Legend of Ransera

Three figures came into view and soon they drew close enough for the torches they bore to reveal identifying features. It was difficult to miss Luca Pergoleas Candida, whose Jackal-like lycan form was of a starkly different shape to the more distinctly humanoid figures at her side. Her yellow eyes seemed to glow, framed against the shiny, black fur of her face. Another slight figure of similar height to Candida would reveal himself to be none other than Ixiondus Lysander, the brash Coastal Neptori who had come, alongside Candida, with the Tertian Studio. The Tertian two were flanking a third: a tall, pale, slender elf with distinctive hair and, for the moment, a scowl. None of the trio looked particularly pleased as they approached Castra Confinium, in fact and, at a gesture from Ilytheon Val’Aværyan Perseus, their apparent leader, the party paused a few paces from the entryway.

Arvælyn arched a brow to Octavian, but actually took him up on his notion and drew his veil up over his face, pulling a hood to cover the small horns that protruded from his golden locks. He then moved to oblige Finn's order, and stood by just off his shoulder to regard the approaching visitors from the opposing camp.

Ixiondus let out a loud whistle that reverberated through the massive cavern and Perseus rapped his staff against the ground, before calling out:

"It has come to our attention that you are receiving guests! Castra Messor wishes to pay our respects!"

Tiseus looked to Octavian and then Aneurin. Perseus' betrayal was a sore spot to several of them, and Tiseus had taken it particularly hard. For most of their time at the Academia, the Aværyan Duke had been aloof to his social lessers, but shortly prior to their embarking upon this very trial, he'd softened and Octavian had been able to parley his own status into humbling Perseus. He'd been almost friendly when they started and for the entire time they toiled through the trek to get here, but something had changed and his priorities had shifted. His allegiance turned to the Luxian princes, and become colder than he'd ever been to those he'd spent years alongside in Studium Ilara.

For all the power Arvælyn wielded with his cardinal Rune of Mesmer, he was as handicapped as all the other mages in the present environs. Jarring though it was, he could not access the Symphonies of those who stood below. Seeing them, he did, however, recall that they'd been told some of the members of Castra Messor had regained some degree of arcane power. If that was true, it was entirely possible that a Mesmer in their midst was scanning them, which was unnerving to say the least. Would their warded garments even function in a place like this? There'd been no way to tell with none of them able to access their own magicks, but now there were others who purportedly bypassed the impediment. There could be magic being employed at this very moment, and they had naught but their mundane skills to defend themselves. This must have been what the Zaichaeri felt like.

"We are touched to have warranted the concern of such lofty figures as those you cite, Sentinel." Perseus called forth in a chesty baritone that carried it far beyond the distance that separated the two parties. There was movement in the shadows beyond the light cast by the torches being carried or those planted in the foreground of the castra, but it did not seem to concern Perseus or the two flanking him.

"It is, however, misplaced. We are here executing the task we were sent to fulfill. It is, I grant, taking longer than anyone anticipated, but this is due to the value of what we have found and the care required when unearthing such precious artefacts as those we have found within the ancient structures populating this place. I assure you, Sentinel, that all of this will be well worth the many Sacrifices made along the way... time being the least of those." His pale eyes rose to meet Octavian's. If any of the Messor delegation took note of Arry or Raithen and their telltale wings, they displayed no outward sign of acknowledgement.

"I hope Your Highness has not troubled these stalwart Sentinels with paranoid musings. You have all been told that you will be drawn into the fold when the time is right. Our work is delicate... our quarry invaluable." He paused, for a beat, before looking to Finn as a subtle sensation of calmness and trust in Perseus seemed to burgeon in each of the sentinels and the members of the opposing camp.

"We have been, perhaps, over-cautious in acknowledgement of our important work. If your orders are to return with missing students, then take this lot and return to the Umbrium. It will grieve us to see them go, but if it allows us to persist in our efforts unmolested, so be it. Go forth and we will trouble you no more. We will return when the time is meet with such treasures as this world has not known in epochs. Ixiondus? Remain here and see that our comrades and their guests make it back to the labyrinth's entrance and leave undisturbed."

The young Neptori executed a sharp salute to Perseus and bowed before padding a few steps closer to Castra Confinium.

"I ask your leave to enter." He said through a snarl.

The students, certainly, and those members of the rescue party who'd been particularly detailed in their review of the briefing dossier would know that Ixiondus was a master of Kinetics and had taken the Rune of Traversion as well, though none present had seen him exploit either amidst the dampening effects of these caverns. Perseus, however, had been observed using his Kinetics by Tiseus, who had reported back to his castra. With he and his half-brother Albion both master Mesmers as well, it was possible their influence had contributed to the others who'd shifted allegiances to join them. This had not been lost of the clever captains of Castra Confinium. The question of why some could pierce through wards that handicapped even Grandmasters and some could not, remained one of the great mysteries of the aptly named Zonam Mysteriam.

With so much ambiguity and uncertainty, Arvælyn elected to let Finn take the forefront and to exploit the powers of his Mark to do some reconnaisance, Unmasking the figures before him even as he Masked himself from their attention. Whilst Finn wielded his power to command, Arvælyn would use his to assess, turning his fiery eyes to cast some light, albeit figurative, on something that caught his interest in the shadows.

Ixiondus did, indeed, let his snarl relax to a purse of the lips at Finn's urging, and he began to step forward. If he had fear of Aneurin's invention, either his natural brazenness or Perseus' preternatural influence muted it to the point where he entered on steady legs. As Finn's Majesty began to manifest, Ixondus' footing did falter and he halted, wide-eyed at the sight of the Radiant Mark at his brow.

Candida, too, went slack-jawed at the sight and her luminescent yellow eyes were saucer wide as they regarded him. Perseus' expression was altogether different and, as soon as the glow began to burgeon, his eyes tore away from the Empyreal Lord and looked to the shadows at his side from whence a loud rattling hiss resounded. Turning back toward the castra, Perseus' expression was one of horrified rage.
To his rear a portal opened, as he shrieked at Finn in a language he had never heard:

"ܥܒܕܐ ܕܐܝܢܐ! ܝܕܥܢܢ ܕܗܘ ܐܬܐ! ܠܐ ܬܚܬܝ ܠܐ ܬܟܠܝ ܚܠܓܪܝܡܐ!"

When a portal pierced the air behind Perseus, it could not have been the stupefied Ixiondus who'd conjured it.

"Ixiondus, to me!" He commanded, surging his arcane power to amplify the order in his Symphony, but his Mesmer was no match for Majesty's awe. He grabbed Candida by the arm and pulled her into the portal and, at the last second another figure emerged from the shadows- A flash of black, larger than a human and with more limbs, but no sooner did it quit the shadow and the portal snapped shut behind it, leaving the cowed Ixiondus as the sole member of Castra Messor left in their midst... at least so far as they could presently determine.

Arvælyn doffed his veil and dropped his Masking, eyes determined.

"Perseus is altered..." He looked to Ixiondus, "This one is not. He has been manipulated by the others. Whatever that creature was that fled through the portal was the one that made it, and it felt as though it was somehow... kin to Perseus."