Despite his gesture, he never noticed how it would affect his charge until it was too late. Alastair had frozen, his mind returning to the time when he had last heard that phrase. His memory blinked before him. Heart beats skyrocket. A flash of white, and he keels forward.

Subject Omega

California, U.S.

2224

His fingers tighten upon the pistol in his grip. Eyes flash from side to side, senses extended to the fullest.

-Eli… any luck finding the target? – a harsh woman’s voice crackles through his comm. He glances up, taking note of the soft morning light beginning to stream behind the forest of giant sequoias. Reaching up, he taps the comm at his ear.

“No. Are we sure of the reliability of this intel?” He returns his senses around him to focus upward, knowing full well that rogue elements of the Warsworn always found a way to get a drop on their pursuers.

-The intel is solid. It came directly from the Shrike. - The rich piney smell drifted down to him from the winds rolling in from the west coast. Just enough pine to obscure the metallic scent of rotting blood.

That way, he thinks hefting what little gear he had over his large frame. He begins at a small trot down the hills between each of the massive sequoias. He was as much at a disadvantage as an advantage within the forest. There was only so much he could sense with his powers. Reigning over blood allowed him an unrivaled sense of finding animals and people no matter where they were provided they were within an adequate distance from him. He was essentially a psionic Bloodhound. It, however, did little to ease the nerves.

Ever since the Lichtenstein Accords had barred access to all National and International land and water tracts around the globe, he found it progressively difficult to track people and Warsworn agents when out in the wild.

Being without any form of human contact had set him on edge. He took comfort in feeling the ebb and flow of the blood around him. It was a noticeable reminder that life had a pulse, a will, of its own. That reminder, he could read each pulse like a book. Any hint of civilization was a veritable kaleidoscope of life. A disease ridden body here. A stressed mind there. He knew what was wrong and how to fix it… or rend it.

Having no connections to such an astonishing amount of life, it reminded him of the years of hell he had spent secluded from all forms of it. He had been taken to all manner of esoteric places for training and integration of his abilities. Be it within the cryptic white linoleum halls of the ghost city Apollonia deep beneath Titan’s icy seas, or the rocky strands of sand woven into the fortress of Fort Valdivia placed within the heart of the Atacama Desert, each and every place away from the normal channels of civilization and social structure. It made him nervous to be in a place just like before, cut off as he was from the world.

Calm. Feel the breath of the world. He chided as he took a breath to settle himself and sent out his senses once again. He immediately catches a subtle hint of life as it flickers a hundred meters from him. It felt… familiar.

“Be advised, possible contact in range. Proceeding to confirm.” He states gripping the pistol firmly before slowing his gait.

A terse -Acknowledged- peals into his ear as he prepares himself for fight or flight. Glancing down at his watch, he notes the subtle hum of energy as it powers to life and shows him the muted green hue of 0540.

Step by step he made his way through the hills. His nose twitches as the last embers of a fire sit flickering a few dozen meters away. Yet the burned wood wasn’t what had caused the twitching, it was the half sealed burnt human flesh that had invited it.

Stepping around a tree, a barren campsite greets him with an unmoving figure leaning with its back against it. Ramshackle as it may be, the camp was designed for simplicity and ease of movement should the need call for it. A duffel bag lay split open with an assortment of tools and light clothing popping from the seams.

Odd. This isn’t the summer season.

The figure lays altogether still despite the ragged breathing escaping it. Taking his time, Eli did a threat assessment of the figure swaddled in blankets and old fashioned traveler’s robes. His Senses told him it was someone familiar, yet the feeling was only coming from a bundle of cloth within the figure’s arms. The blood within felt sick, like something had changed within the usual genetic fabric or a disease had spread changing the overall makeup of the story within the figure.

Something was wrong.

Before he could continue further, he cries out as his body is forcibly thrown through the air to smash into a tree by a fist of fire! His feet dangle some five meters from the ground. He struggles desperately to strike back, to grip his adversary’s veins, anything to relieve the pain as his body slowly crumples under the psionic fire burning his extremities. Despite the flames licking at him, there was no sign that the quiet inferno was even brushing the tree he was plastered against.

-Eli, talk to me! Where is the threat?! Are you…- his HumanEX partner frantically tries to ascertain the situation, but all he could register was the increasing amount of pain as his body splintered and bubbled from the outside in. He reigns in his powers, forcefully repairing his body as quickly as possible in order to lessen the massive amount of damage happening to him.

“Shhhhhhhhhhh . . . hush now… you’ll wake the child.” A familiar voice states. The figure in blankets stirred. Heavy robes reminiscent of a medieval traveler shrouded them as well as a bundle of cloth hefted in its arms. The hood comes down and garnet red hair tinted with strands of silver spills out.

Where have I… Mavrik?!

The pressure eases as his power circulates every particle in his body into overdrive, achieving a state of autonomic regeneration only found in stories. The blazing inferno remains clasping him to the tree. He opens his eyes, flinching at the pain. His mentor, Mavrik, stood cradling a child before him.

She was an aging woman. Playfulness etched into her amber gold eyes as she flitted her glances between him and the child in her arms. The child, could barely be seen amidst the pile of cloth surrounding it.

“Took you long enough, Little Eli.” She states, reaching out with a hand to snuff the fire around him, letting him drop to the ground with an unhealthy crunch. “Your final lesson from me is here.”

