Far away in the mist-shrouded Sanctum of Aethelgard, Kairen sat at the base of the great, slumbering crystal, his eyes closed, his frustration a sour taste in his mouth. He was anchored deep within his 'Inner Sanctum', his mental fortress strong and still, but the world beyond the mists was nothing but noise.

He followed Vanamali's instructions, expanding his senses, trying to listen beneath the mists, to feel the 'Essence Web' of the outside world.

He felt... nothing.

Just the deep, quiet, life-filled thrum of the Sanctum—the pulse of the crystal, the energy of the waterfall, the ancient life in the trees. And beyond that, a muffled, distant, chaotic static. It was the roar of a billion souls, a million energies, a world of noise impossible to decipher.

"It's impossible," he said, opening his eyes, the frustration returning. "It's just... noise. It's all just static. How am I supposed to find four people in... in that?"

"Patience," Vanamali said, opening his own eyes from his meditation spot nearby. "You have only just learned to open your ears. The world is a chaotic song, Kairen. You are trying to hear a single, familiar instrument in an orchestra of thunder."

"But they're in danger now," Kairen insisted, standing up, the frustration making his voice sharp. He had forged his Essence Blade, he had mastered his mind, and for what? To sit here, blind and useless? "What good is any of this if I can't even..."

"If you can't even what?" Vanamali's voice was gentle, but unyielding. "If you cannot find them in this, what would you do if you could? You have forged a blade, but you have not yet learned to aim. You have opened your senses, but you have not yet learned to filter. This is not a failure. It is the beginning."

The Sage smiled faintly, a gesture that was both kind and stern. "You are impatient. That is the mark of your youth. But you are also determined. That is the mark of your father."

He gestured back to the crystal. "This is not a test of power, Kairen. It is a test of focus. Learn to ignore the roar of the crowd, so that you may, in time, hear the whisper of your friends. Continue. Listen to the static."

Kairen let out a long, frustrated sigh. He felt blind, deaf, and a million miles away from everyone he loved. He closed his eyes, sinking back into the endless, roaring static of the world, and began to listen.

Deep in the sewers of Azurefall, the static was the roar.

"Hold the line!" Dain bellowed, his voice a solid rock in the tide of chittering, skittering fear. "Kaelan, ice! Ilya, shadow-spikes! On my call!"

The first wave of red-eyed Imps hit them. They were a tide of small, fast, razor-clawed bodies, shrieking as they swarmed Dain's tower shield.

Clang! Thunk! Scrape!

Dain grunted, planting his feet in the sludge, his shield a solid wall of steel and muscle. "Now, Kaelan!"

"Glacies Spiculum!" Kaelan, his voice tight with fear but his hands steady, thrust his staff forward. A barrage of sharp ice-spikes lanced out over Dain's shield, shattering the first wave of Imps into frozen, skittering fragments.

"Ceiling!" Ilya's voice was a cold, sharp crack.

Dain looked up. More Imps were dropping from the darkness, aiming for Lia in the center. Before he could even react, two of Ilya's shadow-daggers flashed past his head, silent as death, and embedded themselves in the dropping creatures. They dissolved into puffs of shadow.

"They're... they're not that strong!" Lia whispered from behind Dain, her terror giving way to a thin thread of hope as she saw the creatures fall.

"They're just Rank-1s," Dain grunted, shoving his shield forward to knock more Imps off balance. "We can hold this! Kaelan, another volley! Ilya, watch our backs!"

For a solid minute, they were a functional, if clumsy, machine. Dain was the immovable object, Kaelan provided controlled, ranged bombardment, and Ilya was a whirlwind of precise, defensive shadow-strikes, picking off any creature that got past the ice. Lia, huddled in the center, even managed to cast a small, trembling fortitude charm on Dain, easing the strain on his arms.

They were doing it. They were actually working as a team.

Then, as suddenly as it began, the chittering stopped.

The surviving Imps, as if hearing a silent command, squealed in unison and retreated, vanishing back into the darkness of the branching tunnels.

Silence fell, broken only by the drip... drip... of water and the squad's heavy, gasping breaths.

"Did... did we do it?" Kaelan panted, lowering his staff, the blue ice-light orb wavering.

"No," Ilya hissed, her eyes scanning the darkness, her daggers still raised. "That wasn't a retreat. That was a recall."

