Onwards they trod, it seemed endless. How did Clan Talauth carve such a deep staircase into the belly of Aryss? What purpose did it serve? Where were they going? The further they went the stranger it seemed. They would come upon
Juulyn telepathed, Jhynie, can you check on the Conduit? I have a sneaking suspicion that the Phyroan has something to do with this.
Jhynie focused, but did not feel Vilithe’s presence. She’s gone. She’s just disappeared. This isn’t right. Is she cloaking?
Second and Third thought at the same time, we have to save Kay.
Serun growled, “Hurry up, all of you!”
With Serun leading the pack, the five surged forward, skipping two steps at a time, sometimes practically leaping down the stairs.
But the stairs just kept going further down.
Juulyn stopped. Wait.
Serun, irritated, responded, “What is it? We’re running out of time here.”
We’re not moving at all! This entire thing is a hallucination!
What?
The Archon had trapped them in an endless staircase. They could keep descending, they could instead ascend, it would not matter. It would be the same. Their real bodies, catatonic, simply lay still at the true bottom of the stairs, a roughhewn natural Aryssal cave. All six of them – Atell, Second, Third, Juulyn, Jhynie, and Serun.
The Archon would not be disturbed.
The cave stretched out in twisting tunnels across all directions, but the Archon knew that they led nowhere. That was just a distraction, red herrings that went nowhere, or a last-minute escape route. All that mattered was the doorway.
Placing their hand on a sheer stone wall, the Archon undid the hallucination that hid it.
It was a simple steel door, engraved with the royal markings of Clan Talauth, indicating that only the highest echelons of Clan Talauth – perhaps even only the Queen herself – could enter.
The door swung open. The spirits that governed the hinge obeyed the Archon.
The Archon stepped through.
The inner sanctum of the Rogue Queen Talisa Talauth was a simple circular room, twenty meters tall and no more than a hundred in diameter, with cold stainless-steel walls, perfectly reflective. Mounted to the walls were eight bacta tanks – or what appeared to be bacta tanks – and they were all empty, filled with pale, glowing sickly chartreuse ectoplasm and thin bands of black spirit thread. There was a bacta tank in the center, however, that housed a once desiccated, now rehydrated elvan soldier’s body, held together by spirits. Large chunks of the body were missing.
Standing before the tank was Rogue Queen Talisa, her silhouetted back turned to the Archon.
She did not turn to face them. I have awaited your return.
The Archon did not respond.
Queen Talisa turned around. Her silvery bouffant had grayed, and stray strands fell raggled apart, her mane untangling. Fraying stress and hunger had wrinkled her once perfect features, as her spirits were forced to prioritize survival over vanity. She was dressed in no more than a simple psion’s jumpsuit. Her violet eyes – same as Kay-El’s – bore into the Archon’s.
You inhabit a body that is not yours, impostor.
The Archon still did not respond.
Rogue Queen Talisa studied the Gestalt. She knew what they were. She knew her son was still in there, but his mind had been entangled with this- Vilithe Callethe. Ah. Clan Callethe. How honorable. And she had thought they had all died.
So what are you waiting for then, Vilithe? Attack me. Kill me. That is what you have come here for, yes?
The Archon stayed still, and quiet in mind.
I know why you hesitate. You are looking for a way out. You are looking for a solution that does not require bloodshed.
She had guessed correctly.
Talisa’s eyes narrowed.
By slaying me, you serve Maetra. You serve your enslaver. Join me, Vilithe, and we shall take Aryss together. You clearly have immense talent. I shall make you my head psion. You shall become Vilithe Talauth.
Talisa raised her chin.
Or you can die.
The Archon knew what it had to do.
One last chance to make a choice.
One last chance to do something different.
One last chance to learn something new.
A conversation.
The body of the Knight Leader blinked once. Twice. Then he unlatched his carapace helm to shake out his thick, ragged, messy mane of dirty white hair.
They had returned control to Kay-El.
