The journey to Ferros Keep was a caravan of tension. Factor Jaxom led the procession from Hearth's Watch, his personal guard and a cart carrying the season's silver tribute. Damien walked slightly apart, a solitary figure in his Void-Weave clothes, the sealed box containing the Core strapped to his back. His materialized Avatar walked invisibly beside him, a presence only he could feel, its senses scanning the surrounding pine forests and rocky outcrops.
Kael and the two Tower disciples followed at a distance, a predatory shadow. Their agreement was a fragile truce.
[Environmental Scan: Multiple hostile life-signs in surrounding terrain. Forest Troll pack (x4), Scale-Fang Panther (solitary), unidentified humanoid trackers (x3) following at 500-meter range.]
[Analysis: Trackers are likely scouts for other Vale lords or independent agents drawn by rumor of the 'Frost-Warden'. Threat level: Low. Opportunity: Demonstrate capability.]
Damien didn't break stride. As the caravan entered a narrow, rock-strewn pass, the troll pack attacked. They burst from the tree line, four hulking brutes with crude stone weapons, their auras a messy green.
The guards shouted, forming a ragged line. Jaxom drew his sword, his silver aura flaring.
Damien didn't join their line. He pointed a finger.
His Avatar, invisible to all but the most spiritually sensitive, flashed forward. To the guards, it looked like Damien had simply gestured, and the lead troll—a eight-foot-tall monster—suddenly froze. Not just iced over. Its charge turned into a rigid, mid-stride statue. Then, with a sound like a mountain cracking, it shattered into a thousand pieces of frozen flesh and bone.
The other trolls skidded to a halt, confused. Damien's Avatar was already among them. It moved like a blizzard given form—a flicker of blue light, a touch of a glacial hand on a troll's knee. The limb flash-froze and snapped off. Another touch to a skull, and the head became a frozen melon crushed by an unseen force.
In six seconds, it was over. Four trolls were reduced to frozen gore and trembling survivors who fled whimpering into the woods.
The Avatar returned to Damien's side, dematerializing. He hadn't moved from his spot.
The guards stared, their weapons slack. Jaxom's face was a mask of conflicted awe and deep fear. Kael, watching from the rear, nodded slowly, a hunter appreciating a fine weapon.
No one called it strange. This was a manifestation ability. Rare, powerful, but within the known spectrum of cultivation arts. Some cultivators awakened telekinesis. Some could summon elemental beasts. He summoned a frost-ghost. The classification was comforting to them; it made him understandable, if terrifying.
"That," one guard whispered, "is a Frost-Specter Manifestation. My granddad told tales of a cultivator in the Ice-Reach who could do that."
The rumor solidified into a known, if rare, power. Damien's anonymity was gone, but his normalization had begun.
Two days later, Ferros Keep rose from the plains. It was not a elegant spire, but a brutal fist of dark granite, all sharp angles and sheer walls, built around and into a solitary, stark mountain. Banners bearing the Ferros sigil—a black iron gauntlet clutching a lightning bolt—snapped in the wind. The air thrummed with concentrated auras. Damien's Oculus lit up with a riot of data.
[Area Scan: Ferros Keep. Population: ~5,000. Cultivator density: High. Detected auras: 3rd Order (x2), Peak 2nd Order (x12), various 1st and 2nd Order.]
[Racial Distribution: Predominantly Human. Secondary: Dwarven craftsmen (identified by dense, earth-aligned auras in lower forges), Elven advisors (subtle, nature-aligned auras in central keep), minor demonic/beast-blood mercenaries.]
They passed through massive iron gates into a bustling lower bailey. It was a microcosm of the world. A group of Dwarves in rune-covered aprons argued over a wagonload of glowing ore. A lithe Elven woman in green silver robes observed the newcomers with detached interest. A hulking, tusked Ogre mercenary loaded casks onto a cart, its aura a simple, brute-force red. In the shadows, Damien's Soul-Sight caught the flicker of a Vampire's cold, predatory stillness watching from an upper window.
This was the stage.
Jaxom hurried off to present himself and the tribute to the keep's stewards, eager to distance himself from Damien. Kael approached.
"Your demonstration was adequate," the Tower disciple said, his eyes fixed on the box on Damien's back. "The Conclave's opening ceremony is at dusk in the Grand Hall. All lords, champions, and 'notable talents' are presented. You will give the Core to me then, publicly. Do not attempt any cleverness."
"Or you'll peel the frost from my soul," Damien recited tonelessly. "I recall."
Kael smirked and walked away, blending into the crowd.
Damien was assigned a small stone cell in the visitors' barracks. It was bare, cold, perfect. He set the box down and sat on the pallet, reaching out with his senses.
His Oculus and Avatar's senses combined to create a detailed, three-dimensional map of the keep's immediate area. He could feel the two 3rd Order auras—one a deep, volcanic presence deep under the keep (Lord Ferros himself, likely), and another a sharp, cutting wind-signature high in a tower (the Master of Arms, perhaps). He traced the flows of power, the alliances forming in whispered conversations in hallways, the secret meetings in shadowed corners.
He was a spider at the center of a web of light and sound only he could see.
[New Directive Generated: 'Navigate the Conclave'.]
[Primary Goal: Establish 'Frost-Warden' as a valuable, neutral asset to multiple factions. Secure information on 'Heavenly Flames of Revelation' location.]
[Secondary Goal: Identify and neutralize immediate threats from rival lords or Tower overreach.]
Dusk approached. The time for shadows was over. Now, he had to step into the light.