That initial meeting broke up not long after. This early after the event which had started to become known as the ‘Skyfall’, there just wasn’t enough known yet. Wenzel, I think, realized that and dismissed us.

  But not before pulling Isolde and me aside for a private conversation.

  “Research must begin immediately into this matter,” He murmured to the two of us, as the meeting attendees streamed out. I noticed that the High Lords still among the living had stayed behind and were having their own huddle, speaking with Oskar. Meanwhile, Maria, Renauld, and the handful of Polaris officers they’d brought with them were waiting for us politely near the doors.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked him lowly.

  “The origins of this catastrophe do not matter currently,” Wenzel said, a grimace on his lean features. “Such things can be discovered in time. No, we must immediately begin work on how to counter the ongoing effects. We must act in the belief that this poison in the air will not begin to dissipate any time soon. I do not have to describe to you two, just how…apocalyptically bad it is, that the very atmosphere outside of the wards is deadly to us, do I?”

  “No, cousin,” Isolde whispered, shaking her head. “You…do not. There’s so much to do, so much we have to find out. How has this affected wildlife, for one? The streams and the forests? Will our hunters find nothing but carrion if they dare to venture beyond the wards? Will they find carpets of still fish in the water, while the rotting carcasses of fallen birds and deer litter the fields?”

  I grimaced at that observation. Things had been so hectic that I hadn’t even considered the ecosystem. “We’ll find out,” I promised. “I’ll…speak to the Academy about combining our forces. I have some ideas about a direction, at least, that we can look to for protection outside the wards. Maybe together we can devise something. But you have to promise me something first, Wenzel.”

  The Regent nodded sharply. “Name it.”

  “You have to try and figure out where the rest of our forces are,” I said, pinning him with a serious look. “Whatever horde is out there doesn’t matter anymore. What does is the safety of every man, woman, and child within these walls. And we have no roadmap for things to come. It could be...we'll need them before long.”

  A mirthless, thin smile stole across Wenzel’s lips. “I am ahead of you there, Hart. What was not mentioned is that a number of different soldiers have already volunteered for a…likely one-way trip. They shall be departing soon in search of the expeditionary force, with all the medical supplies we can spare for them. Hopefully…these brave souls will succeed, while their supplies last. Now, be off with the both of you. There’s work to be done.”

  The three of us exchanged sharp nods and departed. Isolde and the others were going back to the Bastion, while I…

  Was instead making for the Academy.

  Wenzel was right. There was work that needed to get started now.

  …………………………..

  When I touched down alone at the Academy, I found the streets and lanes of the district hauntingly empty. Fade had recovered enough emotionally that he was no longer frightened to be alone, so he wasn’t with me. The Spirit Wolf had departed Kyronkar on his own, heading for the Bastion so he could personally check up on Lina. The two of them were a bit…attached, these days. But I was thankful for it. What I wasn’t, though…

  Was the state of the Academy.

  The normally busy avenues of this section of the middle layer were deserted, in a complete inverse of what I would have expected. It was, nominally, nighttime by now. In any normal day, the world would have darkened enough to allow the magical streetlamps to come to life. Under them, the many, many students of the Academy would have been dining and thriving in the unique environment of Herztal’s only institution of higher instruction.

  But no.

  Something I was distressed to learn was that the sky only darkened marginally, with the passing of time. The thick grey clouds strewn through with disturbing, frozen magenta lightning didn’t care about the passing of celestial bodies, Great Spirit or otherwise. The sky was stolen from us, and we were in a state of perpetual twilight.

  That was going to cause even more problems.

  I tried not to focus on it, instead beelining for the towering main building at the center of campus. There, I was surprised to find a semi-familiar face standing before the closed doors, arms crossed grimly over his broad chest.

  Kargath Gravelfoot, groundskeeper here at the Academy of Mystic Arts, and sometimes Professor as well.

  Good. I was hoping I could ask him something.