“In the forest?” Eli asks, “What is the—”

“Your lesson is to take your sister away from me.” She states a soft smile crinkling her face.

Sister? When did my parents ever…

“Be warned, Little Eli. Your sister was taken with permission from your parents on the sole basis that she could be trained, her abilities reigned firmly in control. She is the direct opposite of us mutated psions. What we generate in energy and life-essence, she unconsciously devours… taking a piece of us into her.”

Eli could see the amusement twinkle in Mavrik’s eyes his puzzlement stretches across his face.

“In a sense, she will grow up faster than anyone else. As such, it comes to this last lesson to find out whether or not she will be taught by me… or by you.” She says, walking toward the edge of the camp. “This lesson requires you to forcibly take her from me. And make no mistake, this won’t be like the previous lessons you’ve had.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll be coming for your life. Whether you live or not is entirely up to you. Either I kill you, or you kill me,” she says, her back to him. Turning her head to give him a predatorial smile, she states simply, “The Great Game awaits.”

The Humans had odd definitions of what could be constituted as a city. But then, Vaulān wouldn’t have agreed to become the ‘Dhaka Los’tel,’ the envoy to the Humans, if he had thought that that would matter. He flared his Sight, feeling the soft, pliable minds of the humans around and below him, perched as he was at a lofty suite within the midst of the Treyns.

It wasn’t just the humans he felt. All life that had the basest of instincts, he could feel their minds weighed against the fabric of Fate. Their minds pulsating, pushing the boundaries of their auras to achieve that which they desired. For most animals, and sometimes humans, all they felt was the desire to eat, drink, mate, and excrete. The fact that humans were still struggling with these precepts hadn’t made much sense to him. Then again, not every species could absorb energy at its purest form.

Vaulān sighed. He had thought that this would be a worthwhile post, an honor even, to learn from the human government. Yet they all seemed so inanely focused on the “Great Game” as they called it. So much wasted potential when they based all of their executive decisions on who won the wager within a single round of the game.

Returning his silent musings back to his eyesight, he opens his slits to watch the senator, Seronta Vaina, as she paced in front of him. Despite being the ‘Dhaka’, shadowed to this human female, he did not know what vexed her as she continued to pace so often. She was babbling again, saying something about some other humans. Vaulān went back to his musing, hoping there would be a worthwhile distraction within the other senatorial chambers.

Stretching out his Sight once more, he tried to feel the aura’s of the other attaches from the other major races. As his attention is stretched, he can’t help but be drawn away as two new minds make a rapid ascent of two new minds. Correction, three minds. One of them is barely hanging onto consciousness.

They seem to be rushing to the Research Hospital.

Odd.

He stretched his senses towards them, briefly brushing against their minds in order to gain a partial understanding of the new beings in the city’s domain. One held a solid defense, as if it was a fortress of interlinking mazes. It felt familiar, like some of the old crypts back home. The second felt like that of a child, or at least he felt that way with the way she was dreaming.

Such a vivid imagination! he thought as a frozen forest landscape passes beneath him. The cold not bothering him slightly as it was only his Sight making use of the child's mind and not the place itself.

The last… he did not know what to make of the last. The last one felt dark… like a great blackness had fallen over his eyes. It felt similar to a time when he had embarked on his final Trial for acceptance into the Dhankā. He had ventured into the deepest crypt known to his people, the Los’tel Thuyg. It was there that he had come to understand a sliver of the great Weave known only to the gods.

Suddenly, his body lurched out of the chair, his hands writhing as they struggled to be controlled by his own will. A vision flashes through him as he tears his Sight from the black one. He could barely feel the pair of tiny hands placed upon him in order to stabilize his large frame from hurting himself.

Finally, after several minutes of being subjected to the vision, he realized how close he was to tearing out his own core centered in the middle of forehead.

“Vaulān!? Vaulān! What’s wrong?!” Vaina asks, her puzzlement and concern showing across her face.

“Vision.” He grunts. He watches her eyes widen, seeing a piece of himself reflecting in those almond eyes. A large, grey skinned Mont’a with a deep garnet colored core resting slightly above the slits that would be called his eyes. His Dhankā markings creating puzzles and mazes as the off-white vikaad paint stood in stark contrast to his grey skin.

“What did you see?” she asks. It takes him a moment to collect his wits. “There has only ever been one other time I’ve heard of a Dhankā nearly tearing out their core. Is this a similar vision?”

He shakes his head in the human gesture for no.

“I witnessed… Los’tel el Zezir.”

“…” Unable to comprehend his natural tongue, she waits for him to continue as he slows his breathing. Before long, his normal slits for eyes open enough for her to see the unnaturally dark red eyes. She seemed so small to his eyes. He takes a breath, and begins his translation of the prophecy.

“Watcher, watcher in the Dark.

An answer for a question once thought so stark.

It’s mind a Veil, standing oh so broken.

Carry deeds that sing… sad and unspoken.

Child of two mothers, bequeath questions ill-gotten.

Shaped in the image of teachings old… once thought forgotten.

From within it screams, torment unbound.

Rules of Madness, its wisdom unwound.

It may not be welcomed everywhere it goes.

For every door that’s opened,

Two doors are closed.

But still it watches, waiting unseen.

To steal a soul, to kill a dream.”