Damon and Erica kept a brisk pace as they advanced south. Erica was walking next to Damon and watched as he brought the matrix maigum at the end of his necklace up to his lips and began issuing orders to the Altean Army into it. The light blue crystal glowed visibly in the daylight, and Erica could feel maiga flowing into and out of it. Of greater interest to her was the vambrace of pure white flame that still encased his right arm. The blade was still there as well, the whole thing illuminating his right side as his arm hung at his side. The vambrace didn't seem to give off any heat or smoke, nor did it feel like the maiga Erica had come to know despite it clearly being some kind of shaping that allowed Damon to have such a phenomenon clamped to his arm. As she was trying to figure out what it was she was looking at, the vambrace and blade shifted into shapeless flame being siphoned into a his heart, passing through his coat without a trace.

When the last remnants of the white flame had been sucked away, Erica couldn't keep her mouth shut, "Okay, you need to explain some things, now. First, what was that white fire that you just absorbed? Second, you never explained what you meant by if 'you weren't you' when I accidentally crushed your hand earlier. Why weren't you hurt when I hit you with maiga in the hospital?"

Damon let his matrix maigum drop to his chest as he regarded her, seemingly debating how to answer. "I suppose I ought to let you know now. Do you remember when you attacked Angor to no effect?"

Erica winced, clutching her right shoulder as the memory of that encounter came to the fore. "I don't think I can ever forget. I hit him with everything I had, and all he had to say was that while I couldn't damage him, that it hurt."

"I am much the same as him in that regard, for better or worse," Damon muttered the latter part before continuing, "While I don't know for certain, I suspect that we were blessed by the gods of Tarsis to be invulnerable but not unfeeling. Regardless of the how or why, both me and him can march forth in a hail of gunfire, stand tall as we're run through, remain unbowed where others would fall."

"I thought you said you still feel pain? Wouldn't that slow you down?"

"I don't have time to let pain dictate my movements. I've forced myself through the pain of otherwise lethal blows so many times that I simply ignore it for the most part. I can only assume it's the same for him."

"So I still hurt you when I couldn't control my shaping..." Erica trailed off, suddenly unable to meet his gaze.

"It was nothing I hadn't dealt with before, same with my hand. As for your other question, that white flame you saw was what I call 'Soul Saber', a manipulation of my own grand maiga for combat."

"Wait, grand maiga?! I thought that stuff was immutable, untouchable, unshapeable! A safeguard the gods put in place to keep us from shaping each other or the world apart. How can you shape that?"

"I can only shape my own soul. It can carve through whatever I wish, or leave what I hit unaffected, Soul Saber passing through as if it weren't there. Very useful if a Diezen attempts to use a living shield against me."

Erica knew Damon was a famed individual for a reason, but being invulnerable and being able to shape grand maiga, even if only his own, were things no one should be capable of. A thought crossed her mind, "If my powers were granted by the gods, a blessing as you put it, would I also have this invulnerability?"

"I sincerely doubt it, which is why I've emphasized teaching you how to defend yourself with your shaping as much as I have. If you were like me, you would not have lost your arm."

Erica's grip tightened on her prosthetic. If Damon noticed, he didn't let on.

"Plus, your shaping is unique. Rather than having a reserve of energy to pull from that depletes with use, you start with nearly no shaping aptitude and build power with use, to an extent where your shaping runs away from you-"

"I don't need a reminder, thank you!" Erica snapped, the memories of the first time her shaping began to run wild reemerging. The last memory of her father, his last moment replaying in her head over and over.

"Sorry," Damon sounded unsure, and the two continued in silence for some time. Then, with dead certainty, "Ahead, smoke."

Erica looked up, and indeed saw smoke above the treeline. Thin wisps of black fading into the sky. "Let's hurry."

