Meanwhile, as the gates of Oriripol were packed with all those capable of escaping the bloodshed. High above the jagged spires, in the realm of the clouds, a daemon was escaping with its prey. Wet hair clung to Kia's face as she dangled from the daemon’s claw, her arm wrenched upward as the creature soared through the clouds, her legs swaying limply beneath her.

  "A nice little snack-food, hehehe." The lesser daemon cackled as an angry fireball engulfed its form, vapourising the condensation around them and adding vapour to the clouds around them.

  "Let me go." Curling her hand into a fist, Kia hit the claw holding her even as the city below was engulfed by the clouds.

  "Here now-now? Stupid dead-thing." The daemon turned its burning orange eye toward the undead as it curled its leg forward before turning the coin-like eye somewhere forward as if it could see past the dense clouds. "Land, eat-consume, merge. A great plan by ME-ME alone."

  Kia heard the daemon begin snicker to itself over the roar of the wind and the constant hissing as her mana leaked around its claws, bubbling and zizzling as it reacted with the air around it turning into a pitch black goo.

  Lacking the emotional suppressor another undead possessed the panicked and tired ancient checked its system looking for something to free herself. A brass clockwork sphere appeared in her lithe arm before a metallic ringing filled the air as she bashed it over the daemon's scally limb. Kia's eyes followed the broken sphere as it plunged into the foggy depths a maddening cackle rose from above.

  "Iris save me!" A tear appeared in her eye, joining the water condensed on her face as she closed her glowing eyes.

  Suddenly the ancient began to remember, her faulty memory working as it should for a being like her. A comforting image of laying under a clear sky with her Favourite crossed her mind washing away the dazed helplessness overtaking her.

  "Trying again-again? Stupid." The daemon mused to itself as pale yellow light shone underneath him.

  The muscle in its leg tensed as holy light touched its abominable flesh. Smoke rose from both of the monsters as the holy dagger with a triangular blade easily sunk into the daemon's thigh like hot-knife through butter. A long gash appeared on Kia's arm as the daemon's grip loosened, its sharp claws cutting her skin from slipping away. Both of them began to tumble down like rocks. The daemon screamed in pain, trying to claw at Kia's face before a boot crashed into its snout.

  "Woooo!" Kia triumphantly raised her arms as she saw the daemon fall, its wound glowing like a lighthouse through the cloud before disappearing.

  Her clothes fluttered in the roaring wind, the fabric snapping around her as she closed her eyes. A wild grin stretched across her face, arms outstretched toward the white fluffiness. As if the tempting texture surrounding her could heal her burning, aching hands.

  "I did it..." She whispered to herself, laughter bubbling from her lips. A feeling of weightlessness overtook her as she showed the stupid daemon, the power of Inventory. “System! What did you think designing such an overpowering talent! Magic immunity, grumble, grumble." She pouted folding her arms behind her head. Without warning she felt as if someone slapped her back as she finally punched through the cloud layer, the vast panorama of Edor stretching in all directions.

  "...Oh."

  Kia's body was suddenly flipped onto her stomach, limbs flailing for something, anything, to grasp onto while the city below grew closer with each passing moment.

  "Wait, nononono-!"

  The ancient appeared like a speck of dust in the sky while she fell, too small for anyone to care even as this speck was rammed through a roof. With a crunch of shattered stone and a snap of old wood, dust erupted around her like a kicked-up memory. Kia crashed through the slanted remains of a rooftop, splinters and broken tiles exploding in every direction before she slammed into a mound of crumbled brick and snapped beams.

  The rubble groaned beneath her, shifting as she lay sprawled across it, her arms flung wide, legs tangled awkwardly in the air as her clothes hung on a broken beam. A low gasp escaped her lips as her mind tried to catch up with her body. Something dripped onto her cheek as the colours around her swirled into a hazy mirage, feeling like the contents of a bottle after a good firm shake.

  POV Change

  Alexandre busted into the safehouse as the screams got louder before going quite terrifyingly quickly. Beads of sweat ran down his forehead as he sat down, fishing out a yellowish-blue potion from his pouch and downing it as his life depended on it.

  "What on the Aspects is going on?"

  "Did you open the gate?" San who was sitting at the window sill, disguised as himself or at least wearing the appearance which Alex associated with San true self. Beside him a cloaked figure sat casually, its legs resting on top of the small table while the figure used a stick to dig the mud out of the boots' soles.

  "Yes, but I felt this cold breeze surround me and all the guards started to die. Not to mention that the entire upper district looks like a battlefield."

  "Good, our revenge is finally happening." San whispered back, his voice barely enough to travel the length of the room.

