| Dunric, The Confederacy of Dun |

The Overseer of Dunric, Gerald Apui couldn’t fathom what this next year was going to be like. The worst part for him was the matter that The Order had completely created this idea that he was incompetent—unable to do his duty to serve to protect the people from threats foreign and domestic as he had sworn when he became the governor of this county nearly six years ago. Things had not fallen apart so much that people demanded his head in a guillotine however, which he was thankful for, as this cult seemed to disappear when their last soldier died the previous summer.

However, despite it looking good to the other governing overseers of the nation that this cult was dealt with Gerald felt that they were simply recuperating and dividing their assets elsewhere. He had been told by one of the members of his Vann, a warden named Kath Sentarous, that this Gandilos had indeed promised that all of this was only the beginning. In his office in Dunric’s City Hall, Gerald Apui grew worried if that much was the case—but there was nothing really he could do to prevent it. The best he could do was better order his Vann to be trained and make their patrols much more demanding—he even considering reinstating the provincial military but he knew that would just send the people in a bigger panic. But how could he just sit here and do nothing?

It was madness.

The invisible blade bore itself into the old swordmaster's chest; and it seemed that time stopped for him. He looked over to Kath, his mouth contorted in the beginning of a scream, his blade still half-buried in an Orderling. Deya's eyes widened, perhaps in her disbelief. To his right, he saw Rauz and Lexi move towards Gandilos dropping Otis' lifeless corpse onto the ground. And he looked down, trying to force the tears from welling in his eyes. He was still holding the blade driven firmly into his chest, trying to move forward to help. He was so weak. Unable to help anyone...

Marlowe sat up in his bed, his eyes widened, beads of sweat moving slowly down his forehead. On the other side of the room, Viera was still asleep on her bunk. He took a moment, taking a deep breath in, and out, before calming himself. That battle had felt like an eternity ago; but he dreamt of it regularly. It was the best argument he gave Rauz for leaving Dun. He couldn't bear to watch anyone else die due to his weakness, and Rauz had spoken of legends of legendary weapons in some far off country. And now, here he was. Returning to the closest place he could deem "home".

He'd grown used to the rocking of the bed against the waves of the ocean. These nice iron ships weren't as unstable as a wooden boat, but the sensation was still there. Those who weren't used to the crashing of waves, the instability of walking, the ease of slowly moving from one side of a room to the other-it was no wonder some ran to the side of the ship to puke. But Marlowe was raised on the sea. For him, it was the ancestral mother of all creatures; and all waters were her domain. He had slept the best nights in the past few months on the small bed of the ship, compared to his odd patterns on land. Perhaps Viera; the teal-haired woman traveling with him took notice of that; perhaps she didn't. He was still confused on why she demanded to travel with him and see the world. He supposed that living on an island full of traditions and rules would cause a freer spirit to pray for escape, but still; why with him of all people?

The huge blade; named Caladbolg to the people of Derim, was still leaned against the wall. Viera had told him that the blade, once bonded to him, would be weightless, yet weigh an infinite amount to anyone who dared wield it but him. But the blade still felt weighty to him. Perhaps it was in his imagination. When he approached the Temple of Meras, he saw the countless unmarked graves surrounding the temple. Those who attempted to claim the blade for themselves; those who tried to bend the power of the blade to their wills, before being drained of their lives.

The smell of the cabin was...less than ideal. A mix of seawater and something that could be referred to as "murk" was permeating throughout the hold of the ship, and Marlowe decided to leave Viera resting for a moment, and catch what passed as fresh air here. Opening the door, he felt a slight chill exiting the cabin, an indicator of the cool nights of early spring. Usually the nights were clear, but tonight was beset by a heavy fog. The fog was also thick and rank, almost as if it were colored by the smells of...a swamp!

Marlowe briskly walked towards the bow of the ship, looking over the railings to see the faint flow of the streetlamps admist the fog. He walked over to the boatswain, still awake in and performing his boat duties. "Excuse me-"

"Yeh? Shoul'n ye be sleepin'? It's still early mornin'."

"No, I know, I just wanted to know if we've arrived in Dunric."

"Yeh."

"Thank you." The older man turned around and went back to his duties, probably going back to ignoring Marlowe's existence again. Well, that answered that, at least. They'd probably unload when the dock workers arrived. Marlowe returned back to his cabin, a little spring in his step now. The voyage was over, and now it was time to find Rauz, Lexi, Kath and Deya. As he entered the cabin, Viera was still curled up in her sheets, her diminutive form making shapes. Marlowe forced himself not to let his gaze travel for long. She was a strong woman; lean and toned, and a skilled swordsman and hand to hand fighter. Which meant she could hold her own easier than Marlowe. And that scared him. What if another situation happened where someone needed his help and he was busy on the floor, half dead? He couldn't let that happen again-

A soft moan came from the other side of the room. "Marlowe? Why are you up? It's still night."

"Sorry. Just needed some air." He sat back down on his bed, and sighed, before laying down completely, and forcing himself to drift off to sleep. "Sorry for waking you up..." He received no reply, and soon he faded back into the muggy darkness of sleep.

