188. The Keeper's Favored Son

[Designation: HIEROPHANT]

[Instrument Class: PRIMAL]

[Anchored Realm: TIDEREIGN (+2)]

[Item Description: At some point in Tidereign's distant prehistory, the Realm's one Immortal hid itself behind the Gloaming skies, never to be seen again. It's safe to say that all true memories of the Keeper have long been lost to the mists of immeasurable time. Indeed, the only possibly credible description of the Keeper comes, not from Tidereign, but courtesy of a Manesferan poet, who himself had been inspired by visions of a strange, dreamlike world. He wrote, "Rising from the folds of the mooring, A shape with lion body and the head of an elk, A gaze blank as the moon and pitiless as the sun. What rough beast, its Hour come around at last, Slouches heavenward to be Reborn?"]

***

To cast his second spell, Viceroy Enright first pressed his fists into the bases of his antlers. Instead of finishing the salute, he threw his hands up into the air, palms spread open to unleash [the Herd].

[HIEROPHANT Spell: TWILIGHT]

[Oathborn Technique: THE MANY]

Tiny bundles of umber aura—vectors to disseminate an Oathkeeper's magic. [Twilight] spread across the room, carried by [the Many]. It soon folded every combatant, both Aberrant and Wayfaring, into its ever-expanding AOE.

Where [Dusklight] had shared Realgar's vision with a select [Few], [Twilight] served a much different function: that of broadcasting a paradigm shift. It threw the whole arena into a separate reality, privy only to the Keeper and its favored son.

For the briefest of Ksanas, Serac saw how that reality took tangible shape. A primordial being in the truest sense of the word. A creature so ancient, so impossibly large, and so inscrutable in its vision, intent, and action. A shadowy beast that slouched unto an unknowable future.

Limited and conveyed by the Keeper's slouch, [Twilight]'s reality existed on the incipient edges of time itself. Every soul within its fold—Aberrant or Wayfaring—moved at a drastically reduced speed, as though every individual action were a cosmic cycle unto itself.

That alone wouldn't favor either side of the battle. But the Wayfarers had an edge the Breachspawns didn't. [Dusklight], which yet shone upon the physical reality that proceeded in 'real time'.

Even now, Serac watched through an umber filter as the Lecher—the most tireless among the Breachspawns—ran at her with its churning triangular legs. At the same time, the Miser stretched its arm to grab DLEE, while the Glutton squared off against ORD.

In the vision provided by [Dusklight], the 'future' looked rather grim. Serac, already low on Stamina after the earlier scramble, only managed one shot ([189!]) at her pursuer before running out altogether. The Lecher then pummeled her with a flurry of punches, slaps, and grabs. None of which did much damage on their own, but they were enough in aggregate to harass her into Poise-break—more from sheer exhaustion than losing a Pathsighted check.

No good. Couldn't have that. But that was just one vision of what several seconds into the future had in store. Good thing her metaphysical self currently occupied the Keeper's Gloam, where she still had time to enact a different outcome.

In the transcendent plane of [Twilight], Serac used a fraction of her Stamina to simply step away from the Lecher's charge. She then took a steadying breath, waiting for her green bar to fill back up just enough for her to…

[189!], [189!] -> [378!]

One extra bullet did the trick. Not only did the Lecher whiff on its attack, it also ate the extra hit of damage to erase its HP in full. The shadow monster dissolved into sparkling Souldust—somehow made even prettier in slow motion.

[7,777 क]

Simultaneously and elsewhere on the battleground, Travertine and his deer familiars had also taken full advantage of the 'future-sight' afforded by their Viceroy boss.

With a measured sweep of CROZIER, Travertine redirected ORD to step in between DLEE and the Miser. The Breachspawn's greed proved indiscriminate, as it instead wrapped its stretchy arm around ORD, whose much sturdier frame allowed him to hold his ground. At the same time, the much faster DLEE skipped around her partner, taking care to stay out of the Glutton's glurping range, before laying into the stationary Miser with a foreleg combo.

[Oathborn Technique: STEADFAST MARCH]

[116!], [136!], [156!] -> [408!]

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That, combined with the earlier damage from [Goring Cross], took care of the Miser. Its hefty, rotund form vanished, adding more sparkling swirls the Souldust fireworks.

Even as Serac re-aligned her focus onto the remaining Breachspawns, she couldn't help but take a stretched-out Ksana to appreciate Realgar as a Wayfarer. To not only broadcast his magic via countless Oathborn replicas, but also to layer two separate spells on top of each other to spectacular effect!

Serac couldn't imagine the Mana and/or the proprietary resource Realgar must be burning through. More than that, she was soundly impressed by the sheer mental energy demanded by magic of such scale and complexity.

Say what you will about his modest KL of 55, but Mr Viceroy is clearly as 'experienced' as they come. And now I can see why he's stopped leveling. Take this fight for example. He's been so influential throughout, yet he hasn't dealt a single point of damage!

The fight went on, and [Dusklight] illuminated more 'futures' for Serac to accept or reject.