They broke into a run, weaving through trees until they broke into a burned-out field. Ahead were the smoking ruins of a small village, stone buildings hollowed out by flame at the top of the hill that made up the village's center. Dirt roads were lined with ruined fences and littered with the shapes of fallen figures. As they approached, Erica became all too aware that these were the victims of a Diezen raid, gunned or cut down where they fled and left where they fell. Tears began to well up in Erica's eyes as the enormity of the atrocity before her set in. The Diezens likely attacked in the night, torching the village to force everyone out into their ambush. 

A flutter of colour in the corner of her vision caught Erica's attention, and she turned to see a small body face down on the ground, still clutching a red blanket that caught the wind. Erica took a sharp, shuddering breath. The Diezens had murdered a child. Erica's grief flared to anger, to rage. Was killing adults not enough for them? Most were helpless before a Diezen mechan, to target the young and the weak was abhorrent, it was cowardly. It was wrong.

"Erica!" Damon's voice snapped her out of her thoughts as she turned to him, tears streaming down her face.

"They're monsters," She uttered, nearly under her breath.

"While that's true, you need to calm yourself. Are you even aware of the sparks you're giving off?"

"What?" Erica brought her hands up, and there was indeed sparks and arcs of electricity dancing across her body. Now that she was focused on it, she could feel her rage feeding the maiga around her, urging it to action. Reining in her fury, the energy in the air around her also calmed, and the electricity died out. She wiped away her tears with her sleeves, but more streamed from her eyes, "Sorry. I should have known I'd find this sort of thing here..."

"It's not normal for most people to come across a scene like this. However, I've seen this too many times. While it's never easy, you do get somewhat used to it."

"That's not what I want to hear... I don't want to see more dead families, killed villages..."

"We bear this burden so that we can try to keep it from happening again. We won't always succeed, but the Altean Army does this to keep the bulk of Tarsis safe from this."

"I don't want another Copperwood incident, no." Erica took a deep breath, steadying herself. "I've seen death before, as a guard and on that awful night. I'm only going to see more of it, but if I can stop the Diezens, I will see less. Right?"

"That's the idea," Damon said, looking around at the bodies ahead of them with a hardened expression. He pointed to a burned out temple in the center of the village, "We'll have a quick look around for survivors, but don't be surprised if we find none. We'll meet in front of that temple before we carry on."

Erica nodded, and the two of them split up, him taking the right and her the left. It took less than half an hour to go around and confirm a lack of life within the village. Nothing was left untouched, any buildings that weren't put to the torch were obviously ransacked. Bullet casings were scattered about the ground, sparse but telling of how the village met its end. After meeting Damon at the temple's broken down doors, they set off again, noting smoke in the distance again.

As they approached the second village, they could begin to hear voices. Not the hubbub of daily life, but the barking of orders and bickering. Damon turned to Erica, bringing a finger to his lips. She didn't need the reminder, but kept her mouth shut all the same as they stalked up to one of the buildings at the village's outskirts. Several of the houses here were still standing as though no Diezens had come through here, though the odd burned out husk marked the village as having been attacked. The two Alteans peered around the building's corner, seeking the source of the voices. In the village's central square, an ornate stone fountain sat, its beauty marred by the corpses piled into it. Crates were stacked next to the fountain, being loaded into horse-drawn carts by hooded and robed figures overseen by Diezen mechans. Erica counted six living cultists and eight black-clad mechans. 

"Here's the plan," Damon spoke quietly, the bass in his voice taking over, "I want you to bind the cultists before they can draw weapons. After that is done, focus on eliminating the mechans. Don't forget that your safety is a higher priority than their destruction, if things are looking hairy don't think twice about falling back and letting me deal with them."

"What about the lives of the cultists?" Erica muttered the word with disdain.

"Do what you can to keep them alive, focus on that over destroying the mechans. Diezen cultists aren't always bloodthirsty killers, often they're people scared for their lives doing whatever it takes to survive."

"Including murder?"

"It is not our place to judge any individual cultist, that will be Bladefell's responsibility. Now ready up."

