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"Hmpf," Erkembalt snorted, snatching the bottle from his friend and pouring another cup for himself. "You don’t know what’s in the vaults. No one does. Once something is lowered into the vault, all records of it are destroyed. For all we know, it’s the same five ideas, locked away every time someone discovers them and we all panic. "

"I might have agreed with you once," Aspakos said.

"But things haven’t been the same for more than fifteen years now.

The first tumblers all fell together, just as the records said, and the second tumblers are moving much faster than the first. We may only have a few years before the first vault opens. "

"But if the vaults aren’t open," Erkembalt asked, shifting uncomfortably on his chair. "Then what is it that’s come over you? You were never so dark before." Calling the feathered man ’dark’ felt like an understatement but looking at the lurid red energy that clung to the man’s talons like a bloodstain that could never be washed away, Erkembalt was hesitant to push too directly on the matter.

As young sorcerers, he and Aspakos had constantly challenged each other.

Whether it was a race to be the first to translate an obscure and ancient text or the first to apply an ancient art, the competitive bond they’d formed in their youth had turned them into two of the greatest sorcerers of their generation.

If not for a chance encounter with the woman who stole his heart, Erkembalt might still have been standing alongside his old friend.

.. and might been coated in just as much darkness and slaughter.

"Philosar has withdrawn his order of protection," Aspakos said. His talons scittered across the surface of the table, leaving shallow grooves as he formed fists, glowering at the table as though a dirty rat had come to perch between himself and his friend, one that he was forbidden from striking at for fear of what it’s bite could do to him.

"In his decree, he said that there may come a time when humans reach the Forsaken Lands, and that the Sorcerers of Sundered Earth must prove we can defend our vaults from anyone who would pillage them, or watch as he destroys them himself."

"Scheming rat," Erkembalt spat, momentarily ashamed to belong to the same clan as the Gnawing Death. "His predecessor worked with us, why can’t he just keep to the old accord? Do you really think it’s because of the humans?"

According to some of the most ancient records, dating back to the founding of the Sorcerers of Sundered Earth, the Sovereign of Stars had forged an accord with the Gnawing Death to allow their order to preserve knowledge that the Gnawing Death felt was too dangerous to be allowed in the world.

The terms governing the use and preservation of that knowledge were very, very strict, and many things were lowered into the order’s vaults, never to be seen again.

Such knowledge was considered ’realized.

’ The practice and application of that knowledge could threaten to upend the current order of the world and anyone who possessed it would gain a tremendous advantage over anyone who didn’t.

The propagation of that knowledge could have disastrous consequences if it wasn’t managed well, but some things, once they were unleashed upon the world, could never be hidden away again, and so they were kept in secret, unavailable to even the sorcerers who guarded them.

Other knowledge, however, was only dangerous because it was ’unrealized.

’ Progressing through experimental stages posed so great of a threat and use of the incomplete ideas could harm so many that the Sorcerers of Sundered Earth worked hard to ’realize’ that knowledge.

If they could remove the dangers, then knowledge could be shared, and if they couldn’t, then it would be relegated to the vaults as well.

Few people outside of the Sorcerers of Sundered Earth understood the knowledge they guarded or why it had to be kept away from the world.

That was no accident. If the world believed they held secrets to great power, they would never know peace.

Instead, to the rest of the world, they were an order of simple archivists, keeping old records purely because they were old.

But if the world still believed that convenient fiction, no one would ever venture into the forbidden lands to attack the reclusive sorcerers.

"I don’t know if it’s the humans or something else," Aspakos admitted.

"The vampires are moving strangely. The Jaws of Death destroyed the Glimmerwing clan even though they never sought to expand their territory beyond the Endless Marshm and the Fangs of Death hunted the daughter of the last High Lord to come from that clan until she escaped into the Briar. "

"The Gnawing Death is rumored to spend his days cloaked in shadows, gathering every scrap of information he can about the humans and the powers that drive them," the feathered sorcerer continued.

"When he appears in Eldritch Lands, it’s rarely been to act against the Eldritch lords, but instead to present warnings, propping up the border nations with his whispers before he vanishes back into the shadows. "

"And now Lady Nyrielle is on the march to war," Erkembalt said, pouring another drink for each of them. "So you’ve picked her to defend yourself against the Gnawing Death? Do you think she’ll defy one of her peers to protect you?"

"Perhaps she’ll protect us from Philosar, and perhaps she won’t," Aspakos said.

"But you wanted to know what happened to me," he said, gesturing vaguely to the area around himself where his aura would be visible to people trained the way Erkembalt had been.

"This is the result of practicing the founder’s art, piercing the veil and searching for secrets hidden in the stars. "

"That, that’s forbidden!" Erkembalt exclaimed, so startled by the revelation that he spilled the contents of his cup across the table. "Aspakos, the founder’s art isn’t meant for sorcerers. It isn’t supposed to be practiced by people like you and I. Why would you do such a thing?"

"Because we need to find a way forward," Aspakos said with a heavy sigh.

"Because the founders words have grown more and more cryptic over time. It’s been a thousand years," he said, shaking his head in helplessness.

"Those few who can read the ancient tongue still argue about his intentions. Words have changed, meanings have shifted and what he thought was too obvious to write down at the time... we’ve forgotten entirely. "

"You’ve done the work," Aspakos added, clicking his beak in irritation.

"We translate translations, hoping to find new insight to the ancient guide, but without the ability to understand his intentions, we can only attempt to follow the path that led him to his answers in the first place, to see what is hidden in the stars that cannot be understood from all the ancient texts. "

"You’ve done the work," Erkembalt countered. "I learned long ago that anything we believe about those texts has just as much chance of being wrong as it has of being inspired truth. I put my faith in my own hands these days, and they’ve served me well."

"It’s good that you have, my friend," Aspakos said. "I know you don’t care for the founder’s words, and you care for my insights even less.

But the facts remain. The vaults are opening, and the living will marry the dead.

For both to occur together tells me that I should stand as close to the Harbinger of Death and the Mother of Trees as I can. "

"Whatever is coming," the sorcerer said.

"Those two will find their way to the center of it, of this, I’m certain.

And when that time comes, it would be good to have as many friends as possible.

Lady Nyrielle desires your help, my friend," Aspakos said, draining the last of the rough liquor in his cup and looking into Erkembalt’s eyes. "I think she’s wise to ask for it."

"That’s why you’re here then," Erkembalt said with a heavy sigh. "With you by her side, I can’t imagine why she’d need me. Anything I can do, I’m sure you’re even better at."

"That might have been true once," Aspakos said, standing up and holding out his hands in a gesture of helplessness.

"But everything has a price that must be paid. The founder’s art has revealed much to me, but the more it reveals, the more it binds me.

These hands," he said. "They can no longer hold a tool.

I can see more than I ever could before, but I can do so very little about it. "

"That’s why I came to you, old friend," he said, placing a hand on the artificer’s shoulder. "For all of our knowledge, we are less useful to Lady Nyrielle than we appear. But you haven’t been stained by our fight to adapt to the world. Your hands have raised children and forged brilliant blades."

"So you see, Erkembalt, in the end, it isn’t us that Lady Nyrielle needs, but you."