A while back—a couple of days after the Hy’Kyyrian attack.

  On one of the synthetic beaches of the Port City of Felli…

  A man reclined on a lounge chair, his sleek, mirror-black helmet catching the glint of an unseen sun. He watched three of his presumed friends frolicking in the water ahead of him, enjoying the warmth and the incredible spectacle of the curved sea warping the horizon into a vast tapestry of ocean. He sighed internally, relieved that at the very least they could enjoy their time in the sunshine.

  Yet, he couldn’t share in their relaxation. His thoughts were heavy with the dread of things to come, lingering echoes of his choices, and their meeting with Poltheris Vaund—culminating in the uncanny encounter with one Cythrallis Empusae.

  A woman with platinum-blonde hair in twin tails, bound with spiraling black ribbons, appeared over him. Dreamy-dead green eyes floated over a playful smile. She shook the ice in a pair of colorful drinks she was carrying.

  “Are you still pouting?” She asked in a sweet, sleepy tone. “Want one?” She offered a drink.

  He sat up, letting out an exhausted sigh, as he clicked a button that opened a small opening around the chin of the mask.

  “Yeah, thanks—” he said, taking a drink. “Also, I’m not pouting. I'm pondering.”

  Ahead of the two, a man with long light-brown hair tied into a single long braided ponytail cannonballed into the water, causing the two that were playing with him to scream in glee as a massive wave of water dragged them away.

  The twin-tailed woman—wearing a rather revealing black one-piece—smiled as she watched the trio laugh and shout.

  “I’m glad we’re getting a chance to relax. All this running around has been terrible for my skin.” she said, looking down at her seemingly pristine skin.

  The mirror-faced man just kinda looked at her for a second before agreeing. “Right… we did need the rest. Especially him…” his eyes fell on a crimson-eyed man that was getting blasted with water by a black-haired woman.

  She took a slow sip of her drink, watching in silence. “What about you?” she asked, her voice smooth, almost ghostly. “Still worried we won’t find him?”

  He didn’t really feel like answering as he took a sip of the colorful drink.“Blegh—!” He spat out the drink.“What the hell? Is this pure fucking alcohol?!”

  She giggled, her laugh a whisper against the waves. “Nah. I mixed some other stuff in.”

  “Yuck. Are all the Arcenais like you!?” He grabbed a glass bottle of water, hastily washing down the foul taste.

  “Some are worse.” She mused, drinking hers like regular old water. She sat next to him, pressing her body into his, disregarding personal space completely, her misty green eyes resting on him—glassy, predatory, lizard-like. “So,” she murmured, “what’s bothering you?”

  A pulse of Kyyr rippled from the crimson-eyed man as a massive wave detonated outward, drenching both the mirror-faced man and the green-eyed woman, her seductive poise dripping off her as the mirror-faced man sat up annoyed.

  “I SAID NO KYYR!” The mirror-man shouted at the group in the water like some grumpy old man.

  “My bad!” the crimson-eyed man called back.

  The mirror-faced man sighed as he sat back down, pointedly ignoring the green-eyed woman—now frozen in place like a soaked cat. “I’ve been thinking about the Hy’Kyyrian we met back at Vaund’s. I did a little digging and that bastard’s one of Alvlad’s Swords.”

  Her glassy pupils dilated slightly as her gaze drifted toward the distant, supremely gaudy palace of the Diodecian prince.

  “Cythrallis Empusae,” he continued. “The infamous Hy’Kyyrian Vampyr. One of the rumored hosts of the Many-Faced Demon.” he paused, as he took a long breath. “Why in all the whys is someone like that out here—and meeting with Poltheris Vaund of all people?”

  The twin-tailed woman brushed her wet hair aside as she looked down at her sea-tainted drink in disappointment. “Hmmm. Aren’t they both rumored hosts? Wouldn't it be like a team meet up?” she said, acting like it was a cute little get-together.

  The mirror-faced man shook his head. “I didn’t get the chance to test the Hy’Kyyrian, but Vaund is no host—I made sure to check. He’s just a pervert who can shapeshift, that’s all.”

  “Ehh…can he really do that? Are the rumors real—you know… what he does to young women?” She asked with a hint of disgust.

  He nodded, then glanced back toward the three others still playing in the water. “Don’t let them hear about this,” he said quietly. “Right now, we can’t afford to punish every sicko we encounter along the way.”

  She closed her eyes, thinking. “Yeah.” she said, disappointed. “Why do you think he was talking with one of Alvlad’s Swords? Security duty… or maybe he messed with the wrong girl?”