Damon's tone told Erica that the discussion was over. She drew her saber and took a steadying breath, focusing on the task at hand. Bind the cultists. That would be easiest to do with the solid shapeable matter here. Holding out her left hand, she held it palm up with her ring finger and pinky closed and index and middle fingers pointed at the cultists. With a sharp inhale, she visualized the earth rising to trap the robed figures and flicked her two fingers upwards. A surge of maiga washed out from her as the flagstones of the village square rose and bent to obey her command. Mounds of earth and stone rose up to the cultists' shoulders, trapping them in the blink of an eye simultaneously. Exclamations rose out of them as Damon surged forward, Soul Saber forming from his heart to cover his right forearm once more. As a wrathful arrow he darted to the first mechan right as they began to figure out what was happening. A slash from his left to right felled the first construct as the next two nearest to him brought axe and sword to bear on him. He evaded a calculated swing from each before dispatching them one after another.

Erica was in motion now, focusing an invisible wedge of maiga in front of her as she coated her blade in another field of mystic power. She ran to the left of the square, trying to let Damon take the attention and brunt of the Diezens' attacks. As she reached her first mechan, Damon had dispatched another one. The mechan Erica was about to hack into snapped to her, its upper body rotating on the joint by its hip without moving its legs, rifle leveled at her. It fired, and the field of maiga in front of Erica flared, a thunderous bolt of energy intercepting the bullet and redirecting it past her with a thought. She brought her blade down on the Diezen before it could fire again, the field of maiga around her sword weakening the low grade metal that the mechan was made from and allowing her to shatter its maiga harness. The swing was made with enough force that she nearly cleaved right through the entirety of the Diezen's torso. 

Erica's eyes were already on the next target, a mechan that seemed to be better made than the one she had just defeated and was twirling a pair of swords in its hands as it marched on her. It had the initiative as Erica wrenched her saber free, the Diezen swinging its right blade across at her. She blocked the blow with her saber, noting with satisfaction that the Diezen's blade was dented from the exchange, and noting with concern that the only reason she was able to withstand the force the mechan had put into the swing was because of the force she was able to put into her own mechanical limb. The Diezen's left sword was coming at her now, and she was off balance from the last hit, so Erica opted to dodge the blow by stepping back. The Diezen stepped forward, raising both swords above its head. Before it could hammer them down on her, Erica thrust her left hand forward, casting a bolt of lightning into the chest of the black mechan. This one was indeed made of sterner stuff than most of them, as it only staggered back rather than fall. No longer in a position to swing its weapons, it was unable to respond as Erica lanced its maiga harness with her power-wreathed saber. She could feel the feedback of the stone ring shattering in the mechan's chest, extracting her weapon as she looked for the next Diezen to deal with.

A quick glance told Erica that Damon had felled two more Diezens, leaving the one mechan in front of her. It looked between her and Damon, who was pulling his wrist blade free of his last opponent, before settling its gaze on the nearest cultist. Erica figured out what was going to happen a split second too late as the mechan raised its repeater carbine and shot the cultist.

"Murder!" The mechan shouted, the modulation in its voice straining with the volume, "For murder's sa-"

It got no further as Damon shot a small ball of flame at it, punching through its chest and cracking the maiga harness there. Erica had diverted her attention and shaping from her blade to restructuring the mounds binding the cultists so that a thicker wall was aimed at the now dead Diezen mechan, hopefully protecting the cultists from any would-be further shots it made. It was a rush job, evident when one of the cultists managed to break the mound binding them and brought their own repeater to bear on the closest Altean. The cultist fired, again and again and again, into Damon.

"It's you or us!" A woman's voice came from under the cultist's hood as she kept firing while Damon advanced on her, body jerking with the impact of the shots. Erica looked on in a mix of awe and horror as Damon grabbed the barrel of the repeater and hauled it upward right as another shot went off, the round hitting him square in the forehead and snapping his head back. Erica and the remaining two cultists watched as Damon slowly lowered his head, glowering at the cultist he had the weapon of.