The sound of the the ship's bell; ringing nonstop-two...four...eight times. Marlowe's eyes adjusted to the soft light from the port window, and yawned. Eight bells at morning meant it was probably eight in the morning, which meant it was time for Viera and him to head out. Marlowe stretched, turning over, to see Viera already dressed, standing up by his bed. "You snore too much."

"Sorry-" Marlowe quickly threw on a red jacket over his old white shirt, and patted his hair down the best he could. This was no time for primping and making himself look fancy; he needed to get to the Vann Office and get in contact with Kath. Hopefully his friends had held off the Order well enough during his time away searching for power.

He led Viera from the ship, who was dressed much more cooly than he was used to seeing her in. Which of course meant that her cloak was under her arm instead of over her. Her face told it all; she was a girl from a cold and desolate country, and he had brought her into the early spring of the swamp. He didn't want see her face when they hit midsummer, when the heat became nigh-unbearable for someone unused to the climate. He led her down the cobblestone streets, passing the poorer parts of town as they approached the central part of the city.
The Vann's office was a large, two story building, a mix of stone and wood, with fine vaulted roofs and ornate windows. It matched the finer architecture found in the more upscale part of the city; and it was a place he rarely ventured. Originally he was just a confused boy following Kath on business, now he did his best to carry himself into the office, past the Watch Office and towards a a wooden door with a glass window with matte black words pasted on it: Warden's Office. If anyone knew where Kath was, it'd be here.

He opened the door, into the cramped Warden's office with several gruff looking gentlemen sitting behind desks. "Yeah?" One of them asked Marlowe, probably thinking the man came in the wrong office.

"I'm looking for a warden; name of Kath."

"Aye, he was here a few days ago. He's still out in the field. I'd check back another day kid." The older warden went back to his paperwork, and Marlowe, went back out the door sighing.

"What's wrong?" Viera asked.

"No luck on finding my friend. He's out in the swamps. And i'd rather not spend a month walking around aimlessly, looking for him."

"Well, do you know anyone else in town?"

"My friends Rauz and Lexi, but they could have moved on by now. Still...it wouldn't hurt to look for them." He smiled, getting a little more optimistic, and led her back outside. "Come on! We've got a whole day ahead of us!"

Under a large tree in the swamps outside of Dunric, a slightly old-ish man sat cross legged, slightly tired from his walk across the bridge and city. His hands lay resting in his lap, and his eyes seemed closed under the shade of his hat. The musty and damp air of the area affect him naught, for his nostrils had become used to it in the few hours he'd been here.

But in reality, he was quite awake. His mind was concentrating on clearing itself up, but he was failing to do it. He could not help but think about the situation of the city and nation. They were living in the terror of a certain organization known as The Order. Certainly not very order-like, considering its genocidal activities. It was a criminal organization, with no right to create such havoc and terror in a civilization.

He had to make up his mind. He had to either leave the place as it was, or he could attempt to step in. It all depended on his view of the balanced out situation. Would it hurt the balance of the world and timeline if he were to step in? Were the Order meant to succeed? If so, he'd be interfering with the natural order of things. But genocide and terror was also against the natural balance of humanity and nature. Neutrality or taking a side.

A hard choice.

The belief that he and his entire monastery followed was that the world followed a set Path, one that would eventually lead to a perpetual living death of the Universe, in which all change would end, causing everyone to be stuck in time. But this Path could easily be changed by one aware of it, which would lead to an artificial destruction of mankind, using a type of those Landeian bombs. Or something like it.

Which is why he was reluctant to step in. The slightest change, so early in the Path, could have disastrous consequences, like a premature ending of the Path. He sighed. This was what made him and his fellows so slow in life. Each major change had to be meditated upon, and planned about. Sometimes, he had the thought of disregarding it entirely, and following a new way of life, for it seemed contradictory in nature, and very much against the new ideas of living like it didn't matter.

But he always ignored those impulses. Although his teachings also encouraged free thought and free will, he tried to not doubt the theory of the Path. It would be like questioning the purpose of one's whole life, something he wouldn't want to do, for doubt was the first sign of incompetence and failure. It could affect him incredibly, especially if it was when he was manipulating his chakra gates. He could die because of a slight notion of doubt.

It was this train of thought that was causing him much trouble in meditation. Purging his mind of all this monologue, he attempted once more to fall into a state of meditation, but was interrupted once more by the sound of someone, or some many people, walking through the swamp towards him. He opened his eyes to see a group of three men, with swords in their hands. This could not bode well. They were probably bandits of some sort, considering the sudden sparsity of Order men.

One of them spoke in an accent he recognized to be from the ghetto-ish part of the city, some place he had tried to avoid in the first place. "Old man, stop sleeping in such a place. Don't you know, this place is populated by....... *hick* bandits?" Oh brilliant, he thought. They were drunk too. At what time, now? Something like three o' clock in the morning, and they were drunk. The populace here was terrible, and also terribly treated. He replied in kind, with a slightly harsh tone "Well, I am aware. But if anything, they should be the ones afraid of me, because not all that glitters is gold, and not all that is dull is coal. Also, I am not "old man", so I'd rather have you not refer to me like that."