  The mirror-faced man stared out into the curved sea, uncertain. “That’s what’s bothering me. Why? Cythrallis is infamously fickle—treacherous. His only true loyalty to the Astralar Family. For all we know, Vaund could be working for Alvlad.”

  “So you don’t think he’s hired Cythrallis for personal use?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “I highly doubt it. The profile of the victims he targets is built around avoiding trouble. He targets lonely young women with little to no support, and he ensures that their disappearances aren’t documented. The only proof we have is that sometimes their remains are found floating at sea, with their wombs ripped from the inside out.”

  He paused for a second, looking out into the distant ocean.

  “Because, as you’ve probably heard… Vaund is rumored to have a fetish for hybridization. ”

  The twin-tailed woman shuddered as she stared out into those eerie waters. “Torn by your own child…” she muttered, putting a hand on her stomach. “That’s a horrible way to go.”

  The mirror-faced man grabbed his crystalcomm. “His victims stretch the entire Crepusculata…” He frowned. “ To have that much power, only to waste it on some deranged obsession.” He opened a document on his device. “I’ve been creating a report on his disgusting inclinations. I know we don't have the time to stop him ourselves—but I can’t let him keep getting away with this sick shit. So I’ve been sending everything I’ve learned to Talas and Simon. Hopefully, they’ll teach that octopus he can’t do whatever he wants.”

  The twin-tailed woman was now staring at him with her glassy eyes.

  The mirror-faced man pulled back away a little. “What?”

  “Nothing.” she said with a playful smile, before accidentally taking a swig of her tainted drink. “Yuck…” she grimaced.

  The mirror-faced man squirmed as he went for a drink of his water.

  The twin-tailed woman turned back to look at the 3 idiots blasting each other with water and Kyyr. She took a final nasty swig of her drink before standing up.“I’m joining them in the water. What about you?”

  The mirror-faced rested his back on the lounge chair. “No thanks. I’m gonna enjoy being able to stretch my back all I can before we have to get back into that cramped little Seaglider.”

  “Don’t ponder too hard.” She said with a smirk, as she made her way into the warm crystalline waters as a wave of water crashed into her.

  “HA HA HA!” the brown-haired man laughed, pointing at the drenched woman.

  The mirror-faced man sighed, his gaze drifting toward the gaudy structure in the distance.

  Back on Himadri—now months after that peculiar conversation—we find Rusk shivering in a light training uniform clearly not designed for this type of weather. He shuddered as he took in the dark, cavernous expanse around him, an icy hollow carved by Bayren.

  “L-L-Lord B-Bayren,” Rusk stammered, teeth chattering, “w-who’s going to train me way out here?”

  “Yours truly,” Bayren said flatly. His dark silhouette remained still while multi-limbed mechanoids dropped a massive metal structure into the pit. White mechanoid lights cut through the hollow as the impact sent icy dust exploding behind him.

  “WHAT? Y-you?” Rusk shouted, shocked. “But I’m only an H-grade ranger!”

  Behind Bayren, the mechanoids unfurled the mechanical structure, their spidery tendrils weaving metal into something almost homely.

  Bayren cracked his neck, skin fracturing. “And?” he asked, undoing his dark, fiery gown—the edge of it blurring that strange line between clothing and skin.

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  That was clothes?

  A mechanoid crawled next to Bayren and handed him a set of training clothes identical to Rusk’s.

  “Wouldn’t training me be kind of a waste?” Rusk asked as the structure behind Bayren continued to grow, thick tubes descending from above while mechanoids drilled and fastened every loose wire into the ice.

  Black constructs spread from the base of Bayren’s feet, consuming the hollow’s ground, releasing a warm wave of air as ?Bayren was covered in weaves of darkness.Rusk watched, confused, as the darkness peeled away—revealing a handsome young man who looked slightly younger than Rusk himself. Black hair streaked with faintly glowing amber strands framed amber-gold eyes with a naturally devious disposition.

  The now-human Bayren wore a training uniform and a bored expression on his face.

  “How is training my daughter’s personal guard a waste?” Bayren asked. “Goodwill alone is not enough to protect.” He shook his head before he attempted to smile, but his human expressions were overly exaggerated. “There’s also a peculiar theory I’d love to test on you.” His smile vanished, leaving behind a muted blankness, and in his human eyes, a trace of arrogance lingered… along with subtle malice.

  Why is he looking at me like that?

  “W-what kind of theory?” Rusk asked, his instincts panicking at the subtle mania in Bayren’s eyes.

  Bayren’s expression remained eerily blank. “A painful one.”

  Oh fuck.

