The two titans’ struggle continued on for what felt like at once seconds and hours. Before long, the wheel on Talos’ back had come to revolve so wildly as to appear as a static circle of light, stirring up an immense maelstrom within the astral gulf. Similarly, Rahu had somehow grown a hundred times over, as had its flames, giving the impression of a moving mountain range, despite the absence of any landmarks to compare its size against. Simply seeing it was enough. Howling in the midst of a clash against Talos’ axe, Rahu raised its elytra, the enormous wing-covers emblazoned proudly with strange green sigils that were distinctly not Vedesian. It then unfurled its wings, which were also shrouded in green fire. Their thunderous flapping set a vast swarm of green missiles against Talos, whilst an entire army of smaller insect-taurs emerged from holes that had been concealed until now, lining the thorax under the wings.

  However, Talos didn’t dodge. The machine simply stopped, and so did its wheel. In fact, everything stopped. Dyed in gold and silver, the entire region of the astral gulf that Krahe could perceive simply halted. Only Rahu didn’t halt completely, continuing to move as if stuck in molasses. A sense of creeping cold washed over her and sunk into her bones.

  BE INVOKED

  ABSOLUTE THEURGY

  FROM THE LOST WORLD

  THE WINDS OF LEMURIA

  Talos turned its head, even as its wheel resumed turning, and a strange and gentle voice thundered inside Krahe’s head.

  “You do not belong in this place, inheritor of Ibn Ghazi Barzai. We sought to end this quickly, knowing that an unfortunate traveler using one of the guidestone fragments may get caught up in our battle, and still, we were not fast enough. We can only consider ourselves lucky that the one caught was one with as sturdy an astral body as yours. Go, now, to Zor’Aguhastra.”

  Before the cosmic turbulence stirred up by the two titans battling could sweep Krahe too far off her path, the guidestone’s reams of scrawl reached out and dragged her back into the proper current. Seeing them unfurled in this manner, singular and burning with power, she couldn’t help notice the similarity to Sorayah’s theurgies. In fact, she was certain this was the same exact alphabet.

  At the instant she was pulled back onto her proper course, Talos resumed its battle. With Rahu still half-frozen, Talos spun up its wheel all over again, and the glow that issued forth was as if a star had been born, drowning all in radiance that consumed sight, but didn’t blind her, a radiance that boiled the astral sea, but didn’t burn her. Krahe saw nothing, before she was completely swept away from that battlefield, and was only left with the true name of the feat that Talos began at that moment.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  BE INVOKED

  IDOLA IGARIA

  TALOS LEMURIA AL-AZIF

  FULL LIMITER RELEASE: FACE OPEN

  FROM BHAVA-AGRA, THE SEAT OF BANISHMENT

  SIC SUNT DAEMONES EXTIRPARE

  Krahe encountered numerous further points of interest in the course of her journey, from the wrecks of clearly technological vessels to a spire built inside the smashed-open head of a giant deity with the head of an octopus and the wings of a bat. All of them sort of just passed her by, lacking contrast to the battle between Talos and Rahu. At last, she arrived at her destination, and somewhat unexpectedly, she found herself standing atop a pillar of dark stone above a fathomless abyss. For a moment, she was taken aback by how concrete everything felt; there was no more floatiness, she could breathe, and perhaps most strikingly, she felt almost as if she was really here, even her form was far closer to her physical body than her astral one. It was surprisingly similar to the sensation of a high-fidelity virtual environment, or the mental construct she had experienced under High Grafter Fidelia’s care. None of her mundane clothing had come-with, leaving her with only her biosuit, the Oculae, Forming Toroid, and Crimson Star Ring.

  Her surroundings were blank, but once again, the guidestone steered her right, reams of script stretching out from it to her left. She followed it, and fragments of rubble rose up from the fog below to meet her feet wherever she stepped. Soon enough, the sunken city rose before her, emerging out of the colorless fog. To the eyes of anyone other than Krahe, it would seem comical to regard this vast landscape as a city.

  At a glance, she instantly knew that “half” of Zor’Aguhastra constituted the majestic spires and walkways that she saw first, and “half” was everything beneath, shrouded by impenetrable Grey Fog.

  Something didn’t look right; or rather, it didn’t look as she had expected it to. The Wizard’s rather limited travel notes had mentioned it, and that it wasn’t quite part of the city itself, but not in what way. Now, it was obvious.

  The “Great Eightfold Duplex Barrier” was not a solid wall, but two sets of four moons of black stone, each quartet forming a square, joined together by enormous, perfectly straight swaths of yellow surrounded by iridescent aurora light. Both squares orbited the city’s upper half, above the Grey Fog, each at a 30° offset from the horizontal plane in a different direction, forming a sideways X if viewed from the front. As she neared the island, which seemed at once the size of an island and the size of a planet, she realized that the yellow was just what she had thought it to be — paper talismans. It also became readily apparent that sight was not a true limitation, here. If she could cast her mind to somewhere, she could see it; she chose not to abuse this power, in accordance with the Wizard’s warnings. Even so, she did notice that the moons themselves were in fact not perfectly round, but, at the points the talisman-belts joined them together, they each bore a ritual altar surrounded by eight octagonal pillars. The same pattern repeated over and over at all layers of the Great Barrier, Krahe was certain even the talisman-belts somehow repeated it.

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