They didn't speak any more than a slight grunt, and then spat right in front of him. He stayed calm, and stopped himself from getting irritated, and then spoke again "Can you leave now?" This must have offended their silly little ego's, as they raised their swords in a reluctant unison, and rushed him in a drunk and feral fury. Their weapons wavered as they attacked, so they weren't much of a threat, really. He sidestepped them, and then kicked sideways at the first one. Immediately, his foot made contact with his hypochondrium, and made a thwack sound. The man's body fell forcefully to the ground, and his friends stopped to look at him. He didn't get up, since his head had made contact with a rock, causing him to start bleeding, and get knocked out.

"Again, I'd rather you leave my presence." he said, once again as a warning. He wasn't gonna waste any energy on these chaps. He could easily take them with just one hand.

They irrationally attacked him again, although they couldn't entirely be blamed for their drunken actions. He didn't even move. All he had to do was just stand there, until they walked right into his raised fists. It was almost embarrassing, really. As they fell to the ground, Tiberius jumped onto the back of their heads, lightly standing on them. It would keep them ground into the dirt for now.

But it was nearly time for him to head back. Usually, he'd sleep in the country side, on the ground, but in the swamp of Dunric, he couldn't exactly do that. He mulled over his residence choices for the next minute, with a slight "Hmmmmmmmmm", still standing on the heads of the fallen men.

| Dunric, The Confederacy of Dun |

Mathis Rauzil stood amongst his closest friend, Lexia Uael, as the two stood in the shadows of where it all had really begun only a few months ago—at the chapel of Infinity. Although it nearly felt like a year as it had happened on the eve of the previous summer and here they were in late winter of the current cycle. When Marlowe had decided to travel northeast to seek a society that he believed was the key to getting stronger, Mathis had supplied him with the information he had on the society but overall the young man didn’t know as much as he would have liked to share.

In the absence of Marlowe, he had seen the swordsman named Kath get more obsessive in his approach as he became a Vann to seek out any whisper of the Order as after the battle with Gandilos the majority of the Order’s approach disappeared which frightened as well as confused Mathis as he couldn’t fathom why. With Otis Malr deceased and out of the way why would they not come at Dunric so viciously? or for that matter why didn’t they seek to end his and Lexia’s lives? They were traitors to them, and The Order was pretty clear how they handled treason. Were they so insignificant to not care? Did they reprioritize the relevance of Dunric or had their entire assault on Dunric had a different intention the whole time and he not know it even when he was within their employ?

A heavy sigh left him as he placed his hands down on the bench before him. “They’re still out there, doing… something.”

The despair in Mathis’ voice was clear as his female companion approached him, “Rauz—”

“They’ve gone quiet, Lexi, and I can’t grasp one single theory that makes any form of comprehensive sense.” The blue-haired man took a heavy breath after he spoke the sentence, reflecting on this uncomfortable feeling he had about the entirety of the situation.

“I’ve been sitting here, trying to think about what they could possibly thinking or doing—but one thing is for sure, Dunric hasn’t seen a white-cloak in over two months. Why did they send your father and myself after you if Dunric was so important last summer?”

Lexi frowned, “I don’t know.”

He nodded in reply, “That’s the thing, no matter how obsessive some of the city’s vann are… there’s no sense of them, like they never existed, like Dun wasn’t their big plan. What was the point of Dunric?”

Lexi shuffled her hands in her pockets, “We were told that it was the perfect place to reveal our intent, to repair the world—to instill order.”

“Which is the thing, it doesn’t make much sense… unless their purpose has been filled?”

“Impossible, The Order intends to eradicate all theology by any means necessary, you know that. It’s a cult of the blind, the vicious, and the apathetic.”

“I know. So why have they gone quiet? Where have they gone?”

There was a thick tension as a new voice cut through their silence, a voice that sent both of the former orderlings on edge. “That’s a very good question. Where have we gone?”

Both of the two’s expressions sank as the new voice replied to their own worries and they spun around toward the direction to not see a man in white but in a very blatant disguise. It was exceptionally rare for the order to send somebody to not announce themselves by flying their flags that mocked the godly color.

“The answer is that we never left.”

A knot rose in Mathis Rauzil’s throat as he crossed his arms. “Then why are we still alive?”

“That’s an interesting question.” The disguised orderling stated as he narrowed his eyes with a wide smirk. It was at the end of that where the orderling disappeared in the simple blink of an eye. Why would the order announce such information to them? Was it a lie to get them on edge, distrusting everybody in Dunric to be an orderling in disguise? What were they waiting for if they were watching him and his friends? The only thing Mathis could deduce was that they perhaps wanted him to see the end result before dying which unsettled the man even more. His eyes moved to Lexi’s as he spoke again.

“I don’t know what that was about, but we have to be on our guard and find out what they are up to.”

“But how do we find that out?”

“I’ll… think of something. The Order is too arrogant to not slip up and not have one of their men succumb to their personal taste for destruction and murder.”