Olimpia

Scroll Fragment in the Flenk Family’s Private Library—

—can not comment on it, and that is not because of my lack of desire. It is because, like most Houses, we are in the dark.

We, the Flenk, can trace our lineage back to the founding of Olimpia. We were one of the Families that jockeyed for power in the beginning — and as is apparent — we lost.

During the time that we were oppressed for daring to challenge the victories, our elders learned an important lesson that has been passed down over the ages.

Too much power leads to destruction.

Those at the top eventually tumble to the bottom, and the fall will destroy them.

Time and again, new families have spent centuries working their way up the social ranks until they meet or momentarily surpass the power of The Twelve — those families that laid the foundation of Olimpia and rule it to this day.

And yet, any family that rises to that level will disappear like it never existed within a couple generations.

We have records of those times, and most of the time, The Twelve had no involvement in their fall. Though on occasion, the broken families are assimilated into one of The Twelve.

For millennia, The Twelve have existed while all others vanished.

But we — the Flenk — remember, and we have watched while keeping our heads down.

I have scoured our library and believe I discovered the truth, if not the why or how.

The Twelve are waiting while acting as guardians. And they are guarding that which we all mock but can never destroy.

They are guarding The—

**********

The abruptness and source of the attack took Sathera off guard. Attack was the only way to describe a strand of shadow taking physical form and throwing her Instructor out of the cage as the bars moved aside on their own.

She should have moved closer to them when the slick, cool shadows wrapped around everyone, but she was so surprised when the shadow tendrils suddenly appeared that the thought never occurred to her.

Then that bitch of a beastkin threw him into the center of the stone plate, offering him up as a sacrifice.

The worst part was that no one even spoke up. Even Sathera felt a momentary sense of relief that Instructor was offered to them and not her, to her shame. But that was only the smallest of traitorous thoughts that briefly passed through her mind.

Sathera saw Celeste have a smile of enjoyment stretching her face almost to the breaking point. It was surprising that her lips didn't rip apart and started bleeding. The smile was so wide Sathera thought her lips were touching her eyes for a moment.

As the door slammed shut on their cage, Instructor Green was getting up, then the ground around his feet burst into a blue light. In the center, the blue light was a solid circle, but farther out, the light was arranged in pulsing strange patterns and symbols, beating like one heart as it led back to four figures.

Not all of the figures around the circle looked to be — the only word Sathera could think of was… feeding — the blue… spell? It was the right word, but she really had no idea what it meant.

Four of the thirteen had their hands out and were muttering something that she could not fully make out or understand. The others were a step back from the edge of the outermost glowing ring.

Even though they weren't currently participating in whatever they were doing, their faces were that of concentration and focus. Their bodies were tensed as if waiting to jump forward and act.

Seconds passed, and the breath in her throat was caught halfway down, forming a lump as she waited, and the blue light in the center intensified.

She remembered the shadow from the night before, what it said. If it was true, then…

Instructor Green started screaming as he writhed on the ground, and the light in the center area he was lying in started to dim.

"Two more enter the array!" Shouted the old beastkin, his voice strained with effort.

Without any hesitation, two of the robed beastkin on opposite sides of the circle stepped forward, the ground at their feet lighting up in the same blue glow that was around the four others.

With the two stepping forward, the slightly dimming light below Instructor Green burst forth again with new power, and his screams grew louder.

The spectacle drew her in, and before she knew what was happening, her body was less than an inch from the bars facing the square. With every increasingly throat-tearing scream, her breathing hastened, becoming shallower as her chest tightened.

And then the blue energy started seeping out of Instructor Green's skin, pouring from his eyes, mouth, nose, and ears. Except it wasn't the same.

As the blue energy blobbed up from his skin, like drops of water falling off a ledge but opposite, the energy was tainted with a darker shade in its center that bled into the rest of the color of the energy.

When the energy exited Green's body, it would collect above him and join a mass with a strand of blue power running between it and the center of Green's chest.

His screams echoed off the walls of the fort, and as his mouth opened, his jaw looked as if it was forced slightly wider as yet another blob of tainted energy ripped itself free from his body.

"Another two join the circle!" Shouted the old beastkin, and two more stepped forward.

Sathera's fists were clenched at her sides. She wanted to reach forward and rip the bars apart.

"Be patient," whispered a voice in her ear, "or his sacrifice will be worthless." Looking to the side in surprise, Sathera saw nothing.

She didn't see anyone standing right next to her, at least. She saw the rest of the cage's occupants, who were also gathered on this side of the cage.

What surprised her the most was Celeste's smile had diminished.

Celeste might be a racist bitch who enjoyed hurting elves, but even she could tell something was wrong. The energy that they were pulling from Green was… there was something in the energy. She could not tell what, but it was sacred. And these beasts were desecrating it.