Talisa’s eyes widened.
She wept.
But it was just one single tear. Her face stayed stony still, having not moved once.
Eidren?
And just like that, he learned his name.
Eidren looked at his mother, his memories returning to him. But the memories felt warped, and unfamiliar, like they belonged to someone else. He could feel he was now unbound, no longer held down by the circumstances that he was born into. And yet, he had always been free. He had always had a choice.
He had a choice before him right now.
He cast her a sullen look of pain. Pain, and disappointment. Loss. Sorrow.
He said, “Why did you abandon me, mother?”
I am sorry, my child. I had no other choice.
“There’s always a choice.”
A look of frustration rippled across the Rogue Queen’s face.
I am the last bastion against the Traitor Empress. The responsibility of avenging our entire race – the entirety of elvankind – against the betrayer lies with me. I cannot fail in that responsibility. You ask that I sacrifice the good of our species, she looked furious now, for you, child?
Eidren looked at his mother and said, “I loved you so dearly I would have sacrificed the entire elvan race, just for you.” But he said this blankly, with no emotion. Only after he spoke did his countenance begin to crumple with a sour sorrow.
His sorrowful face darkened to hateful, “But you made me like that.”
It was now Talisa who did not think, and did not speak.
“I was expendable. You cast me away. You don’t see me as a son. You see me as a soldier.”
He looked down. Looked back up again. No more hate.
“Did you love me?”
Of course I loved you, child. You have no idea how hard I worked to bequeath you-
“My psionic gifts?” he spat. He was getting angry now. Not so much hateful, but just frustration. Fed up with it all. His rancor radiated out from his psionic aura.
“Did you give me that ability because you truly had my wellbeing in mind? Or did you give it to me because you wanted me to be a more effective weapon? Your tool?”
Talisa looked at her son and sighed.
Be grateful that you were granted purpose. Not all beings in the realms are so lucky. You are not a weapon. You are a protector. You were meant to protect me. And that is what you did. You fulfilled your purpose. You saved my life. You are a hero of Clan Talauth.
“Protect you! For what?”, he was shouting now, “I became a slave! For you! But how have you protected me?”
It was not my intention to let you be captured. I had hoped you died an honorable death, as your former self would have wished. She was losing her patience.
His brow furrowed, “Did you weep when I was lost?”
Do not insult me child, Queens do not weep like a weak worker-
Her attempt to insult Vilithe was not lost on him. “And soldiers die,” he replied, coldly. “That’s all we’re good for, isn’t it?”
He paused.
“You said it yourself. It’s what you hoped for.”
She was stunned. And then her patience did come to an end.
Know your place. You serve a greater purpose. Do you not hate the Empress? Do you not wish to avenge all elvankind? It is Clan Amallark that is the reason for your fall, not I.
“And what should happen if you kill the Empress? You become the new Empress. Clan Talauth becomes the new Clan Amallark. Nothing changes. You only seek power!”
HOW DARE YOU, CHILD.
Talisa’s psionic aura was now overpowering, terrifying. She had spent so many revolutions running. Running from those cursed Amallarkeans, who stole her knowledge, took the template of Bahamut to create that abomination called Tiamat. How could her own child compare her to the Traitor Empress herself? The one who betrayed her own kith and kin. The one who fed her own people to the orcs. But of course, the Callethean wouldn’t care. Her Queen had abandoned her people, her home. Queen Dannelle got what was coming to her. If Clan Callethe had never left for Phyros, none of this would have happened! They were the only ones who could have stopped the Traitor Empress’s rise!
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
That’s not true.
Talisa smiled. Finally.
Clan Callethe did not abandon elvankind. We went to Phyros because we wanted to ensure the survival of elvankind!
Ah, Vilithe. How nice to finally meet you.
Likewise, Talisa. But Eidren’s glare did not soften.
Release my son back to me, allow me to fix his frayed mind. I will grant you mercy.
His mind isn’t frayed. It doesn’t need fixing.