  Rusk swallowed hard as he stared into Bayren’s faintly glowing eyes—their vast nothingness a failing charade of lingering humanity that cracked as his expression grew wild, unable to grasp at his faux humanity.

  Bayren continued, “Though I must first share some intriguing information I uncovered while digging through your background. A truth—hidden away from you by the Grayscale of the ORPA.” He pointed at confused Rusk, his visage suddenly growing muted.“Ranger Rusk, what Kyyr Archetypes does the ORPA test for?”

  “Ehh?!” Rusk blurted. “U-umm… uhh—there’s Matrix, Draconic, Divine, and… umm—Living!” He frowned, thinking hard. “I think they also test for Calamity Kyyr too, but since I’m not related to any of the 15 Houses, I didn’t have to go through that examination.”

  Bayren nodded along. “Correct. And how many Kyyr Archetypes exist overall?”

  Rusk hesitated. “I… think maybe 10? I’m not sure.”

  Bayren stopped nodding. “There’s 13 known Kyyr Archetypes, with a rumored 14th, the Kyyr affinity exam you took only publicly graded based on acceptable Kyyr Archetypes. But behind the scenes you were also tested for; Creationist, Noetic, Aemonic, Abyssal, Primordial, Cursed, and Thaumaturgic Kyyr.” His gaze fixed on Rusk. “Using my status, I accessed the sealed results.”

  Rusk stiffened.

  “In your case, you displayed an affinity for Thaumaturgic Kyyr.”

  “Thaumaturgic Kyyr?” Rusk echoed. “I’ve never heard of that type of Kyyr before?”

  “It is a rare type, one that leaks from the Aesernis Natra—the frontier reality. An unknown space guarded by the infamous Hanacreditam—a race of oddly human entities of unknown origin that guard the Universal Translate that leads into the Aesernis Natra, the only reality the SED hasn’t breached. And you, Rusk, have shared ancestry with the ever elusive Hanacreditam.”

  Rusk blinked. “Wait—what? I do?” His voice cracked. “But my family has never left Enkel-3.”

  Bayren formed a black chair from his constructs and sat, crossing his legs. “Perhaps not—but at some point in your ancestry, a Servinae on your father’s side copulated with a Hanacreditam, and through genetic engineering managed to give birth to a couple of viable children. Which, believe it or not, is actually quite common; as a matter of fact, most of the population in the lower Planuras has some sprinkle of a foreign entity in their lineage thanks to Servinae ancestry.”

  “Huh…” Rusk muttered. “Okay. So what does that mean?”

  Bayren’s expression suddenly twisted into something overly expressive. “To the average human, nothing much. Your DNA is incredibly diluted—and if anything, it’s probably the reason you haven't manifested a Kyyr ability.”

  Rusk forced a painful smile, staring at the deranged expression on Bayren’s face. Is this the infamous Calamity Entity cruelty? Guess my dumbass was getting too comfortable around Lord Bayren.

  Bayren’s face snapped back to deadpan. “But there is hope.”

  Rusk blinked, looking back at him. “There is?”

  “You see,” Bayren began, “there’s a strange phenomenon that surrounds my Kyyr Abilities—Regression and Recreation. At face value they are incredibly powerful, seemingly omnipotent, but like every ability they have limits, costs, quirks. This may come as a bit of a surprise but my Kyyr ability used to be weak. In my early years, when I was nothing more than an engineer, it was a convenience at best—a way to mend my own mistakes.” He exhaled, his golden eyes reminiscing. “During the age of the ENN.KORR, Kyyr Efficiency wasn’t understood. Kyyr was treated as an intangible energy that only a select few could interact with. It was an era of darkness enveloped by the uncaring void of space where gravity and entropy stripped humanity of connection, an age torn by Temporal Dissonance. Of course that all changed with the discovery of the Ceaseless Dragon…” His expression for a brief second became normal. Human, his eyes lost in the gallows of some faraway remembrance of terror and excitement. His expression grew gentle before returning to the alien coldness of Calamity.

  “With the incursion of the True Dragons—guided by Sagracror, the First Dragon, the Symbol of Power—the age of Dragons began. And with the revolutionary technology of the first Ailki—Mercier, the Translate super-construct was born.” His bored expression widened as he stared up into the icy cavern’s ceiling. His words echoed faintly as he wallowed in memory.