"What do you mean?" Dain asked, his shield still high.

"Imps don't stop fighting unless they're all dead or their master calls them," Ilya said, her voice dangerously low. "That... was just the distraction. The first wave. They were testing us."

"The... the trap," Lia whispered, her eyes wide with dawning horror, staring at the demonic runes on the wall. "Dain, the runes... they're glowing brighter."

Dain and Kaelan looked. She was right. The sick, purple light of the High Demonic script was pulsing, the ink-like shadows on the wall seeming to move, to deepen.

"Oh, gods," Kaelan breathed. "It wasn't a luring ward... it's a summoning ward. It was using the Imps... the fear... to power itself."

From the dark, dry alcove where the dead guard was hung, two new, larger lights ignited. They were not the small, mindless red eyes of the Imps. These were wide, intelligent, and glowed with a cold, venomous, green light.

A low, purring, clicking sound echoed from the alcove, like a giant insect clicking its mandibles.

"Dain," Ilya said, her voice losing its arrogance, replaced by a cold, sharp edge of genuine fear. "Back up. Now."

A shape detached itself from the darkness. It was tall, at least eight feet, and impossibly thin, a skeletal horror of black, glistening chitin. It moved with a fluid, boneless grace, its limbs like segmented, obsidian blades. Its head was an insectoid nightmare, with multiple, unblinking green eyes. A Rank-3 Stalker. A demon designed to hunt mages.

"Gods..." Dain breathed, his blood running cold. "Shield wall! Hold the line!"

The Stalker blurred.

It moved with a speed that defied its size, faster than Kairen in the Gauntlet, a black streak of pure malice. It didn't attack Dain. It didn't care about the massive shield. It ignored him.

It uncoiled, lashing out with a bladed arm, not at Dain, but at Ilya.

"I have it!" Ilya shouted, her old, arrogant habits taking over. This was a real threat, not a drill. She broke formation instantly, trying to shadow-step away.

But the Stalker was faster. Its claw caught her, not in a deep, killing blow, but with a dismissive, raking strike that tore through her robes and sent her flying into the sewer wall. She hit the brick with a sickening crack and slumped into the filthy water, her shadow-dagger clattering away.

"ILYA!" Dain roared.

"Glacies Murus!" Kaelan screamed, and a wall of ice erupted between the demon and the fallen Ilya.

The Stalker hissed, annoyed. It didn't even try to break the wall. It just flowed around it, its movements impossibly fluid. It was in the center of their broken formation.

"This one," it hissed, its voice a dry, clicking sound that seemed to come from inside their heads. Its green, multifaceted eyes fixed on Ilya as she struggled to rise, her shadow magic sputtering. "This one smells of shadow. A delicacy."

"No!" Ilya screamed, and in a burst of panic, she unleashed her most powerful spell, the "Nether-Lance" she had been warned against.

A spear of roiling, unstable shadow-magic shot from her hand.

The Stalker hissed as the magic hit it... and absorbed it. The shadows didn't harm it; they flowed over its black, chitinous skin like oil, making it look stronger, more solid.

"It... it feeds on shadow," Ilya stammered, her face pale with horror. Her greatest weapon was useless.

The Stalker, energized by the meal, turned, its head tilting as it assessed its next target. Its gaze flickered past Dain, past Kaelan, and settled on the smallest, most terrified person in the tunnel.

It fixed on Lia. It recognized the weakest link.

It uncoiled, its long, bladed arm rearing back, preparing to lunge and finish the healer.

Lia was paralyzed, her last desperate scream dying in her throat. Dain, still ten feet away, roared in fury, charging, but he was too slow.

Kaelan saw it all happen in a horrifying echo of the past. The monster. The lunge. The terrified, frozen healer. Lia.

He saw Kairen's face in his mind. "Take her. Get her out. Now."

He remembered his promise to Lia. "...we're supposed to help each other. Right?"

He remembered Vorlag's words. "Do not be afraid to use your power. A-second-too-late is the same as not casting at all."

His fear of his own magic was instantly, utterly eclipsed by his terror of failing again.

"NOT AGAIN!"

Kaelan screamed, and he didn't run. He moved. He tackled Lia bodily, shoving her out of the Stalker's path and into the filthy sludge. "DAIN, NOW!" he shrieked.