  Alexi wasn't sure if he would call what was happening an act of revenge as the streets were packed with corpses of nobles and mages but also their staff in addition to anyone else who happened to be in the Pearl at the time. But the thief waved his concerns away maybe those people deserved it? More important than that was the news that Khalida herself had found his sister and organised a rescue mission. The thoughts of finally reuniting with Claire occupied most of his mind.

  "I just got orders from the leadership." San said turning his head toward Alexandre.

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  "Good for you, I need to see Claire and leave the city with her." Alex said this was meant to be his last job with the rebels.

  "Alexandre! Today is the day that centuries of wrongs can be made right. You can't just drop our cause at this time. The Sophists and the Geni'i in their desperation will stop at nothing to stay in power."

  "What your good friend is saying is true. Not to mention that after we win, we could repay our debts to all those who aided us. You and Claire would never again need to look through the trash to survive." A very familiar voice took hold of Alex's senses who stared at the hooded figure.

  "What are you doing here? Did you get Claire? Where is she, is she safe?" The nerves eating him about his sister's well-being cracked with a hint of anger entering Senchor's voice as she stared at Khalida sitting in this room rather than saving his sister.

  "You can't see her, yet." She answered, her beautiful eyes never breaking contact as she got closer. "You see the mage that got her. He imprinted himself on her psyche, if you need me to tell her something tell me, given that I'm a woman." She explained leaving a long enough pause for him to soak up the information. "Sadly, a brave and strong man such as you can't do the one thing you really want to." Khalida brushed her closed hand against Alexandre’s cheek, her touch almost tender, though something small and firm was clutched tightly in her palm.

  "And what’s that?" He asked, voice low, brittle.

  "To hold her close. Protecting such a precious soul from the corrupting evils of this world. She wanted to give this to you," Her fingers unfolded slowly, deliberately, revealing a necklace. Alexandre gasped as he saw his family crest for the first time in... in a very long time. "You know there are others like her? We all are like her now, scarred by things out of our control. Misfortune to live under the weight of Sophists boots and be terrorised by Geni'i lies. Cursed to live in a city which chews the kind and spits them out, a sad shell. Why don't you help her, help us, Alexandre?" She stepped closer and wrapped the necklace around his neck, the emblem of his family hanging above his heart. His fingers quickly wrapped around the metal with enough force to turn them white.

  With a pearl-white smile, Khalida patted the young man on his cheek. The strangely motherly gesture proved to be a catalyst, his lower lip quivering as he attempted not to break down from the simple gesture.

  "Maybe you shouldn't come, not when you're like this." Concern split the Oriri woman's face, her voice low and private so only he could hear her.

  "No, no, no. I'm okay now. Something just fell into my eye. Where do we need to go." Alexandre steeled his resolve, not realising how his eyes shone in the dimly lit room.

  "The mages in their desperation had unleashed daemons into the city. Which are currently rampaging through Oriripol streets. Rumours have it that they had opened a gateway to the seven hells somewhere in the city." Khalida raised her voice so both men could hear her. San angrily cursed under his breath as he eyed the thick plums of smoke outside. "Fear not since such actions only prove to us that we have dealt them a grievous wound. Six out of ten great Sophist Houses lost their patriarchs and three of them will bear the marks of our victory today till the day we find them. Not to mention the culling we did to the numbers of lesser tyrants. Despite what they wanted us to believe there are no gods and even this scheme... betrayal is a better word to describe what have they had done, it is not the end times. For in the city, there are great sources of magic and power we could use to defeat the hellish legions."

  "Cowards, woe to them." Alexandre cursed.

  Whatever lesser daemons had crawled into the city will be of little problem, a fond memory if and when more intelligent daemons will stumble upon the infernal gateway. In only a couple of days, lesser daemons will crowd around the portal, drawn to the smell of blood like carrion to a corpse, in such numbers, it would surely attract the attention of higher beings.

  "Where is this artefact?" San asked.

  "They are not artefacts. Not anymore. When the veil of reality grows tin, the winds of magic take on a more corporeal form." Khalida let her words hang in the air before picking up a cloak, and readying herself to leave. "The one I want you to check on had crashed a bell ago in the Steelfoot district."

  "Crashed?"

  "Don't ask, I myself don't know what had happened for the leadership to phrase it like that but I require you to go there and find it." She shrugged before heading toward the door behind Alexandre.

  "You are not coming?" The thief asked.

  "I did say, artifacts didn't I?" Khalida responded with a sly smirk before turning around. "Don't get yourself killed, my little thief, she is waiting for you."

  The sun moved faster across the sky than Alex wanted it to as moving through the blood-soaked city took longer than he expected. Requiring careful manoeuvring around the main streets as people ran, looting and pillaging the second layer of the city without scruples. A streak of blood stained the nailed sign reading Steelfoot its letters smudged to the point of being barely legible as San ran his finger across the sign to read it.