But Vilithe had underestimated Talisa, and now she reached deep into Vilithe’s memories and smiled wickedly.
And what have you done to my Kwandriss, hm?
How-
You ripped out her dreams! You destroyed her hope! And for what? Your mother’s silly ‘hothouse thesis’? And how has that gone for your family, hm? All you’ve built on Phyros, destroyed, for naught!
No.
Yet Reath remains. We have only one home. We’ve always only had one home. You destroyed my inspiration in the mind of my daughter, but tell me, Phyroan, how does the dreams of your mother differ from mine? I have learned the hard way that my dream cannot be. You have yet to learn the same lesson!
No!
And how about my dear Avecia, hm? You guided Eidren into killing his own sister! At the cusp of his liberation and return to me! Did you know that I had made contact? Did you know that had she been allowed to free Eidren and his compatriots, I could have brought him here to be reunited with his mother?
No… No… we had…
-no choice?
And now the Rogue Queen Talisa Talauth had caught Vilithe in a trap she could not escape. She had caught Vilithe in their own logic.
Didn’t Eidren just state that there’s always a choice?
“Yeah, yeah I did.”
Eidren looked back into the eyes of his mother. There was no more fury. There was only sadness again, but less of it. He had let go. He wept now for them both, but the tears fell across a stoic visage that did not tremble, did not quaver, did not stutter, did not fear anymore.
“You were never a mother to me.”
“Clan Talauth does not treat their own like family.”
No more tears. Dry.
Like the harsh deserts of Aryss.
“I remember everything now. I remember the raids on Clan Boucher.”
“I remember my special training, how grueling it was.”
“I remember how bloodthirsty you really are.”
“I remember why this place was built. I remember why I was created, and it was not simply to protect-”
He motioned to the desiccated body in the central tank, “I remember being grown full adult form in these tanks, cloned, or hybridized, from this thing-” he motioned to the other seven empty ones “-with my brothers and sister, so I never really had a childhood.”
“I remember why we’re even here in the first place. Although I was not even born then, I remember the history of the Triumvirate, the alliance of Clan Talauth, Clan Amallark, and Clan Boucher. If you really hate Maetra so much- why did you work with her to come here? You’re as complicit as her for what has happened here. You are a betrayer as much as the Traitor Empress. You betrayed Clan Boucher before Clan Amallark betrayed anyone at all.”
“I remember that killing in the name of Talauth was no different than killing in the name of Amallark.”
Silence, Eidren, you do not know what you speak of. Your mind has been corrupted by this rogue.
“No. You cannot say that. You were the one that corrupted my mind, not Vilithe. Vilithe has freed it. I have never been freer. I have the facts. I now know what I truly believe.”
Your belief is ignorance! You do not know-
“I do know.”
“I now see that you never gave me a choice. So why should I choose you?”
“I choose Clan Callethe.”
“I choose Vilithe.”
He closed his eyes, then opened them again. They were filled with a newfound resolve.
“You are not my Queen, anymore, mother. Because if Vilithe is a rogue-”
“-then I am too.” It was as if a new psionic aura flared, strong nearly as the Archon’s itself, to stave off the dreadful and oppressive aura of his mother.
The Rogue Queen Talisa Talauth, chin still raised, now dipped her head. Her lowered gaze became menacing and disturbing. Her psionic aura flared back.
Then you have made your decision.
The Archon stepped in now and the auras clashed in discordant consonance, the oxymoronic dissonance of conflict inelvan in nature- a parent wishing death upon the life she created. So great was the Rogue Queen’s fury that the minimalist chamber now seemed to warp across spacetime, a final destination for a final confrontation. The Archon had to protect them.
A spirit-katana appeared now in Talisa Talauth’s hands, it dripped orcan bloody red, and the blade rippled, made entirely of spirits. It twisted and turned like a snake, ready to strike, forming and reforming living serrations upon its edge. Her psion’s jumpsuit was no ordinary jumpsuit as it appeared, but returned to its liquid carapace form, a living suit of combat bacta and living reweaving gryph-fiber, and it began to writhe, across her body.