  I slowed my jog as I reached his statue-like vigil, but I was beaten to a punch when I opened my mouth.

  “Hart,” Kargath grunted at me, sounding very much like another dwarf I knew. “Good. The faculty is over in lecture hall three. They told me that if ye came around, ye should join them. For everyone else, they’re gettin’ told to go hunker down until a decision is made. Ye should get goin’.”

  I paused and nodded. “Yes, I was hoping to speak to everyone. But first…Kargath. Do you know where your nephew and Azarus went?”

  The older dwarf’s eyes tightened at my words. “They didn’t tell ye?”

  I shook my head. “No, Azarus was…unexpectedly cagey about it, when I asked. He just said that he needed to go check on something up north, and that he’d be gone for a few weeks. I only barely know uh…Torgir went with him as a favor, because he stopped by the lighthouse before they left.”

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  “…I ain’t know much more than ye do, Hart,” Kargath told me, tension in his voice. “Me brat of a nephew just told me somethin’ about a mountain. I don’t know which one. Never took the time to learn the Herztal ones. Silver somethin’ or other.”

  “Silver…” My brow furrowed. “Silvercrest?”

  That was the mountain and accompanying city we’d visited on the way to Helstein, way back before the Construct War had really kicked back off once again. There on the slopes and hills surrounding the snow covered peak, I had designed and forged my very first prosthetic arm. Just the reminder of that place was enough for a tingle to start in my stump.

  What the hell was Azarus doing there? There was barely anything in Silvercrest other than the Mithril mines.

  “That asshole,” I said with a growing scowl of mingled frustration and worry. “He lied to me. It’s a couple of weeks' journey to Silvercrest alone, not the entire trip. That’s not even counting the return. They might have only just reached the city when…” I trailed off.

  I think both Kargath and I knew what I was referring to. “I hope they did,” I heard him say under his breath. Abruptly, the older dwarf shook his head like a dog before scowling at me. Still, the expression had no real heat to it. “Enough gabbin’. I don’t think everyone else is intendin’ to stick around long. Work to do.”

  I nodded and said goodbye before opening and walking through the main doors of the building. Once there, I was struck by just how eerie the halls were. Even at night, when classes were long over, I don’t believe I’d ever actually seen it so quiet and lifeless. There was always someone studying away in the halls, catching up on an assignment, or simply…hanging out with a friend.

  The Academy wasn’t meant to be this dour.

  I took a deep breath and ignored it. Instead, I walked a well-trodden path toward lecture room three. It was very familiar to me, after all, considering my Aetherology course was held there every Thursday. In the silence and darkness of the halls, I heard the low murmur of the faculty before I reached them. The cloudy glass of the window glowed dimly with lamplight, casting a dim illumination out into the hall.

  Inexplicably…the sight of it filled me with a deep, deep weariness, and my shoulders slumped.

  I…just…I was so tired of today. So much had happened in the space of maybe…ten hours? It might have only been ten hours now since the Skyfall had happened. It felt like forever, for all the time I’d spent talking about it. Frantic dashes through the city, moving from one meeting to another, often fraught with intense panic and worry. Long, dour conversations about just how fucked everything was right now, maybe on the entire planet. The grim knowledge that thousands of people, some of whom I had likely known, were now dead from some kind of freak…event? Catastrophe?

  Attack?

  And now, here I was, about to voluntarily walk into another one of those meetings. I was supposed to wrangle the entire gaggle of strong personalities that made up the faculty of the Academy of Mystic Arts, by word of the Regent, so we could shield those who remained from further harm. I didn’t even have official authority over the Academy. Just because I was Grey’s apprentice, that didn’t mean they were obliged to listen to me. But…

  But.

  I suppose I had signed up for things like this when I had formed the Polaris Reach and taken on the mantle of Marshal. The goal had been to help people. To be a beacon of hope to the downtrodden in times of turmoil. Frankly, I couldn’t think of much that was more tumultuous than this. I hadn’t expected a position of such leadership to be so…grinding, though. Not even in regard to the workload. It was the emotional toll of it all.

