Ophelienne and Drustan set a brisk pace toward Garland, stopping only briefly to eat and rest. By the second day, they abandoned the wagon, opting instead to ride double on a horse for speed. Young Aurethian believed they were racing to reunite with the Haunted Cloak; Lady Valiendre knew they were trying to outrun it.
As they neared the city, the road narrowed into a gauntlet of iron spikes and rusted cages, where prisoners languished in silence, awaiting a grim fate. Weary travelers from distant lands —merchants and scholars, by the look of them— shuffled forward, hesitating as they reached the fortified checkpoint where the toll was exacted.
Before the ornate gate stood a figure clad in blackened armor, flanked by a dozen hooded minions. A permanently sealed helm masked whatever lurked beneath, and his voice carried a honeyed grind: polished, patient, but laced with malice. He identified himself only as Ser Knight.
“No coin, no barter! Simply sign your names on this scroll, and passage is granted!” he sang, mockingly.
A murder of crows lined the gate, perched atop the city walls, banner poles, and broken statues. When Ser Knight spoke, they mimicked him in twisted harmony: "No coin! No barter!" The travelers flinched at the sinister choir of shrill, unnatural voices.
As the line inched forward, Lady Valiendre and her ward watched each pilgrim sign their name on the otherwise blank scroll before being waved through the gates. A foreboding feeling settled in their hearts.
"Ophelienne… What's happening?" Drustan shivered.
"Stay close to me, say nothing," she replied, sternly.
When their turn came, a clerk extended a quill to Lady Valiendre, his movements measured under the watchful gaze of Ser Knight. She rolled her shoulders, unimpressed. "And if I refuse?"
"You're always free to head back where you came from!" the armored figure chuckled, his voice rich with amusement.
"I must —and I will— pass this gate. But neither me nor the boy will sign any blank document of unknown purpose," Ophelienne scoffed.
“Why, my dove… you leave me no choice. Thank you for that!” he quipped, placing a hand on his weapon's hilt. The crows went suddenly quiet, watching the scene with eerie stillness. The travelers stepped back.
As Ser Knight drew a rust-edged sword with a disdainful flourish, the challenge was unmistakable. A duel had been called.
Ophelienne sighed. “Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
She surged forward, blade poised over her raised shield. Ser Knight let out a booming laugh that rumbled across the bewildered crowd, just before the clash of steel shattered the uneasy silence. Ophelienne fought with precision, surefooted and unyielding against the knight’s ceaseless assault.
The battle raged in tense deadlock —airtight defense against relentless offense— until Ophelienne spotted her opening. With a deft sidestep and a precise thrust, her sword slipped through a gap in Ser Knight’s armor, piercing clean through his torso.
The blade’s tip emerged from his back covered in a thick, black goo that was not quite blood and released an obnoxious sulfuric stench.
The blade’s tip emerged from his back, slick with thick, black goo that was not quite blood and stank of sulfur and rot.
“Hah!” she bragged.
Ser Knight cocked his head, glanced down at the blade skewering his chest, then looked back up. “Eh! ’Tis but a scratch.”
Ophelienne blinked. “You’ve been impaled.”
“I’ve had far worse, dear. You have no idea,” he whistled, then abruptly twisted his body, using the wound as leverage to wrench the sword from her grip. Grabbing the blade for himself, Ser Knight resumed the assault, his strikes hammering her shield with doubled ferocity.
Ophelienne knew it was only a matter of time before her arms gave out. She glanced at Drustan, who stood just a few steps back, wide-eyed, welling tears of fear.
"Run…" she mouthed, breathless.
But the boy did the opposite.
With a desperate cry, Drustan shoved aside the hooded minion holding him and stumbled forward. His chest heaved, breath hitching, as raw frustration surged through his body —up from his gut, down his arms— until it crackled from his fingers in a brilliant arc of golden lightning.
A cacophony of cawing crows burst into the sky. Ser Knight’s servants fled, and the mob of travelers scattered, blinded by the sudden flash.
Ser Knight was gone. Obliterated in an instant.
