Althea’s POV... Sowhere far across the Stagnant Sea...
The mana rain had fallen again two days ago, and the land was still absorbing it. That was how it always was in the days following a fall.
The grasses along the open ground between the fortress and the tree line grew visibly taller, the soil darkened and stead faintly in the mornings as the golden mana seeped deep into the earth. And the beasts that had survived the convergence chaos that always accompanied a mana rain had retreated back into the forest carrying more power in their bodies than they had arrived with.
They would erge again on the third day, drawn by the next accumulation building in the chaotic sky overhead, and the whole cycle would repeat.
The sky above this region was the cause of it all. Althea herself had taken several days to get accustod to the weirdness of it when she first arrived. The land below was stable and recognizable enough, with familiar terrain and the general quality of existing space that felt more like the outside world than anything else she had encountered since entering this world tear.
But directly overhead, beginning at an altitude she estimated at roughly three kiloters and extending upward, the space was extrely chaotic in a way that she was firmly certain was not a natural occurrence. All the mana that existed naturally on the lands below was being suctioned upward into that chaotic canopy, drawn into it and compressed and swirled in its turbulent spatial currents. And then at intervals — every three days, unfailingly — the accumulated weight of it beca too great for the chaotic sky to hold, and it fell as literal rain. Mana made corporeal.
Every three days this mana rain fell in sheets across the wide expanse of land below, soaking into everything it touched, and for the hours of a fall the entire region looked like sothing from a fever dream, the world rendered in gold from sky to ground.
The first ti she had seen it she had stood in the open and let it fall on her skin and said nothing for a long ti.
She understood imdiately why every faction within traveling distance had converged on this place. For Arcanists, the mana rain was an acceleration of developnt that the outside world simply could not replicate. Elental Arcanists especially, whose growth was most directly tied to mana density, would gain in a single fall what might take months of careful cultivation under normal conditions.
For beast-nurturers it was a windfall that made their tad beasts stronger far faster than any controlled training regin. For artifact-nurturers whose weapons and tools were mana-dependent, the mana rain was a recharging and strengthening source unlike any other. Even the wild magical beasts within this world tear were drawn to it in flocks.
And for Ossuarists, the logic was one step removed but equally compelling. More mana ant stronger Arcanists and more powerful beasts, and stronger Arcanists and more powerful beasts converging in the sa place and fighting over it ant deaths, and deaths ant soul masses of a quality that the outside world’s Ossuary schools spent years cultivating in controlled conditions.
It was, by any asure, one of the most valuable locations anyone had found inside the world tear so far.
And right at the center of this pri location stood The Fortress.
From a distance it looked like a mountain. Up close, it was unmistakably the calcified remains of a titan beast that had road these lands at so point in the deep past. Four-legged, from what the surviving bone structure suggested, though the full shape had been distorted by thousands of years of mineralization.
The bones had compressed into sothing denser and harder than any quarried stone, and the ribcage alone ford an enclosed central courtyard large enough for several hundred people. The spine ran as a continuous elevated ridge along the back of the structure, providing clear sightlines in every direction. The skull had beco the command chamber.
The titan must have claid this spot as its own long before it died, because the densest concentration of the mana rain fell directly over the center of the remains every single fall without deviation.
Holding this fortress ant holding the epicenter of the entire region. It was a cistern for the very thing everyone was fighting over, and whoever controlled it had a decisive advantage over every other faction in the area.
Althea’s journey after escaping the Husk leader in that prehistoric forest had led her here after more than a week of travel through increasingly stable terrain. When she arrived, it was an Arcanist faction that controlled the fortress. She had found scattered groups of Ossuarists in the surrounding area — Adepts from various schools across the outside world, ranging from Grade 3 at the lowest to Grade 1 at the peak of the Adept rank, and two Caretaker-ranked Ossuarists who had already begun gathering the others under their leadership. One Caretaker was from Feraxia, where the world tear had originally spawned. The other was from chanus.
That was one consistent benefit of the Ossuary across all kingdoms and schools — the hierarchy and protocols were the sa everywhere. So when Caretaker Lance from chanus and Caretaker Osei from Feraxia asserted their authority, the Adepts understood and fell in line without the useless strong-headedness and division that would have consud Arcanist factions in the sa position. Althea had gathered under their leadership along with the rest.
The Arcanists, by contrast, were deeply fractured. Multiple factions had arrived at the mana rain epicenter and each wanted control of the fortress for themselves. The faction that held it at the ti had the advantage of an established position but faced the combined resentnt of every other group that wanted what they had.
Tensions built over several days... until they finally broke. Three Arcanist factions launched simultaneous attacks on the controlling faction, and at the cost of many lives they eventually breached the fortress walls.
But the mont they broke through, the pretense of coalition collapsed entirely. Each faction turned on the others, fighting over the prize they had just won together, and the courtyard inside the titan’s ribcage beca a massacre ground as families and groups that had fought side by side monts earlier tore into each other.
That was when the Ossuarists struck.
In one coordinated sweep, Caretakers Lance and Osei led their gathered forces through the chaos and routed everyone. The Arcanists who survived fled with nothing, and the Ossuarists had held the fortress from that day to this one.
That had been five weeks ago.
From the shoulder blade balcony, Althea could see the tree line clearly. The Arcanist flags were still there, distant smudges of color against the dark mass of the forest at the horizon, and there were more of them than there had been three days ago. She had been counting since the second week.
The Arcanists were consolidating.
After the rout, the surviving factions had scattered and spent the first two weeks fractured and directionless. But the mana rain pulled them back toward the epicenter every three days regardless of their political disagreents, and every cycle they watched the Ossuarists sitting at the center of the densest fall while they stood at the edges was another cycle eroding whatever was left of their mutual resentnt.
Soone among them had started spreading word to groups further out, calling in powers that had not been part of the original conflict. The flag count told the story clearly. They were building toward a single coordinated push, and they were taking the ti to do it properly.
Just as Althea was ruminating over the past events and analyzing the Arcanist numbers, a voice suddenly spoke from behind, breaking her out of her thoughts.
"Caretake— sorry. Commander Althea. Caretaker Lance has asked for you—"
"June," Althea said, cutting the speaker off without turning around. Her voice was soft. "How many tis have I asked you not to call Caretaker?"
The girl, June, went silent for a beat, before offering a ek apology. Then, barely under her breath but clearly audible, she muttered:
"You’re practically a Caretaker anyway... All you need is the official assessnt..."
Althea heard it and a small smile crossed her face before she shook her head, looking back out toward the tree line.
"The Arcanist numbers," she said. "Look at the flags. They have grown again since yesterday. They are consolidating toward a single coordinated push, and they are pulling in groups from further out to do it."
June ca to stand beside her at the balcony edge and looked out at the distant flags with considerably less concern than the situation warranted. She was one of the younger Adepts in the fortress, Grade 2, with two soul masses she used with a precision that suggested she would be considerably more dangerous in a few years. She had attached herself to Althea soti in the third week and had not detached since.
"Impossible," June said flatly.
Althea turned to look at her, a teasing quality entering her expression. "Wasn’t it you who ca to find every single day for the past three days? Talking about the Arcanist numbers growing, saying we couldn’t simply sit here and wait, pushing to push Caretaker Lance for a preemptive strike before they could consolidate?"
A flash of embarrassnt colored June’s face for a mont before shifting into outright smugness. "That was yesterday," she said. "Things are different now..."
Althea raised a brow.
"That’s what Caretaker Lance is calling you for," June said, smiling confidently.
"A Preceptor-ranked Ossuarist has arrived at the fortress."
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