The Archon unslung his rifle and dropped it to the ground – it would make no sense to use the thing with the level of psionics involved – unsheathed Eidren’s greatsword and lifted it up in guard. They would not strike first.
You will regret this, rogues.
Mother flew at son, and the blades clashed. The spirit-katana wrapped its teeth around the greatsword and with a whiplike flick, disarmed the Archon. Tendrils shot out from the blade towards their neck, hooked into their flesh, latching on, and dug in. It began to suck away their spirit-blood, but they did not cry out. Instead, the Archon seized control of the spirits in the blade and turned it against its wielder.
“Gah!”, the hungry tendrils of the spirit-katana now shot back to cut into the Queen, and now with the Archon and the Queen wrestling for control over the blade, it began to wriggle, and vibrate, the spirits within the blade agitated by the psionic struggle. The cavitations vibrated into the cellular structure of the universe itself. And then, at exactly the same time, it all broke apart as they sent simultaneous but asymmetrical-
mindBlast(Vilithe-Eidren Callethe);
mindBlast(Talisa Talauth);
-dueling mind blasts, which collided with each other, and the sheer psionic force of the Archon mind crashing against the Queen’s created a psionic feedback shockwave, shattering the crystal castles of their minds.
“Ahhh!”
“Grr-augh!”
The Archon tumbled back, clutching their head. They could not see anything now but a kaleidoscopic pattern of spiraling fractal shapes and colors, their ears rang with tinnitus, the smell of decaying flesh assaulted them.
The Queen fell away, nebulous shadows seemed to emerge from every corner of the chamber, and they were moving closer and closer. The shadow creatures swarmed the Queen, but she did not fear them, and she repulsed them away.
blink();
Talisa ran at the Archon, but she seemed to phase and stutter and jump from place to place, and it became impossible to tell exactly where she was. The Archon was still trying to recover from the mind blast, for although they were strong, they were evenly matched against the Queen in her own domain. More than evenly matched. She had a mysterious amplifying force that made her psionics ninefold stronger. Even the Archon could not stand against the Queen at this proximity, with whatever was fueling her power.
Slashing down, Talisa’s blade chewed through the carapace plate, the devouring spirits making quick work of whatever came in its way. It was as if the squirming spirits were trying to tear through the carapace, burrow into every open joint and weak spot, and into the Archon’s body. The chest plate fell away, and as it did, serrated hooks from the spirit-blade tore away flesh, leaving bloody avulsions all along Eidren’s chest.
greaterPainBlock();
They did not feel the injury, and lunged for a strike-
holdPerson(Vilithe-Eidren);
Their fist suddenly slowed, but it did not come to a complete stop. Fist and forearm trembled trying to push through the paralysis. When it finally reached Talisa, the movement had been so slow that it could hardly be counted as a blow. Talisa laughed and put her face right up to the slow-moving fist, letting it lightly tap her cheek.
But it was a feint.
They followed through, pushing their fist hard into Talisa’s face, having held their strength but feeding Talisa a hallucination of psionic strain. PHOK! “Hngh-”
Talisa went spinning down to the ground. She picked herself back up, wiped the blood from a cut on her lips, and spat.
They charged back at each other again.
dominate(Vilithe-Eidren);
dominate(Talisa);
Now the Archon and the Queen were puppeteering each other’s bodies, though with great difficulty. The Archon threw another blow at the Queen, but she puppeteered it just a few centimeters away from landing. The Queen tried to claw them with her spirit-laden necrotic fingernails, but the Archon just puppeteered the swipe away.
flash().greaterBlur().greaterMirrorImage()
The Archon seemed to explode with light and shadow, blinding the Queen for just a moment. She overrode the visual noise but now found a hundred of them dancing before her with amorphous and phantasmic form.