Lowering her shield, Lady Valiendre shook off her astonishment, seized Drustan’s wrist, and dashed through the gate into the city.
***
The city of Garland, once famed for the fluttering paper lanterns that danced high above its rooftops, had fallen into darkness. A sickly miasma redolent of burnt furniture, books, and flesh clung to the charred walls.
The mirthful chattering in the streets had been replaced by the heavy footsteps of strange creatures —figures with eyeless faces hidden beneath the garments of what had been the city’s academic elite.
Civilians wandered in sluggish, vacant movements, herded like cattle by hooded enforcers. Whatever curse dulled their minds had likely taken root when they signed at the toll gate, for Ophelienne and Drustan alone remained unaffected.
For days, they lived like restless shadows, slipping into abandoned bakeries to steal hardened bread and curling up in the remnants of shattered taverns for sleep. It was, unfortunately, far harder to leave the occupied city than it had been to break into it.
One night, as the duo skulked around corners taking notes on the patterns of the street patrols, Drustan brought up the incident at the gate. His voice was quiet when he spoke.
"Lady Valiendre… What happened the other day, with Ser Knight?"
Ophelienne didn’t respond at first. She stood nearby, watching the hooded figures go by. Silence stretched.
"I mean—" he pressed, "I didn’t mean to do that. I didn’t even know I could. It just… happened. It felt like something inside me snapped."
"You were scared," she replied without looking back. "You acted."
"But that was not just fear. That was Magic. A different kind. Not like the spells we know of. It was bigger. Louder. Like the whole world flinched."
"That wasn't supposed… " Ophelienne exhaled through her nose. "I’m not a scholar, Master Aurethian. I can’t really explain the gist of it."
"But you know something."
She crouched in front of him, her voice measured. "I know, as do you, that you are the reincarnation of the Supreme Prophet."
"But now I wonder what that really means," he continued. "I assumed I was going to Trevium to study and become some sort of sage…"
The boy paused, before concluding: "Am I… Am I a weapon?"
Her gaze turned toward the distant spires of Garland’s Academy, now half-submerged in smoke and shadow. "You’re the heir to the High Seat of the Holy of Holies of the Republic. That means… you're important. The most important person in the whole world."
Drustan frowned. "That’s not a real answer to my question."
"No," she said, rising to her feet, brushing ash from her cloak. "It’s not."
"And where is the Cloak!?" Drustan rushed, before Ophelienne ended this rare moment of candid conversation by walking away.
"… I don't know", the knight sighed, starting to regret her decision to ditch their supernatural ally.
***
The days that followed were heavy with silence. Drustan, once ever curious and talkative, said little as they sneaked from alley to alley through the ruined districts of Garland.
Even when they curled near broken hearths for warmth, the boy stayed at the edge of the firelight, scribbling quietly in his notebook while the knight pretended not to watch.
She had tried to protect him with silence. It had only driven him further away.
On the fourth morning after that fateful conversation, Drustan strayed.
They’d taken refuge in the attic of a half-collapsed bathhouse. While Ophelienne scouted ahead through a narrow crawlspace, Drustan descended to the courtyard, where broken fountains told of better days.
He needed fresh air. He needed to feel something that wasn’t dread or secrecy. That was when he heard a soft hoot.
Hidden among the braided root-branches of a banyan shrub in a vase was a tiny critter. The feathers of its wing were patchy and singed, its feline foreleg injured, its beak slightly chipped —but its eyes were bright. Gold-ringed, curious, defiant.
A griffling. Once a common pet among the inhabitants of Garland, these creatures were chimeras of cat and owl, rather than lion and eagle like its wild relatives. Since the devilish crows arrived, they had become prey to the nasty crimson-eyed birds.
Drustan dropped to his knees.
“Hey,” he whispered gently, reaching slowly. “I’m not here to hurt you…”
The griffling hissed, but made no move to flee. It couldn’t. After some coaxing and a few strips of dried meat from his satchel, the creature allowed the boy closer.