"That. Hurt." He growled as he yanked the weapon free from the cultist's grip, "Enough of that. You're safe now, relinquish your arms."

"We're never safe!" The cultist was in hysterics. She likely would have fallen to her knees were it not for the mound of earth and stone encasing her legs still. "Not from them! Not because you're here! They'll kill us all the same! I- we- they can't kill you, so they kill us! That's all they do, all they're made for! Kill, kill, kill! Death awaits all of Tarsis, your only hope is to work with them so they might spare you!"

Damon cut in, "You don't have to worry anymore, the Altean Army is-"

"Here? Like that matters! You can only stop so many bullets, so many blades from finding living flesh! You couldn't stop us before we made it this far!"

Silence. Erica regarded the holes that now peppered Damon's coat as the Altean general searched the female cultist's face with an impassive expression.

"No," he finally admitted, "I wasn't able to stop the Diezen advance here. But I won't let it go any further, and will liberate everywhere from here to the most pointward edge of Bladefell, with my own hands if need be."

The cultist lowered her hood, revealing the face of a terrified teenager with short blonde hair. Looking on the verge of tears, she looked between Damon and Erica, lingering on Erica long enough for her to feel self conscious. "You two will take back what the Diezens took?"

"We'll do what we can." Erica said with more conviction than she felt.

"We'll do what we must," Damon said with absolute certainty, "Erica, detain these three. We have to keep moving."

"Right. Now, hands behind your backs, all of you," Erica shaped stone handcuffs onto the wrists of the three cultists as they complied. She dropped the mounds that bound them, gently lowering the dead cultist's body to the ground as she did so. The surviving cultists were led to the north side of the village and instructed to wait there for the Altean Army to pick them up. 

Damon waved Erica to his side, and as she strode up to him he started walking south. "You need to be more firm when reassuring people. We are just about the only thing keeping hope alive in this world."

"Sorry," Erica said softly, having to pick up the pace to keep up with him, "Old habits from guard life, we weren't supposed to promise much to people."

"Then work on kicking that habit. See that smoke ahead? There's a town ahead rather than a village, so we'll need to pick up the pace if we want to get to the most pointward edge today."

Damon and Erica had been nearly jogging to reach the next town. They spotted a hooded figure looking down the sight of a hunting rifle at the outskirts of the settlement, but before they could take any measures the figure darted into the town, revealing a grey reptilian tail as they ran as best they could on stubby kroll legs.

"A sentry?" Erica suggested as they continued forward with caution.

"They probably heard the gunfire from earlier," Damon said, "Keep an eye out for any more, they'll likely have laid an ambush."

She nodded. They moved up to the first building of the town and kept to the walls as they navigated the streets. Wreckage and bodies were somewhat sparse here, though not absent. Erica was trying to feel the presence of life or mechans through the maiga in the air and was getting a faint sign of something being downtown. They moved toward the area as stealthily and quickly as they could, noticing a couple more sentries scurrying off as they were detected.

"Is there a point to this sneaking around? They know we're here," Erica asked in a whisper as they reached another storefront.

"They don't know exactly where we are, now shush and let's keep it that way." Damon ordered. 

They slowed as they heard a voice ahead of them. It was the modulated tone of a Diezen mechan, though lacked the malice that usually accompanied their utterances. In fact it sounded... pastoral? The deep voice grew clearer as they approached, its tone reverent and impassioned. Damon cursed under his breath and halted as he peered around the last corner before the main street.

"What?" Erica urged.

"That isn't just any Diezen giving a sermon. You remember the other generals of the Altean Army?" Damon asked.

"Yeah?"

"This is the Diezen equivalent of-"

Damon was cut off by the booming surge of the Diezen's voice, "- And lo, the Altean rats scurry about in the shadows as vermin ought! But what is this? An unfamiliar face, wearing the coat and matrix of an Altean! Why doesn't the vermin king show us his new 'friend'?"