  "We are here and I don't think anyone will be coming here anytime soon. They all seem fresh, whoever ever killed them all wouldn't return any time soon." Alexandre said, his eyes running across the sidewalk, the once busy district known for its workshops appearing like a ghost town. A barricade had been hastily erected across the road but it was torn apart and scorched as if hit by a fireball. "How will we find the artefact?"

  "Apparently it fell like a comet into the city," San responded his eyes locked in on something in the distance, a single tear running down his cheek. Alexandre turned his head toward where his friend was looking and saw bodies stacked in the left gutter like trash. "We should get up onto the roofs and look from there."

  The sandstone bricks kicked up dust as both of the men climbed up their boots scrapping their rough finish while their hands reached out toward everything they could grab. Both men possessed enough dexterity and strength to reach the terraces above and for their search to begin in earnest with an otherwordly panorama surrounding them.

  It didn't take long for them to find a home which appeared to be barely standing, the nearby roofs littered with clay roof tile fragments which had been sling shoted at the moment of impact. When the two got closer the two decided to enter from the street level as the roof appeared at the brink of collapse.

  "This place gives me chills." The illusionist murmured, his gift of magic making him aware of the power surrounding the home before the thief did.

  "Can't see shit." Every hair on Senchor's body stood up as he crossed the threshold, the pitch-dark room not helping in quelling the growing dread telling him to turn and run from this aspect-forgotten home.

  Before the dread won over San pushed a door open which led into the main room whatever it was once, the impact erasing the evidence into tiny splinters across the floor. Sunlight flowed through the large hole above them creating deep shadows everywhere around the central rubble pile.

  "Wait." Alexandre stopped unsure if San or he had given the command. Regardless of who said it both of them noticed the figure tangled in the rubble at the same time. It was hard not to notice as the oddly coloured flame burned on top of the human woman appearing not to harm the priestess.

  "Is she the target?" The thief asked and for the first time, he saw the illusionist's eyes appear lost, unsure of what to think of what he was seeing.

  "She did warn that they take on a corporeal form." Eventually, the curseling uttered.

  "So we throw her over your shoulder or wait for her to wake up?" The thief asked, his voice fading away at the same moment as in the distance a lesser daemon roared.

  "Ehhhh... over the shoulder. Those cunt had unleashed monsters into the city and we can't afford to lose any more time." San said, his hatred toward the mages waving away the primordial want to flee from the artefact. "Help me with the ruble and then make sure to open doors for me." The curseling took a step forward before he stopped again.

  "You also started to hear groaning?"

  Following their instincts the two got quieter as they nodded to each other. Alexandre activated his abilities, his form blending in the thick shadows heading outside. He poked his head outside ensuring no horde of lesser daemons decided to enter an eating frenzy on the corpses strewn around the building. Thankfully he saw nothing approaching but the groaning didn't cease to stop.

  In the corner of his eyes, he saw the pile of bodies twitch. Of course, he slapped himself internally. There was a survivor under all those dead, their last moments on Niuran spent begging for help, asking for a kind soul even amid such pandemonium. With one hand unbuttoning his satchel with a small vial of healing potion and with the other arm reaching to dig out the survivor, Alexandre froze as every single pair of cold hands reached out trying to drag him to the ground.

  "What on high heavens is happening?! Undead, here?"

  He sprinted back, no tools to deal with the dozens of undead suddenly resurrected around him. Spriting back inside and kicking the door open he managed to glimpse San reaching toward the deathly pale human before an explosion propelled him backward into the wall.

  "San!" Alexandre ran toward his friend, realising that the curseling had been knocked out. "Shit."

  The burning woman's body was roughly lifted into the air like a doll suspended by wires. Cryptic whispers invaded Alex's mind as the thing landed a pike-length away from him. With its eyes still closed the monster in a woman's skin tried to lift its hand and step forward only to fall with the grace of a child yet to learn how to walk.

  The dark flame bloomed across the artefact's body, a powerful aura hitting Senchor like a mace.

  The porcelain monster began to speak, an overwhealming feeling of insignificane filling Alex as if he was in a presence of a holy artifact, each ancient word causing the him to fall on his knees, his hands firmly pressed against his ears. In the corner of his eye, he saw the undead shambling into the building while the artefact failed to cast a spell, the leftover mana turning the wood around it into rotten pulp.

  "San, you fucking pig!" Alexandre cursed as he heaved the muscle bound illusionist onto his shoulder, his legs moving on their own as he activated every ability he could. Rushing out into the streets and into an alleyway in an attempt to make as much distance between himself and the destroyed house, before the artifact learned how to control its body.