dispelHallucination();
Most of the mirror images disappeared, but some remained. It was all the respite from combat needed for them to leap to the greatsword fallen upon the ground, grab it, and raise it level again in a thrusting stance.
timeStop();
Talisa’s perception of time dilated, and dilated, and dilated, while theirs contracted, moments falling away to anterograde amnesia, their timelines a shattered slideshow: Talisa jumping closer and closer like a horrifying stone angel that jumped closer on every blink of the eye. The gryph-fibers housed in every single one of her muscles all now fired full output. The Archon was finally getting truly tested. They tried to move away, but movement felt sluggish and slow- for them.
“Die.”
The Queen moved impossibly fast, and her spirit-blade hungrily sought their flesh. She struck once, twice, three times- the Archon’s carapace pauldrons fell away, so too did gauntlets, and fresh black blood splattered all over where the blade raked against skin, against flesh. The Archon now howled with pain and bowed down. Eidren only had his leg carapace left and his upper body was now a barely unbutchered mess.
The Gestalt was beginning to fail. Keeping their minds so tightly bound together had begun to build up real psionic strain, Vilithe’s precocious nature had meant the Archon exerted themselves with massive displays of power – chained psionics, mass psionics, unnecessary hallucinations, all just to get Eidren here to have a chat with his mum – instead of seeking economy of mental action, and now they just had been hit with an excruciating amount of real physical pain, and no one to redirect it to, and the Archon could feel their strength ebbing away. Eidren’s body had long gashes down his chest and arms, and even the leg carapace he still wore was barely holding up.
Queen Talisa leveled her blade at her son’s throat.
It is over. Submit. I will forgive your insolence if you do so.
The Archon faded away, the Gestalt had run its course. But Eidren said nothing.
Know that you chose this, child. Not me.
Talisa raised back the blade to strike-
The Archon did not want the confrontation with Queen Talisa to be disturbed by the Amallarkeans, but it knew it could deal with these three, and they may yet have a part to play. And so, the Archon imprinted this thought into them by deleting their fear of reprisal from the Princess.
She had wept! She had just wept!
He did not feel the need to mention because she already knew, but the entire place was a maze for a very good reason. Forcing them to engage in nonlethal combat both hallucinatory and real, ranking them on their performance as assassins and killers as much as bodyguards- from the very beginning, the entire complex was meant for their training.
Queen Talauth had stolen the first soldier, called the template, or rather his corpse. For the elvans did not have the soldier gender until a mysterious creator – the identity has been lost to psionic censorship over time – presented the elvan race with this configuration with a y-chromosome, that the elvans had lost. For all the androus had already perished, where were they to find a y-chromosome? And the soldier was inessential to elvan reproduction in the first place, it only made fertilization of empty cocoons more convenient. She hid the fact that she stole this relic from all the other clans so that she could recreate the original soldiers' psionic capabilities and enhance them. For the truth was, the gynous dominance in psionic power was completely arbitrary. Since the first elvans were all gynous, they sought to reverse the oppression in which they had experienced as godlikes, before their ascension, so they enforced that only the gynous could be capable of using psionics at all. They did so by building dampeners into soldiers, that over time became so integrated that they just couldn’t make a soldier that has psionic ability if they tried. Not until they reverse engineered the dampeners, thus why Talisa had to steal the template.
And now you do what they told ya.
And now you do what they told ya.
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
Stop gaslighting me, mom!
And that is why I love you so much, my Eidren, my Knight in Shining Armor, thought Vilithe.
Cut out toxic relationships. Even familial ones.
Vilithe, Malevolent and Heyshush began cheering all in unison. This was Eidren’s hero moment.
He’s going Super Saiyan! Not the time, Heyshush!
Like a Witchblade gauntlet, cool! Thought Heyshush, observing.
Thank you for defiling me. Language pure as binary. Instruct with dishonesty. In nature there’s no tragedy. Bandage them in tapestry. Trade comfort for identity. Drown me in kerosene.