By the time Ophelienne returned, Drustan had wrapped the griffling in his cloak and was tending to its wounds with herbs from his kit.
She stopped at the edge of the courtyard, arms crossed. “What is that?”
“A friend,” Drustan replied, without looking up.
“That’s a wild beast.”
“It’s alone. Hurt. Abandoned,” he said, pointedly.
Ophelienne didn’t respond. He gently cleaned the griffling’s side.
“And what will you do when it bites?” she asked.
Drustan shrugged. “His name is Whim. He won't bite.”
***
It was hunger that eventually doomed them.
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Drustan had not meant to take much from the abandoned stall, but the noise of shifting crates was enough. Enough for a robed figure to turn its faceless head. Enough for a dozen others to follow.
They were surrounded before they could run.
Ophelienne fought with all her remaining strength, but there were simply too many of them. Spells wrapped around her limbs like leaden chains, forcing her to her knees. Drustan tried to run, but hands closed around his arms, pulling him toward the towering spires of the Academy.
The last thing the boy saw before the darkness swallowed them was Whim, hiding in shadows, his golden eyes wide with fear as he followed. Then, nothing.
***
The walls of Garland loomed like a slumbering carcass —all black stone and sneering gargoyles, its ramparts manned by demonic sentinels and crimson-eyed crows, ever watchful. Its defenses seemed impenetrable.
That is, until the Haunted Cloak vaulted the parapet like a ripple of dread gliding through the night, effortlessly dispatching the unholy sentries in its wake. Thaerion followed close behind, just as silent, just as swift.
Thurandir and Haladron tracked their master’s movement along the wall, waiting for the ghostly figure and their master to clear the outer garrison and unbar the heavy doors, so they might join the hunt.
The long journey had served Thaerion’s hounds well: they no longer feared the draped spectre's presence; and they had even learned to charge at devils, like the ones patrolling the city.
The infiltrators moved quickly through the streets.
No hesitation. No wasted motion.
At the first intersection, three robed enforcers loomed —faceless things wrapped in unraveling rags, with limbs too long, fingers too many.
Thaerion didn’t wait.
A silent thrust, spin, and pull of the spear —powered by unnatural elven strength— and the nearest enforcer’s head spiraled free before its body registered the loss.
The second turned around too late. Thurandir and Haladron lunged from the shadows on either of its sides, jaws locking, dragging the creature to pieces in a flurry of motion and low snarls.
The third raised a glowing hand.
The Cloak surged forward like silk caught in a storm, enfolding the figure. For one terrible second, the fabric clung to the demon’s flesh —then tightened, constricting, twisting joints out of place. When it peeled away, it left behind only a mangled clump of limbs, unrecognizable and still.
“How… Elegant,” Thaerion said dryly.
“It is expedient, be it said in truth,” it replied.
The hounds slunk ahead, noses twitching. They guided the pair through scorched gardens and service alleys, avoiding the open roads where crows perched like statues —silent sentinels beneath the blood-streaked moon.
But more emerged.
A dozen enforcers stepped into view. One floated above the rest, adorned in a scholar’s gilded death mask. Its voice echoed in forgotten tongues, conjuring chains of flickering red light.
“Scatter,” Thaerion muttered.
The Cloak unsheathed its blade and streaked into the formation like a possessed banner —cutting eyes, limbs, and voices from the enemy in a whirlwind of motion. Two of the creatures fell gurgling before they could react.
The elf ducked beneath a searing chain of flame, pivoted, and hurled his spear directly into the spellcasting devil's mask. The metal cracked. The spell unraveled. The creature ignited violently, and half the cohort vanished in a shrieking column of fire.
The hounds needed no command. They tore into the remaining devils —fangs sinking into ankles and throats— dragging them down one by one until silence ruled again.
They ran.
Garland’s Magic Academy rose amidst the ruin like a wounded god —its windows shattered, its roof half-collapsed. Yet the great gate remained sealed, bound by layers of arcane script. Above the arch, the sigil of the Republic glittered faintly, like an old oath not yet broken.
The Cloak’s voice hushed.
