[center] [img]https://i.imgur.com/C7nwoGY.png[/img] [b][color=ea590c]wordcount:[/color][/b] 1,403 (+3) [b][color=ea590c]Edward Portsmith: Level 2 [/color][/b][color=ea590c]/[/color]/////////////////// (1/20) (1 level up stored) [/center] Edward found himself standing alone at a window of the tower attempting to collect his thoughts when the ship came. The battle to seize his old command room had been hard, leaving many injured or dead in the initial chaos, and resulting in a force that could no longer be used for anything but protecting its own wounded. After clearing the chamber they’d pulled back to a previously cleared chamber, not wanting to be within the presence even of the shattered remains of the throne of whispers, and once they had done so the commander had more or less left them to it. Even if they did not say it, his failing left him unfit for command in their eyes. Hence his isolation. In some ways, he did welcome the resulting distance, loath as he would be to admit that. He needed time to think on what he had learned from Sectonia, who had given him a rather casual rundown of the situation before she had pushed forwards while he had insisted on securing the troops somewhere safe to set up camp. This explanation had included such gems of wisdom as ‘if someone comes calling themselves "Consul ” they're your enemy’ with little other context, but it had at least hit the key points of why things were the way they were. Assuming what the queen had told him was true, and given both his final memories and the inability of a still ‘Galeeming’ soldier he had questioned to grasp the information (something that had further convinced the troops of his inability to lead unfortunately), then the ramifications of it where even grander than the one that had shook his home-world. Said prior revelation had been that there many, many more worlds like it, floating within a cosmic void known as the astral sea. This latest meanwhile contextualized that entire sea as but one of endless worlds that were in no way like one another, and like the revelation of the sea, that knowledge had come off the back of the victory of a self proclaimed god over his reality. Over all reality. One which had once tossed him far from home and afflicted his mind with false delusions to serve its ends (again!) and this time, he had landed without nary a familiar face in sight. Or, rather, supposedly, it had created the he that was him as merely the latest copy of the he that had been, if he’d understood that half explained revelation correctly. [color=ea590c]”Or maybe my mind still is lost to the corruption and this is all some mad illusion”[/color] he mused quietly, sighing that [color=ea590c]”It would make things much simpler”[/color] And yet what could he do but accept what he’d been told? Verify it, of course. He would need to question other members of these ‘Seekers’ to see if their stories lined up and, naturally, to seek out actual evidence that what had been explained was the case rather than simply taking them by their world alone. Not to mention getting the actual details in full rather than slapdashidly delivered in between the thunderous bark of him executing the corrupted core. Still, to do that, he’d have to go along with them, and that meant doing what he could to make sure they got through this battle. Unfortunately, said battle looked to be taking to the skies if the barges sighted approaching where any indication, and unfortunately the only way he would be joining them in the air would be by being carried by angels, a transport method which made him an active detriment to air combat. Unknowingly, he did actually have a solution to this. Unfortunately a certain queen had only requested he gather spirits rather than taking the time to explain how to use them in the name of expedience (and in her defense they were in a war-zone), correctly assessing that knowledge rather than power was what would get him onboard. As a result the cost of his failings in the battle were currently burning a hole in a belt pouch alongside some of their fallen foes, rather than being used to let him take flight. Still, he had his means, and so as Palutena unleashed her high tier magic (he was no believer in miracles these days) he prepared to add his own, lesser, magical might/light to the battle. Reaching down to his waist the last dreadnought clicked a latch on a chain binding a book that was eternally smoldering, releasing it from its binding. Rather than fall, the [url=https://i.imgur.com/ZKkxQLd.png]Tome of Pyromancy[/url] floated up as it flicked itself open, revealing on its heated pages detailing spells of fire and flame. He guided it before him, flicking past instructions on how to train pyromancers or construct ritual pyres, and instead came to the spell he had been using to empower the tower’s defenders, which he now turned to the angel’s aid to defend what they had now seized from it. As the book floated before him he raised a hand and pressed the palm to the relevant page, mimicking the imprint on the cover, and wincing ever so slightly as it seared his flesh. Heat ran through veins, filling him and causing his eyes to glow like embers as power radiated from him, attempting to overwhelm him. But they’d done this dance several times before. [color=ea590c]”I am no deluded acolyte of you Yaka. Fire is not sacred, it is simply energy. A tool to enact either creation or destruction”[/color] spoke with ritualistic cadence, denouncing the author of the tome, a self proclaimed god of fire, even as he made use of their work. He continued the ritual, casting down Yaka’s ideology and methodology and replacing it with his own as he did so [color=ea590c]”and today, destruction is what we will bring. Remember the act of your creation, weapons of my warriors, and bring the heat of that crucible to life once more! With every strike you will burn away all that blights the land, so that a new age of peace and prosperity may rise from the ashes!”[/color] No one ever said it was a very nice ideology. The heat of the tome, having failed to consume him from the inside as he bent them to his will, now instead burst out of him in a faint but wide reaching pulse of magic. All across the island, each and every warrior, be they seeker or angel, felt a touch of magic like an ember of potential offer it to them. If they accepted it, they would find their blades and arrow heads begin to glow red hot, as if they had only just been plucked from the forge. Despite this, the magic in their weapons would not burn them, merely warmed by their glow. The same could not be said of their foes, who would be seared by the enchanted armaments and quite possibly ignited by the strikes and shots they received. The effects of this could be seen at once, as one of a group of angels who had once served alongside Edward before he fell to corruption accepted his boon without question, and then unleashed a volley of arrows at one of the kinships, setting it ablaze. Back in the citadel, the tome snapped shut as Edward gripped it from the underside. His other hand withdrew just in time to avoid being caught between the covers, then held said cover shut as he re-secured the Tome back at his waist. [color=ea590c]”Always temperamental that one”[/color] he said to alleviate the concerns of one of the feathers who’d come to check what he was shouting about, dusting off lingering ashes from himself before focusing back on the battle, hands gripping the windowsill as he did so. The ships were much too far away for him to attempt to shoot at them with his magelock rifle with any degree of accuracy or safety, so instead he expended the remaining five charges (the sixth was passively maintaining the searing blade enchantment) of his mana fuel cells Designating Targets. Whenever he did, arrows flew true, armor broke to reveal corrupt flesh, and ships burned. After that, rather than stare uselessly at the battle, he checked on the status on the status of the wounded, and then descended the tower to report their location to wherever the main triage center for the battle had been set up.