Freed from the Miser's grasp, ORD took on the Glutton in earnest. But their 1v1 was soon interrupted by the streaking figure of another Breachspawn. The newcomer ripped through the Big Stag in a blur of shadows, hitting for big damage and opening an easy glurp window for its Aberrant friend. The same shadow then turned on a dime before zooming in Serac's direction.

It was the cat-like Fury, sticking out its triangular tail and zipping all over the place like a spinning top. Its furious spin tore up anything it touched along its warpath, ORD being its first casualty.

But not if a pair of [Twilit] Wayfarers had anything to say about it! Serac made a snap-Ksana decision, trusting Travertine to take good care of his own familiars. She then filtered her attention onto the lurking Glutton.

Sure enough, ORD acted on fresh instructions, turning to meet the Fury's approach with [Dominant Charge]. Deer antler and cat tail ground against each other, causing sparks to fly in slow motion. To this DLEE added a spinning hind kick of her own, knocking back the Fury along with a handy [226!] points of damage.

Which left Serac free to duel the Glutton. Remembering its mitigation profile, the first thing for her to do was switch off [Appetizer]. She then squeezed everything out of her freshly replete Stamina bar: one unimbued bullet, speedload a full cylinder, followed by a triple burst.

[151!], [151!], [151!], [151!] -> [604!]

The Glutton took every hit like a champ, then switched its glurping target, swinging its spindly limbs to lope toward Serac. But it was all too simple for the gunslinger to take a few backward steps, maintaining a safe distance while waiting for her Stamina to refill. Just two more shots. Two more shots will take down the Glutton, then after that—

Suddenly, a high-pitched bleat. A gut-wrenching sound for any friends of deer to hear, and one that pealed across the battleground in both [Twilight] and [Dusklight].

It took Serac another second to clock what had happened.

First, the two 'timelines' merged back into one, allowing everything to proceed at full speed with no chance for a redo. Second, the Fury's spinning tail zipped right back at DLEE, chunking Little Doe's fragile HP and draining her Poise in one fell swoop. Third, a just-as-furious ORD rushed to save his partner, exposing his back to the loping Breachspawn behind him. And finally, the opportunistic Glutton switched aggro mid-lope, taking but one swift motion to swallow Big Stag whole.

Serac stared, horrified, as the tip of ORD's antler disappeared behind the Glutton's zippers. Yet now, she herself was firmly under fire, as the Fury pivoted sharply to zip in her direction. Distractedly, she shifted her aim and fired, only to see the unimbued bullet bounce harmlessly against the Fury's high-speed spin.

[110!], [110!], [110!] -> [330!]

They made contact for but one instant, yet that was enough for the Fury's spinning tail to get in three ticks of damage. Serac tried to track its movement with REVOLVER, only to check her shot, lest she waste another bullet. Elsewhere, Travertine too took damage as he fended off the Glutton from his Poise-broken Doe.

No good. Couldn't have that. Except they already did have it and could do nothing about it!

How did we lose our 'future-sight'? Did something happen to Realgar? A quick glance in the Viceroy's direction showed him unharmed, still holding his channeling 'pose' with both hands raised. Then what—?

Serac gasped as understanding finally struck her.

The Wayfarers fought against a team of six Breachspawns. Of them, the Braggart was still doing its thing in the back, singing its horrible song. Serac and Travertine had each taken down a Lecher and a Miser, leaving just the Fury and the Glutton as the immediate danger.

But no. That wasn't right. For there was another—the most unremarkable of the six sins and therefore the easiest to forget.

The Envier—the squat little thing—was still a barely perceptible hump upon a floor of cadavers. The only difference now was it'd overcome its shyness and turned to face the group. It'd turned to flap its bizarre, triangular eyes in the Wayfarers' direction—at one Wayfarer in particular.

Within the space of a full-speed Ksana, Serac's nascent understanding solidified into actionable knowledge. Unlike its fellow sins, the Envier had nothing of its own on which to hang its proverbial hat. A squat little thing, unremarkable in every way, which was why it always looked out with envy at the powered fighters all around it. And right now, the most powerful being in the arena—'shining' in an aura of burnt umber—happened to be the one manipulating time itself.

The Envier had flapped its triangular eyes and copied Realgar's [Dusklight]-plus-[the Few] combo. It meant its Breachspawn pals could also see the future, which then meant there was no future for anyone—Wayfaring or Aberrant—to change.

The Wayfarer's key advantage was gone. Or rather, it'd been matched by their opponents' mimic ability. Said opponents gave them no chance to regroup, as the Fury spun toward Serac and the Glutton loped toward Travertine.

Yet, by then, it was clear what needed to be done. And she was the only one who could do it.

The Fury bore down on Serac, its razor-sharp tail inches away from drawing more blood. The Glutton unzipped itself, ready to reunite Travertine with his Oathborn in [Hammerspace].

But the gunslinger ignored all such immediate threats. For she had her eyes set on a future yet unwritten. To that end, she needed but to go back to the bare basics—to her principles of marksmanship.

Aim, lock, fire.

An unimbued .44 Special flew across the Gloam. A fraction of a Ksana later, a triangular eye shattered into shadows and shame.

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