Along an old and misty path, a large caravan full of valuable merchandise continued to roll West.
Guarding that caravan were a strange group of individuals along with several merchants and several more guards donned in the Solis sigil.
One of those guards had once been slave, walking furthest from the group alongside his two companions, one of which had been the man who had freed him from his horrid fate.
Justin grinned, lighting the edge of a gold wrapped cigarette.
As he puffed a large cloud of smoke, Brody- a mercenary for hire, that Jacob and Justin had agreed on purchasing for this specific trip, grimaced at the horrid smell of the over the top nicotine that Justin had insisted on purchasing with their hard-earned money from previous expeditions.
"That cannot be a good habit..." Brody groaned, smacking away the smoke that may or may not have been blown specifically into his direction.
Justin only chuckled. "Relax... Take a hit good friend... Murdering people for money must get awfully tiresome!"
Jacob frowned at his ally. "You shouldn't coerce people into your bad habits Jpice..." Jpice, being the nickname that Jacob had begun to call him after their siege on Equus.
Although Jacob had thought that his life had never really began, and he doubted he would ever truly have one. He had no big ambitions or dreams ahead of him, yet had found comfort in these meaningless tasks for simple coin, even though they were backed by Solis which was the lead kingdom of one of the most active Quadrants on the map.
Yet, he knew that Justin had no reason to be doing anything grand with his time, and certainly didn't need the money in any way.
Either way, they had somehow ended up doing most of their quests through the Solis guild lobby, which normally since their group was no-where near large enough for actual guild-work, they had been approved as a squad because of their assistance in the retaking of both the city and the academy, giving them access to any quests of their choice as long as a split of the profit was returned to Zephyr, who had taken command as King of Solis...
"That greedy bastard, Zephyr... Even though I never agreed with helping in his political affairs, he has tricked me into aiding in Solis trades..." Justin groaned with a roll of his eyes as if reading Jacob's mind.
Mind...
Mind...
Jacob froze in his tracks.
Something was trying to enter his mind.
He groaned, grabbing the temples of his head in pain.
"Stop..." He growled at whatever entity was demanding entrance into his command center.
The now-foggy voice of Justin was quietly yelling from somewhere distant, even though only a moment ago he had been standing just alongside him...
The next thing Jacob knew... He was standing in a foggy forest...
"Do forgive me... I didn't intend on forcing you into a meeting like this..." The seer-appearing woman he had met only once, and never had truly spoken with, waved at him from behind one of the dream-like trees.
Jacob looked down at his body... Eyes-widening once he realized that not only had his clothes vanished, and his body had been covered in a veil of mist; however, it was the lack of enchanted shackles around his ankles.
"Come..." She requested, the silk-veil covering her eyes dancing gently in the breeze of this lucid world.
"I- I cannot..." He said in a panic, dazed by the fact that his shackles had been removed.
She frowned, stepping closer to him instead.
She was also covered in a strange mist; however, it was the green glow from behind her veil that had caused his spine to freeze over.
"Stop!" He yelled, holding out a hand with a blitz of speed.
She stopped calmly, lowering her gaze towards his legs.
"So I see..." She said, stroking her chin, in clear thought.
"I'm sorry... But you shouldn't have taken me here... I cannot move without the runes that were placed on me..." He exclaimed with frantic and fragmented speech.
"No, you are more than capable of moving..." She said, unchanged by his clear pleas to remove him from this mental-scape.
He shook his head. "I don't understand... No- What do you not understand... You could die!" He yelled, feeling his heart begin to race, until...
She laughed, a calm and pleasant laugh, that still somehow scared him to his very core.
"No no... You cannot kill me, there is only one man in this world capable of taking life... That I know of at least... And he is not you..." She said with satisfaction, a smile creeping onto her face from what could have only been amusement.
Then it all began to click together like a puzzle, why the leader of Unity had been so insistent on having the dungeons of Rider cleared before the siege ever truly began.
"Chase...? Of House Phoenix...?" He responded after a moment of thought.
She nodded. "Good, you aren't a brick."
Jacob frowned, then shook his head with realization.
"But he was killed...?" The statement, almost turning into a question at her obliviousness to that fact.
"He will be... Which is why I need you and as many trustable companions as you can gather to prepare a rescue mission... Head to the ruins of Olympia... There you will find an old cellar in the alley behind the largest building... Descend into it, and there you will find a hole that leads to the bottom chamber... You must get to them before they can reach that chamber..." She said, the pace of her voice rising as her words continued.
"Wait!" Jacob requested.
She stopped, tilting her head in confusion.
"Unity has like twelve members... What the hell could they possibly need saving from???" He asked in utter confusion.
The girl almost responded but stopped herself before she could reveal too much.
"Let us hope that you never need to know... Now, we don't have much time left. Gather a small group of capable fighters and do as I ask please... For the sake of the entire world..."
She smiled as her body began to distort and fade away.
"Wait! One more thing!" He called out, stepping forward on instinct, causing the entire ground to shake and tremble from the velocity at which he had moved.
"May I ask your name?" He continued, ignoring the movement of his own body that would have normally broken every born inside of it.
She froze, causing the entire world to freeze along with it.
"I thought you would know... You can just call me Ivy... Ivy of no House..."
Then the dream faded away, and Jacob awoke with an image of the treetops above, and several birds flying over.
But also three faces looking down at him with concern.
"Thank the gods it worked... How much do I owe you?" Justin sighed, asking a hooded figure who's face refused to be revealed even with Jacob's vision glaring right at it.
His voice was distorted. "Nothing. Consider it payment for tagging along with you all."
Jacob cleared his throat, pulling himself together.
"Speaking of going somewhere..." Justin almost immediately rolled his eyes at what Jacob had just said.
"Do you think we can take a detour?"
...
Skylar crept through a small cave that stood just outside of the walls of the inner-ruins of Olympia, a bag rattling at his side as whispers echoed throughout the stone hall.
"I really hope she's right..." He growled, reaching into the bag and closing his eyes as he did so.
He remembered what Star had said, just before he had left the shady tavern.
'I have a gift... It will aid you in your task to slaughter the heir of the kingdom... I was able to secure it from the ruins of Equus... But! Whatever you do... Do not look at it at all, so you must close your eyes when you put it on.
"What the hell could I possibly need to close my eyes for?" He complained opening his eyes the instant his fingers met whatever had been in the bag.
It felt grotesque and cold, like the skin of snake had hardened into a mask...
Upon pulling it out, he realized why he had been told to keep his eyes closed.
Fear ran through his body as a warm liquid began to drip from his nose.
It was a face...
He felt his stomach threaten to release his dinner, as his face scrunched into disgust.
It was a face... No, skin that had been turned into a mask...
It was...
No no no no no...
Disbelief began to clatter against every side of his brain, protesting against putting something as disturbing as this upon his own flesh...
'No...'
It was not just any face...
It was the face of Prometheus... Something that should have been impossible...
Everyone and their mother knew who Prometheus was...
The lesser god of fire...
Had been killed and skinned... With his so-called skin being shaped into a mask by Star herself...
And yet...
A sick greed began to overtake Skylar...
His body moved on its own... Placing the mask upon his own head, allowing the cold feeling to overtake his soul...