"The jig is up, hope you're ready." Damon said as he stepped into the street.

Erica followed him and was stopped in her tracks by what she saw. A mass of robed individuals were gathered in the middle of the street, all facing them. Erica recognized the rifle wielding kroll from earlier, and noted that some of the figures were much smaller than the rest. Long ears holding the hoods up betrayed these as guhr, a race of small humanoids with more pent up fury and savagery than their naturally armoured frames would suggest. It was a bit of a wonder that these guhr had been corralled into robes and were standing somewhat still, but the figure standing in front of them all suddenly made her understand their compliance.

A mechan stood in front of the mass, back to the Alteans. It loomed over the people in front of it, easily six and a half feet tall. It was painted a darker black than the Diezens Erica had seen so far. A tan fur half cape was draped over the left shoulder, but not over the armour plates protecting the tops of both shoulders. Its feet were set shoulder width apart, with thicker shins than thighs. Its arms were more extreme, with studded forearms over twice as thick as they should have been leading directly to oversized hands, lacking wrists. Each finger and thumb was splayed out, the last digit on each replaced with a foot-long blade. Bull's horns protruded from either side of its head. 

"So the vermin king deigns to reveal himself. Good," The Diezen's voice resonated with authority and confidence as it lowered its arms and turned to face them. The full head had an entire bull's skull built into it, twisted into a baleful countenance with angled eye sockets housing red lights and jaws lined with fangs instead of a herbivore's molars. The lower jaw opened when it spoke and closed when it had finished. The fur half cape was affixed to its chest with a silver brooch. A wide ring of silver protruded from each palm. This wasn't some mass produced mechan, this was the result of custom work and malicious intent.

"I am no vermin, nor am I a king," Damon said with gravitas, "What has you here?"

"Angor," the mechan said the name with such languid relish that it made Erica shudder involuntarily, "has seen fit to assign this operation to me. As his trusted aide, I will do all I can to see his vision through. Now, who is this lost soul you have with you?"

"My name is Erica," she announced before Damon could answer for her, "What in Mortemhiem's name are you?"

"I," the mechan said with a dramatic bow, "am The Black Apostle. I preach the Diezen word, tend to our flock, and destroy Alteans whenever I can. Since you're with the vermin lord, I have to make the disappointing assumption that you are with the Army?"

"I am."

"Then I cannot extend my usual offer to join us and must demonstrate our virtues upon you. Murder, for murder's sake."

Erica felt maiga focus into the Apostle's right hand as he brought it up and slashed the air in front of him with bladed fingers. They left swirling purple tears behind that grew and bled into one another. As the rent in the air grew, he thrust his left hand forward, palm outstretched, and the cultists gave a war cry and surged forth.

"Stay here!" Damon ordered as he ran forth to meet the cultists.

Erica could feel maiga she could only describe as sickly form behind her, and when she turned to look she saw another swirling purple hole in the air growing. A shadow in the depths of the hole appeared and The Black Apostle strode forth from the purple hole, suddenly next to Erica.

"You cannot escape me," The Black Apostle said in a chillingly soft voice, "Accept your fate and I will make your death quick. I am not merciless or cruel, merely devoted."

He lunged at her with his right hand, bladed fingers held in a point. He towered over Erica, causing her no small amount of panic as she tried to parry him. Blades met, sparks flew, and Erica could feel that while she had redirected the Apostle's attack, it wasn't enough. The burning feeling of blades sinking into her left side was all she could focus on as her adrenaline spiked.

"Argh!" She exclaimed and jumped back, maiga powering the move as lightning arced between her feet and the ground as she put some distance between her and The Black Apostle. Blood speckled the ground as she passed.

The Apostle stood straight again, regarding the fresh blood on his talons and chuckling. "You will need to do far better than that to survive me, Damon's pet."

Erica put her hand to her side and pulled it away, confirming that there was indeed a good amount of blood there now. Her side screaming at her with a tide of cultists bearing down, she hated that he was right.