"No one is paying attention," the voice whispered again, "gather everyone into your linking." Looking to the side and farther away, she looked where she felt the voice was coming from.

Past the cage bars and with her back leaned against the stone walls of the fort was the beastkin who had thrown Instructor Green from the cage. The beastkin's lips curled in a secretive smile, then her mouth moved ever so slightly.

Sathera heard nothing, and she began to scowl as her face reddened in rage. Then the voice appeared seconds after the beastkin woman spoke. "Yes, it's me who's talking. And don't get your tail in a twist. Someone was going to be thrown in there. Green is the only one among you who has a chance of occupying all of them for your escape."

"You killed him!" Sathera hissed at the beastkin, anger burning inside of her.

"Maybe, maybe not. It's up to his willpower and if you act fast enough. What I never said last night, 'cause it wasn't relevant, was that if the person inside the Soul Harvest Spell outlasts the casters or if they are disrupted, the spell will be broken with the casters dying, as all of their mana is sucked out. Most of the energy pulled out of the target of the spell will return to its owner. The reports I read said that about half of the subjects lived during a broken spell. So if you believe in him, gather everyone up, and prepare to brake the cage. Wait for all the mages to be in the casting because once they are in, they cannot get out without hurting themselves." Before her words reached Sathera through whatever relay she was using, the beastkin had already turned and started walking, her two guards following on her heels.

Sathera waited for long seconds, watching the beastkin walk down the river's shoreline past the bridge to the other side of the half-circle walls.

A scream from Instructor Green, louder than before, caused her to turn around, facing the spectacle in the square.

Interspersed between the screams that can only indicate someone experiencing an unimaginable pain was a constant drone of voices.

In the beginning, the voices were quiet, hardly noticeable, and were hidden whenever another scream tore out of the Instructor's throat. But now, the drone was growing louder and more forceful as it resonated with power.

The voices combined, and she couldn't tell where one started and another ended. She felt the power they were wielding as it beat against her skin. Like the theoretical beings of old, the gods had appeared before her and spoken. It demanded attention, and what was spoken was brought into reality by sheer force of will.

She could feel her attention being drawn toward the event happening before her, and it took a long moment for her to pull her eyes away and step back from the bars closest to the event.

It was different from a mental working to draw attention to something, as all the energy before them was geared towards another terrible objective. But Sathera had never felt something so real… It called to her on a visceral level.

Significant might be a better word.

And hidden among all of the gathered energy was something else. It was born from neither the beastkins nor the Olimpians. Sathera always wanted it. She yearned for whatever it was but knew deep down that she did not deserve it.

Blinking again, she took a deep breath, as she had been drawn back to watching the casting without her knowing. And so had everyone else, as she discovered when she turned to look at the other cages. Everyone was watching the events with either a look of longing or horrified, burning rage in their eyes.

Throwing a couple quick glances over her shoulder, she found that two more of the watchers had joined the casting, leaving only two more robed beastkin besides the guards and female beastkin on the far side of the square. And even the other beastkin in the courtyard had similar looks on their faces as the Olimpians and weren't paying attention to anything else but the spell.

Centering herself and gathering her psy, she sent out two tendrils, slamming them into the minds of two of her fellow prisoners. It was rather rude, but she needed to get their attention.

Celeste and a man looked at her in surprise and annoyance, but as she gestured around the square to everyone not paying attention to them with her chin, their eyes lit up in realization. After that, they quickly accepted the link and set about sending out links to everyone in the cage.

Sathera's stomach growled, as they had not been fed, and she felt the hunger underpinning the Union, but she and everyone else ignored it.

"We brake open the cage, then free the others." She sent, "That female said they can't stop once they start, so this is our best chance to get free."

"How can we trust her," Celeste replied, her suspicion coming through with the mental message, "What is she getting out of this?"

"Does it matter? Overwhelming the cage makes sense, and Instructor Green is dying in a… horrific way. What they are doing is wrong, and no one can say they want to die that way." To her mental message, no one could reply. "We wait for the last pair." She ordered, getting a feeling of acceptance in return.

They did not have to wait long, as within a minute, the old beastkin called them forward before he stepped into the spell formation himself. They waited a few moments, and then Sathera gathered the psy and collected it into a bar before aiming it at the back of the cage. It didn't matter where they attacked, as none of them could tell where the gate of the cage was. Any spot was good as another.

Their collective working smashed into the back of the cage, ripping the bars from the floor and roof of the cage. As Sathera was expecting more resistance, the working hit the cage behind them, busting it open as well. There was a slight resistance as some of their energy was ripped away, but they hardly noticed.

A smile spread across Sathera's face after a moment of surprise, and then she stepped forward and began guiding the psy to rip apart the other cages, thinking, "We're coming, Instructor."