  Still.

  I just had to…suck it up, I suppose.

  Herztal, and through it Vereden, was depending on me. On us.

  Duty called.

  I stirred from where I had been standing quietly in the hallway before the door to lecture room 3, rolled my shoulders…

  And opened the door.

  ……………………………………

  In normal circumstances, I think Renauld would have been surprised at my appearance later that ‘night’, as I stumbled into my office in the Bastion. After all, I didn’t typically come in at around two in the morning, according to my wristwatch. But I suppose these were strange times.

  However, neither of us was really surprised to see the other. Renauld, I think, because he was just too out of it to care. No doubt he’d been Healing all day since the Skyfall, and if I knew him at all, he was intending to get back to it later. He was exhausted to the point that the furry bastard had broken into my personal coffee stores in my office and had brewed up a pot. He must have done it in the brief period of time between when Bait had finally dispelled himself and the meeting with the faculty had ended.

  Thankfully, he’d made enough for everyone. After all, there was more than just me and him currently gathered in my office. Nobody else from the Order, of course. Maria had outright passed out about an hour ago, my Core ring told me, while Bleddyn and Isolde had returned to Kyronkar. Aveline and Rachel had thankfully fallen asleep with Fade in my private quarters here in the Bastion. The only people with me were Renauld and…

  A tagalong from the Academy.

  I sipped at my cup of boilingly hot dark bean juice with closed eyes, while across from me, I heard Renauld slurp loudly on his own. I’d gotten the Gnoll hooked onto the beverage from long hours spent idling together, in the dead of night. Vaguely, I think I was supposed to feel guilty for giving someone else a caffeine addiction.

  But, eh.

  One more sin on the pile.

  I opened my eyes just in time to watch as Simeon Veyl tentatively sipped on his own small cup of joe and then grimaced at the bitterness. Still, he was a polite enough person to continue nursing the drink. Normally, I would have found that amusing.

  Now, I was just too tired to do more than curl my lip slightly.

  I was surprised when Renauld stirred in his chair to ask me a question. I had honestly thought he might have fallen asleep sitting up. “What’s the news, Nate?” He asked me quietly, eyes sluggishly sliding over to Simeon with a mote of curiosity in them.

  I let out a long, drawn-out sigh. “Class is cancelled for the rest of the semester,” I said dully, to the Gnolls' complete unsurprise. “Not that it matters. We were only a couple weeks away from the end in the first place. Everyone is getting a passing grade, while the Academy is shifting back to a war footing for the duration of the emergency.”

  “Yay.” Renauld droned. “More war. Just what I wanted.”

  I hummed and nodded. “The faculty has agreed to shift their efforts to working on…things,” I said, waving a limp hand. “Bent on researching the ‘phenomenon’, as they called it. I’ll be heading a task force for creating and producing protection from it. I…might the only person on Vereden at all familiar with the concept beyond what’s going on in the world. Even if…I don’t think it’s a complete match.” I finished quietly, half speaking to myself.

  Wenzel's words earlier today about how we didn't know if the fallout was going to fade had stuck with me. It was a frankly horrifying idea, of course.

  But you had to plan for the worst, and pray that the best didn't kill you.

  “Makes sense,” Renauld said, matching my tone. He jerked his chin toward Simeon, who startled under the attention. “And him?”

  Simeon answered for himself. “Ah…with class c-cancelled, my…suggested r-resignation was accelerated. I am…no longer part of the Academy f-faculty. Nathan invited me to join the Order, and…here…I…am?”

  I reached over to pat the man on the shoulder, careful not to spill my coffee. “Welcome to the team, Simeon,” I said, with an attempt at a smile. It fell a moment later. “I’m going to work you to the bone. Ssssory about that.”

  The former Professor just sighed. “Nothing n-new, then.”