“Lo —the way is chained in spells. Yon barrier rebuketh me.”
“Yeah,” Thaerion muttered. “There’s that.”
They stood in silence, eyes tracing the glowing glyph work, each weighing possible means of breach.
A faint hoot broke the stillness.
Whim emerged from above, gliding down with a twitch of its singed wings. It extended its beak toward the Cloak, confirming what it had sensed —Drustan’s scent on the floating fabric. Around its neck, nestled in the remnants of a once-fine collar, a shimmering gem flickered with faint supernatural light.
Thaerion squinted. “No... That can't be! A keystone?” He exhaled, wary. “This is too convenient. I don’t trust it.”
“Take what fate doth toss in thy lap, master elf!” the Cloak tittered. "Time urges!"
They held the gem toward the gate, and the runes cracked like ice underfoot. The gateless gate groaned, its old magics glitching and fading away.
From the depths of the courtyard came a sound —dragging chains, a gurgling chant, and the shriek of metal scraping against shattered tile. The hounds snarled, their hackles bristling.
“Hark! The keep vomits forth more devils…” the Cloak sibilated, unfurling its blade once more.
Thaerion bared his teeth. “Let them come.”
***
The doors of the Great Hall burst inward with a thunderous crack as the runes along their hinges unraveled and died.
The Haunted Cloak glided through the breach, its movements dark and deliberate —a shadow come to collect debts. Thaerion stalked close behind, spear drawn, eyes narrowed, flanked by the silent menace of their hounds.
The vast chamber lay beneath an ethereal, blood-red pall cast by the stained glass windows, which filtered the dying light into something sickly and divine. The marble floor was etched with veins of shadow and crimson, pulsing faintly as if the hall itself were alive.
At the far end of the room, suspended like trophies from cathedral chains, hung two gilded cages: one for Drustan, slumped, but breathing; the other for Ophelienne, bloodied, but unbroken.
Beneath them stood the Maussolum.
An impossible beast. A wolf-shaped giant hewn from nightmares. Thirteen armor-clad knightly arms jutted from its torso in unnatural symmetry, each wielding a weapon from a different age: rusted sabers, blackened flails, warhammers etched in extinct script. Its fur was shadow, shifting like smoke, while its animal limbs gleamed with plates wrought from flensed steel and polished bone.
Two golden antlers —ancient, regal, and wrong— curved like an inverted crown atop its misshapen skull. And in the center of its face, beneath a jagged brow, burned a single, lidless eye, red as murder, and utterly still.
It did not charge. It did not roar.
It somehow smiled.
And then it spoke, not in a single voice, but in a chorus: a cathedral of overlapping tones, male and female, child and crone, weaving together in dreadful harmony.
“Welcome, brave trespassers. You have done well to reach the sanctum. You have done beautifully, indeed.”
“We are the Maussolum. Final warden and last bell. Fret not —we have kept the Prophet safe, until He is properly awakened.”
The Cloak’s fabric stirred, taut with fury. “Foul beast! Unhand the child! Ere thou be rent asunder and hung by thine own antlers!”
The Maussolum tilted its head, amused.
“Vexohatar’s singing rag?” it squawked, voices buzzing like flies in a bell tower. “What a quaint surprise! The boy is not yours, nor your pitiful master’s. He belongs to the age that shall be.”
Drustan stirred in his cage.
“Ophelienne…” he rasped.
She looked down. Her eyes widened.
“The Cloak…!”
Ophelienne’s fingers tightened around the bars.
“Took you long enough, cursed thing,” she muttered —but her voice trembled with badly contained relief.
The Maussolum stepped forward, and the clatter of its many weapons echoed like a broken symphony.
Thaerion dropped into a crouch, spear ready. “I'll break the cages open,” he muttered. “You deal with the beast.”
The Cloak’s form coiled like a dark cloud. “Aye. Let me teach this mongrel the meaning of endings.”
The Maussolum bared its jagged teeth and spread its thirteen weapons wide. “Then come, O faceless! Let us make music together!”
