The peace was a lie. It was too quiet.
A faint, unnatural sound scraped at the edge of her hearing, a distant contrast to the fleeting tranquility surrounding her. It came from above. Dragging herself from the cot, her body an aching map of old and new pains, Mola made her way towards the spiral staircase. The sound grew clearer with each step: the dry shuffle of torn parchment, the soft thud of a discarded book.
Bazren knelt amidst the wreckage of the study, a scavenger in a library of memories. Her new, dark hair was tied back hastily, and her unfamiliar face was taut with concentration as she sifted through the debris.
Mola: "W-what are you doing?"
Bazren barely glanced up, her eyes fixed on the tattered scriptures before her.
Bazren: "Finally up, are we? I'm looking for something. *Anything*. There's bound to be some kind of lead we can follow amidst this confusion..."
Mola's gaze swept the ruin. The scorch marks, the shattered walls, the unnerving absence of the room's former occupant. Xayn was not there.
Mola: "... You're alone?"
Bazren tossed aside a charred scroll, her movements sharp with impatience.
Bazren: "Xayn's downstairs. That glyph at the entrance intrigued him, said he'd rather take a look at that. He'll want to know you're awake, though. We all need to have a long chat after all that's happened..."
At last, she paused, turning to face Mola fully, her new lips pulling back in a challenging smirk.
Bazren: "... Don't we now?"
The question hung in the air, fishing for a reaction, a flicker of the entity hiding within. Mola offered nothing, her expression blank.
Mola: "I-I guess...?"
Disappointment flashed in Bazren's eyes. She turned back to her task, her voice dropping to a low mutter.
Bazren: "You'll come out, sooner or later. We just have to figure out how..."
Mola understood. Tentoria. The name was a phantom limb, an ache she couldn't place.
Mola: "I'll go fetch him, then... The sooner you're on your way, the better."
A humorless grin touched Bazren's lips as she faced away.
Bazren (muttering): "The feeling's mutual, rest assured."
The words were a faint whisper, lost to Mola as she turned to leave. A wave of dizziness washed over her, the edges of her vision blurring, her ears filling with a sudden, sharp ringing.
A voice, her Master's voice, echoed in her skull, laced with scorn.
The Master: "A 'lead'... how very ironic that the only thing to *lead* them will be you."
Mola grimaced, bracing a hand against the cold stone of the wall as she descended.
The Master: "Tsk tsk tsk... So you're just going to let them peer into my life's work like that? Uncover decades' worth of secrets and findings...?!"
Mola (muttering): "You're dead... What does any of it matter now...?"
A peal of laughter, sharp and aggressive, reverberated through her mind.
The Master: "Well, better to have lived and died, than to have never lived at all, girl..."
The presence receded, leaving a throbbing ache behind it. Mola wiped a tear from her cheek, the question burning in her mind. Was this a ghost? Or was some vital, terrible part of her Master now inside her?
At the bottom of the tower, Xayn knelt before the glyph, his new face a strained in intense concentration. Beside him, locked in a crude cage fashioned from twigs and twine, a small rabbit trembled, its nose twitching with terror. In his other hand, Xayn held a tiny field mouse by the very tip of its tail. The rodent, far calmer, was blissfully nibbling on a stolen crumb of hard cheese.
Xayn: "This makes no sense... No sense at all."
Stolen story; please report.
With a swift, precise movement, he plucked the cheese from the mouse's grasp. The creature let out an indignant squeak, attempting a futile bite.
Xayn: "You'll have it back soon enough... I just need to test this again."
He placed the cheese on the floor, then carried the dangling mouse around the sigil, setting it down on the opposite side.
Xayn: "So, if I let you go..."
He released the tail. The mouse darted across the glyph without hesitation, a grey blur of motion. The runes remained dark. The creature snatched its prize and vanished into a crack in the wall.
All that remained was the caged rabbit.
Xayn: "Hm... Then will *you* trigger it, I wonder...?"
Footsteps echoed from the stairwell. He looked up to see Mola descending.
Xayn: "Ah, you're up...! Good. Help me out here quickly... I am trying to make some sense of your master's trap."
He strode to the tower's entrance and pushed the heavy door open, flooding the space with morning light. Mola's gaze drifted from the glyph to the small traps and snares near the wall.
Mola: "Are you using animals to test it...?"
Xayn nodded, his expression serious.
Xayn: "I'd like bigger test subjects, but the small ones were all I could muster, I'm afraid."
He gestured to the cage.
Xayn: "Do me a favor and open it up, would you?"