  “Kyyr was no longer constrained. It spread to every corner of the universe. And with it came the advent of Higher-Ilks of Kyyr.” He looked back down at Rusk. “As you know, Kyyr is everywhere now—a vast storm of pure potential energy that can be willed into a million permutations through the Soul. This infinitum of potential is presented to those bearing Unique Kyyr Abilities through Kyyr Equations—sequences of complex data that can only be processed by the user. The logic and origin of these equations is one of the great mysteries the SED refuses to disclose, though the prevailing theory suggests they are tied to whatever awaits us after death.” He pointed at himself, an incredibly wide smile spreading abruptly from his face. “So, Rusk… my original Kyyr ability allowed me to fix things. Nothing more. I had to witness the object breaking and the pieces had to be near me and there was a strict time limit—after which nothing could be done.” His eye flared with Kyyr as he stared into Rusk’s eyes.

  “But—for some reason, I was blessed—or, in my opinion, cursed—by the leering gaze of Khaum the goddess of Body and Mind.” His expression mellowed into a frown.

  “I was condemned to feed on my fellow man. Driven by an insatiable urge to reproduce, to accelerate life and death. My mind and body were rewired—no… emboldened—to pursue equilibrium. To disregard my will for the single inescapable yearning for Calamity’s End. But… I was unlike my brethren. At my core, my Kyyr is the antithesis of Khaum’s will.” He raised a hand, twisting his hand as calamity constructs recreated people, animals and things all around Rusk in silent forming and reforming loops.

  “Khaum is Entropy incarnate. Like the other Calamity Lords, I was warped by her grace.” His fingers curled as the recreations all around reformed into images of Bayren through the ages. “But I believe my Kyyr exists to repair the things I have seen. With my bond to entropy I learned to turn back time. To save. To fix. To pull reality away from equilibrium and into living chaos.” He stood from his seat.

  “I am unnatural. I can defy absolutes.” His eyes flashed amber gold, their piercing gaze staring deep into Rusk.

  “And I can defy your nature, Rusk. Through innumerable deaths, I can grant you a unique Kyyr ability. I can make use of the fleeting embers of Thaumaturgic Kyyr to make you shine bright enough to guarantee the safety of my daughters.” He stared into the uncertain eyes of Rusk.

  “ But it will be unimaginably painful, and you will come face to face with the warmth—and terror—of whatever lies beyond the grave.” Bayren offered Rusk a hand. “So Rusk Holt, are you willing to die in pursuit of power? Are you willing to die… in pursuit of my daughter's happiness?”

  Rusk stood there, overwhelmed, sweat trickling down his face as he remembered the horrid sting of death. The shrill cold grasp of a voidless black nothingness that pierced into him alive with some foreign consciousness that had brushed against his very soul. An ephemeral blight of writhing thought that spread across his every nerve like the deep roots of a parasitic forest that dared to devour the embers of life. His breathing heaved as he began to shake at the memory, at the daring escape from that pressure, at the bewildering reawakening to life he’d experienced.

  But there was something else.

  In that ever-pressing black of death, he felt nostalgia. A nascent proclivity, a simple memory of a warm day sitting on a mossy porch, his bare feet dangling down as he watched a distant sunset with a smiling man that was recounting stories of far off adventurers. A comfort in the void.

  His heart wrenched as he relived that moment.

  A memory of a father.

  He looked at Bayren, his expression awkward from years as a monster. He thought of Mera and Lamia. Of his own weakness in death. Of the ever-pressing black water in the wake of the leviathan. The darkness. Kaela’s haunted eyes—lost in the Hy’Kyyrian’s blades. Mera’s noxious connection to her unknowing mother. Galene’s confusion and estranged connection to her daughters. And beneath it all the subtle worry of an inhuman father that defied his very nature to love and care.

  Sweet Symbols… Rusk screamed into his hands. “UGH! How much will it hurt?”

  Bayren smiled—unnervingly wide. “With the technique I had in mind, quite a bit. It’s a personal torture method of mine called Orbis Thanatos.” He tilted his head. “Though I hope to minimize the pain by killing you instantly.”

  Rusk let out a long sigh. “Ha… that’s comforting?” He took a deep breath. “I mean, I’ve always hoped for a unique Kyyr ability.” He lowered his head in defeat. “…so why not?”

  Bayren’s expression dulled again. “Then let us begin.” His eyes flashed.

  Recreation.

  Rusk didn’t have the time to process as a black construct of himself erupted outward from within—flesh tearing, blood detonating—spraying across Bayren’s face.

  “Hm… this uniform feels rather pointless in hindsight…” Bayren muttered, glancing down at his bloodstained body. He shrugged.

  Regression.

  And Rusk was back again. “Huh?”

  Recreation.

  And he was gone.

  Regression…

  And so the carousel of life and death began to turn—Rusk’s soul ebbing back and forth between worlds, caught in a grinding cycle of painful hope.

  L. Osric