At the same time, he twisted, throwing his hands up, not with a weak, hesitant spell, but with all his power, pouring every ounce of his fear and guilt and desperate need for atonement into one, perfect, complex cast. "Glacies Maxima!"

A massive, intricate, beautiful wall of jagged, magically-reinforced ice erupted from the ground, intercepting the Stalker's blurring blow.

The Stalker's bladed arm, moving with unstoppable force, shattered the ice wall... but it was slowed. The razor-sharp arm, still carrying its momentum, sheared through the remains of the wall... and plunged deep into Kaelan Brightblade's shoulder.

"AAAAAAGH!"

Kaelan screamed, a high, thin sound of pure agony, as the claws dug in, lifting him from his feet and slamming him against the sewer wall. He slumped, his arm a ruin, the demon's limb still embedded in him.

But he was smiling. A pained, gasping, triumphant smile. He looked at Lia, who was safe, scrambling away in the mud. "I... I did it..." he panted, his vision blurring.

The Stalker hissed, enraged, trying to pull its arm free from Kaelan's shoulder and the ice that now encased it. It was stuck. Exposed. For one single, critical second.

Dain, seeing Kaelan fall, seeing his sacrifice, felt the berserker rage surge, hot and blinding. Kill it. Tear it apart.

...Rage makes you blind. Rage gets your comrades killed...

He heard Vorlag's voice, cold and clear, cutting through his fury. Discipline is the forge.

He let out his roar, but he channeled it. He didn't do a wild, overhead swing. He planted his feet in the sludge. He lowered his center of gravity, his tower shield held tight. He saw his target—not the creature's head, but the unarmored, vulnerable joint where its bladed arm met its torso, the spot Kaelan's ice had left exposed.

He didn't swing. He thrust.

A perfectly disciplined, controlled, shield-breaking lunge with his axe, putting all his massive, grief-fueled strength into one single, precise, devastating point.

Clarity.

The axe-head, backed by his focused, disciplined power, punched through the Stalker's chitin with a sickening, wet crunch.

The creature froze. The chittering in the tunnels stopped. The venomous green lights in its eyes flickered, dimmed, and then died. It collapsed in a heavy, chitinous heap, its black ichor sizzling in the filthy water.

Silence.

Just the drip... drip... drip... of water and Lia's frantic, terrified sobs.

Dain stood, panting, his body shaking from adrenaline. "Lia... Kaelan..."

He turned. Kaelan was slumped against the wall, unconscious, his shoulder a ruin, the Stalker's bladed arm still embedded in him.

"Lia!" Dain roared. "Get to him! Now!"

Spurred by Kaelan's scream, Lia scrambled to his side, her PTSD forgotten, her healer's instincts finally taking over. "Oh, gods... Kaelan... hold on, Kaelan, hold on!" Her hands, shaking violently, began to glow with a desperate, pulsing green light as she began the work of saving his life.

Dain turned to Ilya, who was pale and shaking, staring at the dead Stalker, her own "power" philosophy having utterly failed her when it mattered.

He raised his shield, standing guard over his two broken mages, his heart hammering. They had survived. Barely. As a team.

Far away, Kairen's eyes snapped open. He gasped, his hand flying to his chest.

"Vanamali!" he panted.

The Sage was there, standing beside the crystal, his face grave.

"I felt them!" Kairen said, his voice shaking. "It wasn't static! It was... it was sharp. I felt... Dain's power. Kaelan's... Gods, Kaelan's pain. And Lia's... her terror... It was so loud. They're in trouble! They're in mortal danger!"

Vanamali nodded slowly. "The web resonates with their fear, Kairen. You have heard your first clear note in the chaos. What you sensed... was the spike of their fight for survival."

Kairen tried to stand, his mind racing. "I have to go! They need me!"

"And do what?" Vanamali's voice was a barrier of calm. "You are here. They are leagues away. You are blind. You have a sword, but no path. You would arrive a thousand leagues from them, or in the middle of the ocean. You are not ready."

"So I just sit here?" Kairen yelled, his frustration and fear boiling over. "I just sit here and listen to them die?"

"You listen," Vanamali said, his gaze softening, "and you pray. And you train. You are trapped, Kairen. Your only way out... is through."

Kairen stared at his hands, his newly forged Essence Blade feeling useless. He could feel them. He could feel their terror. And he could do nothing.

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