The Town of D'Alice (World-Betwixt) - Barionheim
The Goldwalk; Outside of D'Alice - 7:20 AM, Wednesday
Arc: 1 - Bloody August

...The Hand Of A Righteous Man
The disguised Seraph entered the world with a silent misty entrance with the woman still on his arm. The scene was distantly familiar, a scene from another life. He could not even remember walking The Goldway to The Academy from D'Alice. In fact he had completely forgotten about the trek, how long had it been? A millennium? How many live times ago? The boy that had walked this path was not the man that stood upon it now... nothing was the same. He ran his hand through his waist long black hair, and how he had changed yet again... He was hardly recognizable to the man he had even been perhaps only minutes ago, he wondered just how much he would continue to change? He wondered if anyone left from those days past could still recognize him... Rymont said The Black Magister, Arch-Magister Marries had lived that night when everything went wrong. His gaze lazily drifted off into the distance, though the tree limbs blocked the view, he could see it in his mind, the mountains that surrounded The Forest of Shattered Ash. The memories were not pleasant, indeed they were painful, remembering all those he had left in The Grand Hall to be butchered by the wicked claws of the horrid monsters that descended upon them...he fled, bloodied and shaken through the forest, where time became just a word, just a thought from a life long ago. His mind drifted back to those years... those days he spent in the forest learning to refine his craft of forgework, a foundational principle to the Bolt-Magisters. A practice he refined not in The Academy, but with Heather, the strong and caring woman who lived in that strange forest...He was so close now, perhaps now was as good a time as ever to visit Hen again, he remembered the ferocity of her Mistforged Steel, his mind recalled some distant memory... a sharp pain in his left arm. Talon.

He shook his head, he couldn't remember clearly, why that name sounded so familiar... only the pain, then nothing. His vision stretched out around himself. Many Magisters, young and old... He begun to fade with Rei when his gaze met the eyes of the little half-man. He blinked, then looked away, then looked back to where the Seraph had been as if he had seen something eerie, haunting, like a specter, and he knew why... Gelpman, he was alive.

The little man, his old friend he'd left to die had survived... and now here he stood once again. Senior Magister Gelpman... He wore three-badges across his left shoulder with a silver and golden rope hanging from his shoulder. He hadn't seen the halfling since the tragedy of their Graduation Ceremony. He had come a long way. The Senior Magister begun talking again to his taller counterparts, he had three Stewards now, one of them a youthful young man with keen eyes. Gelpman carried a very familiar article in hand, he knew it well.. or so he thought. The BlackStaff he thought the little man carried, was not a BlackStaff at all.... Though it was branded with the BlackStaff Focus Sigils, he noticed the weapon was made of both wood and twisted metal wound into a single article, a single rod. Looking at the top he could see the Array tactfully tucked into its ends, work that was impossible for anyone... except Rymont... He couldn't believe it, the little man talked about his Aperion Caliber design frequently in their studies, a fantasy from days long past. They both studied the same arts and forgework of ancient magical devices and many of the technological achievements Rymont had created as an after-thought. Now... all these years later, he was looking at the physical manifestation of all their studies together. A decade and more of work, and what had he to show for it? They had studied and refined The Warp Axe together, but he could not have managed to complete the thing without his help. He was a genius... a gift he believed was lost from the world. He couldn't bring himself to speak to him.. what would he say? Nothing good, he imagined. They were both thought to have died that night, but it was he who abandoned the rest of them. He grit his teeth, he wondered how many enemies here he had made for that night. He wondered how many lived... what grudges remained... did they blame him? He didn't know. He could not know...

He spotted the group. They didn't stand out here as much as they did within The City of White. He looked at the fanciful Caliber on his Sister's hip. Unquestionably Rymont's work, but he had seen the design before. He couldn't place where... Still it was the most sophisticated looking Caliber he had ever seen with strange double barrel made of seemingly magnetically bound and shaped metal plates. He would never be able to meet the level of masterful craftsmenship - he doubted anyone could, even Gelpman, but he could come damn close. Maybe closer then anyone...

The group around the Senior Magister stopped in front of the Bolt Vendor looking at his wares with great enthusiasm. He wondered how he would be able to face the little man again... would it be as enemies? The thought of facing a Senior Forge-Magister was not a pleasant one. No doubt he'd be on par with any High Slayer... There seemed to be no winning. Perhaps he wouldn't recognize him the way he looked now. Perhaps he should use another name here... least he find other survivors.