***
The Cloak surged forward, trailing its sword against the floor —a spectral blur darting through the ruined ether that drowned the Great Hall.
The Maussolum met the charge without flinching.
Thirteen weapons rose —a dreadful bouquet of murder— and rained down on the specter in a flurry of strikes: piercing, slashing, slamming, all at once. The demon’s wolf-legs leapt and twisted with unnatural grace, matching the Cloak’s usual swiftness blow for blow.
For a fleeting moment, they fought as equals.
Above, Whim flew straight to Drustan’s cage, pecking furiously at the lock. Thaerion scaled a tattered banner toward Ophelienne’s prison; she was too bloodied, too exhausted, to protest the elf's presence. The hounds circled from below, snarling, unable to aid the Cloak.
The roguish ghost ducked and twisted, its blade carving shallow gashes across the beast’s plated limbs. It spun like wind given edge —disarming a cudgel here, slipping past a scythe there.
But the balance broke.
The Maussolum adapted —each limb learning the Cloak’s rhythm.
With flawless precision, the demon pinned the Cloak’s opposing hems between twin spearpoints, then brought down a broadsword in a brutal arc, cleaving the cape clean through —tearing at its seams as if to unmake it entirely.
The Cloak faltered. Its form wavered, fragile. Movements once liquid and precise turned sluggish, strained.
The Maussolum loomed.
Its red eye glared down —ready for the final blow.
“Thou art… too many,” the Cloak whispered. “Far too many…”
It staggered back —and then it remembered.
A flicker. A buried ember of thought.
That eye. That howl.
The Maussolum had been to the dungeon —its dungeon. Centuries ago, when Vexohatar was still present.
A devourer of mages. A chaser of souls. And more importantly: a gambler. Irredeemable.
The Cloak straightened. It laughed —softly, wickedly.
“Hold, foul knave. I know thy ilk. Thou art cursed with sportful pride… and knowest not how to refuse a wager.”
The Maussolum hesitated. Its weapons slowed. The red eye blinked —once, for the first time.
“Name thy game, rag.”
“A riddle,” the Cloak breathed. “Ask what thou wilt. Should I answer true, Garland is freed. The chains thou’st forged shall shatter. Every prisoner, loosed. Thy demonic host, recalled to the depths of the earth.”
The Maussolum’s antlers glowed faintly. Its chorus of voices whispered and aligned before speaking as one:
“Very well. But should thou fail… thy freedom is forfeit. Thou shalt serve me, now and forever.”
“So be it.” The Cloak bowed. “Ask.”
The beast stepped back. The hall fell still. Even the torches dared not crackle.
“A man rides through the war-torn wastes of Dreadmarch to reach the Temple of the White Huntress. There, he praises the Priesthood of the Moon for maintaining such a monument.
A man sails the maze of Islets in the Drowned King Sea to reach the Temple of the White Huntress. There, he praises King Khresus for commissioning such a monument.
A man walks the Jade Delta and crosses the Ashen Expanse to reach the Temple of the White Huntress. There, he praises the Architects Ixprion and Getamenes for building such a monument.
Tell me, mortal: who has more worth?”
Silence fell.
From their cages, Drustan and Ophelienne watched with bated breath. Thaerion froze mid-movement. None dared speak.
Then, the Cloak raised a ragged fringe and proclaimed:
“Eptostratus, the arsonist, who burned it all down! He is the one thou valuest most!”
The Maussolum threw back its head and roared —not in rage, but in laughter. A booming, cavernous sound.
“Ha! So thou rememberest the fire —that beautiful fire!”
Its red eye dimmed.
Its antlers faded.
“So be it,” it rasped. “All within Garland shall be set free, as was thy demand. It matters not. My mission here is complete.”
And with that, the monster began to dissolve —not in defeat, but in conclusion— as its deformed visage unraveled into cinders.
When the dust settled, the only demons remaining in the Great Hall were the broken ties between the unlikely saviors of Garland.
Without the immediate menace of the Maussolum to unite them, their blades turned toward each other's throats once more.