Mola approached the cage. Strangely, as she drew near, the rabbit's frantic trembling subsided. It seemed to relax, its ears lowering slightly, its dark eyes fixed on her. She unlatched the simple door. The rabbit hopped out, not in a panicked dash, but with a deliberate gait, heading for the promise of green grass and open sky.
As its paws crossed the first rune, the entire glyph flared to life.
Violet light pulsed upwards, bright and silent.
The rabbit passed through it completely unscathed, hopping out into the sunlight and disappearing into the tall grass.
Xayn slammed the door shut in frustration, the sound booming in the enclosed space.
Xayn: "Bah! 'Misconfigured' you say... Seems to me like it's no better than a fancy way to light up the tower's entrance. Humans do not trigger it. Undead do not trigger it. Even animals do not trigger it... What good is a *trap* that never *traps* anything?!"
A spike of pain, sharp and familiar, pierced Mola's thoughts.
The Master: "Ahaha... How endearing. Trying to make sense of energies far beyond his ken... Alas, his analysis is wrong. You can do better than he, Mola... Let him know where he failed."
Mola (muttering): "I c-can't... I could never make sense of your spellcrafting!"
The Master: "TRY. AGAIN. You still don't understand what's happened, do you...?"
Xayn saw the grimace twisting Mola's face, the way her lips moved in a silent, pained conversation.
Xayn: "Mola...? What's wrong?"
She held up a hand, warding him off.
Mola: "It's nothing... Leave me be."
Ignoring him, Mola knelt, her eyes tracing the intricate lines of the glyph. She had tried to decipher it countless times, but her Master's custom magic was a language she could never learn.
Mola: "Wait."
This time was different. The meaning didn't come from study. It flowed into her, an instinctive comprehension, as simple and absolute as reading a book in her native tongue.
Mola: "I-I can..."
Her eyes darted from rune to rune, the arcane puzzle unravelling before her.
Mola: "A red flare when triggered. A cube of energy will manifest itself around the trapped entity, denying its exit. Roaring flames will then erupt from the surface of the trap, cooking the entity alive. The spellcrafter themselves can never trigger this trap. In order for another being to trigger it, that being must exceed a weight of roughly an apple, and that being must also be a..."
Wait...
... Why can't I read that?
The Master: "Go on... GO ON..."
A wall of static filled her mind, blurring the final, crucial rune.
Xayn: "'A'...? What *kind* of creature?"
I... I can't see it.
It was as if a filter had been laid over her own perception, censoring the word.
Mola: "...a-a..."
The Master: "What's taking you so long?! Is it so hard to say out loud? Then let me say it for you-!"
Snap.
Something severed. The Master's voice was instantly, violently erased, as if a door had been slammed shut in her mind.
A new presence replaced it, soothing and absolute.
Tentoria: "Hush... Too soon."
The voice was a balm on her raw nerves.
Tentoria: "Look at how much you aggravate her... It's okay, now. There's nothing wrong with you, Mola... You're perfect. You're everything you need to be."
Fresh tears traced paths down her cheeks. Xayn stared, his expression a mixture of fear and concern, witnessing the outward signs of a battle only she could hear.
Mola: "... nothing. The sigil's messed up... I-I don't know."
She hastily dried her tears. Disillusioned, Xayn sighed.
Xayn: "So close... well, that must be the problem, then. At least we know what it was supposed to do."
Mola: "Why do you care so much about this, anyway?!"
Xayn: "Because, like it or not, magic's what'll bring my people back. I figure the better I understand it, the easier our mission'll be."
Mola: "... Your 'people'?"
Xayn nodded.
Xayn: "I'm getting ahead of myself. It'll make more sense after we all have a chat together."
A frantic clatter of footsteps echoed from the stairs. Bazren appeared, a tattered pamphlet clutched in her hand, her new face alight with manic discovery.
Bazren: "XAYN! I FOUND IT! OUR LEAD...!"
She nearly tumbled the last few steps, skidding to a halt and shoving the document in their faces. The thick, cheap paper was emblazoned with crude, blocky text.
... GUTS?! GOT GRIT?!
... GRAND MELEE IS BACK!
... toughest bastard to crawl out of the provinces? Think your sword arm is stronger than your skull is...
... nation and prove it in the arena. We're tired of watching pampered knights and blowhard mercenaries preen. We want blood. We want carnage. WE. WAN...
...IZE? A KING'S RANSOM IN GOLD -- 25,000 GOLD COINS -- ENOUGH TO MAKE A LORD ...
...ULES? SWING STEEL. BE THE LAST ONE STANDING!
...
Bazren: "Well...? WELL...?
Xayn's expression was a mask of profound disbelief and weary disappointment.
Mola looked on, as apathetic as ever.
Xayn: "Bazren..."