BLACK NIGHT RUN

CHAPTER 7

A forest of gleaming stone-sheathed the camping Tyrune and spanned across the night-kissed valley of Rockforest Vale. There were no trees for miles, and the only shrub life present coiled the pillars of stone and stretched across the crags in a winding labyrinth of hanging vines and bush. The rockforest lived as an old world marvel of Nine Nations, and like a maze of earthy wonder, the wrong path could lead one into a never-ending event of misfortune - so they said.

Tyrune took to the stony vale and set up camp before the sun dropped over Spirus's horizon. His run from the secret swords came to a pause, and after fancying himself a stone bowl of cooked rabbit riddled in a tangy assortment of crushed stoneberries, he fixed his gaze into the rowdy fire of his makeshift fire pit.

His eyes closed, body loosened. Serenity kicked in. His inner-self awakened, and he crossed into the threshold of his inner most thoughts - tapping into a supernal realm, a silvery plane of silence and fog far beyond the reality his physical self.

He entered the Aethral Faede, the source of all magic - and where Aotosh awaited him

"Mhm. I was beginning to believe that you have finally fluffed and served your head to the secret blades of Vishka Zek."

"Your lack of faith ruins me," said Tyrune to Aotosh.

She stood true yet untrue. A spectral presence of indomitable curves detached from her physical self, yet completely tangible all at once. Aotosh palmed her plump hips. Her globular chest firm and puffed as she stood strict. Her face unmoved by Tyrune's sheer arrogance. "And your blatant disregard for our meetings leaves me to question if you still live or not. I cannot afford to stress any more than I secretly have. A queen must carry the weight of her people without any threat or burden."

"Then stop pretending to be a damn queen," said Tyrune. He stopped his trek with his hands stuffed in his pockets. He and his rigid blood-kin now stood small steps from each other. "These secret blade assassins so damn serious that they'll easily find you the moment you come out of hiding?"

"As I have told you once before when you was trapped in a cage for what would have been an eternity," said Aotosh, firm lip, and thin-eyed. "We cannot risk exposure. Not when the secret swords still function in guise. And they are not assassins. Not really. They are a guild. An organization vying alongside our own potential for they, too, are trained in the arts orchestrated by of our kind. Their lethal contempt, however, was ill-spurred by dispute and designed prejudice."

"Heh. So. They hate us with a seething passion and wish us deader than dead," Tyrune said knowingly. "Damn shame. The two I played with were a furious force not to fucked with. Potential allies - easy on the ole sliperoo, though. No matter. Together we can snuff them out and end them all. You know we're stronger when united. Didn't we once render them near extinct?"

As she expected. Tyrune and the two secret swordsmen failed to align themselves. Aotosh hoped the Saadian men could be swayed into the truth, but knowing her nephew, Tyrune surely botched that possibility. Time still served that chance. The apprentice she met - she knew it to be Decan - exposed a spark of conviction within himself, and Aotosh believed that spark could ignite an alliance...once the truth revealed.

So much for that plan, for now.

"A foolish thought I so wish you refrain from ever passing your lips again," Aotosh continued. "But indeed, they were almost...eradicated...but you know nothing of the true accounts other than what I have ingrained upon your mind. It's best you focus on the task at hand. And find yourself at the destruction of Nyx that grows beneath the sea."

"...the Quartari have gills?"

Aotosh inched a thin brow. "I will pretend that question did not exist. Reach the island, obtain the hammer and journey to the eastern seas."