Vescrutia: Legacy

The searing winds of Zeiks assault were still echoing through the ruined coast when Zeik surged forward, his Animus blazing in his grip — a weapon wrought from the endless depth of his spirit. Beside him, Zero’s glowing silhouette became a streak of light, his Cordo cutting the air with a radiance born of absolute will.
And Zeik matched him.

Their feet struck the shattered ground in unison, the air around them warping from the kinetic burst of their combined sprint. Zeik’s stance shifted naturally — effortlessly — falling into the Obius Paryi movements he himself had taught Zero long ago, their bodies moving in perfect synchronization. Each breath, each heartbeat, each tilt of their weapons mirrored one another, two arcs of light and spirit weaving across the battlefield.

Behind Zeik, a featureless, humanoid shadow burned into existence — the Spirit of Fire— mimicking every motion he made with solemn grace. Where Zeik’s Animus flared with golden-blue intensity, the Spirit shimmered in ethereal fire, its edges smoldering like the ghost of a dying star.

As Zeik coiled his body for his strike, time seemed to slow.
For a heartbeat, memory pierced him —
Arcturus.

He could see it again, clearer than ever: the grand spires shattering, the marble plazas smeared with blood and ash, the Horsemen’s corruption bleeding across everything they fought for. He remembered his hesitation — that fraction of a second too slow, the misjudged swing — the hundreds who perished because he wasn’t fast enough. Strong enough.
The crushing shame wrapped itself around his soul even now.

Not this time. Paryi, First slash

Roaring against the past, Zeik hurled himself into the slash, every ounce of regret, sorrow, and burning resolve pouring through the Animus. His spirit howled through the weapon, and the Spirit of Fire answered.

The strike carved outward like a falling star, a crescent wave of golden-blue fire exploding from the blade, trailing a comet’s tail of devastation.
The flames ripped the air itself apart, folding and twisting the horizon into a kaleidoscope of ghostlight. The slash tore a trench through the battlefield — glassing the earth beneath into shining black rivers of Ash — and where the flames touched, the Horseman’s corruption recoiled and burned away, as if the fire remembered the enemy.

The fire lashed around Zero like a crown, yet did not harm him — cool to his touch, parting around him like an old friend — while anything touched by the enemy’s foulness ignited in a blaze, a devouring blaze.

Their opponent, already battered and pressed by Zero’s earlier assault, now faced a dual storm:
The synchronized Obius Paryi, perfectly mirrored in light and spirit, and the wrath of a man who had once fallen — but would never fall again.

His eyes pierced through blaze, glaring deep below the Shattered and scorched earth beneath them, while the Spirit of Fire’s echo still cleaving through the smoldering air. "Down there...the girls controller? " his Animus flickering like a second sun in his grasp. He didn't need to look at Zero to know:
They had struck as one.

Time seemed to slow for Alphonse, processing the wealth of information and energy barreling toward his dear daughter’s body. The island at the End of the World fell under siege by the titanic energies that sought the secrets that lied beneath it. Zeik’s sweltering flames scorched the sand beneath them, and the combination of his and Zero’s attack ripped into the ground of the lone island in the Strait of Aeon. As the searing sand and frozen land peeled away from the foundation on which they stood, Alphonse’s eyes widened behind his visor. The moment he had been waiting for, searching for, preparing his family and the whole of Shangri La for, stood before the body of his dear beloved daughter.

Marvelous…

As Zero and Zeik’s attacks upheaved the elements themselves, carving into the island’s surface, they revealed a second layer hidden underneath the snow and sand. Alphonse’s heart almost skipped a beat when he saw through Terra’s eyes the field of grass beneath the frigid terrain he had locked away in the Strait of Aeon. Even he himself didn’t completely believe the legends that his ancestor, the Arceneaux Family Patriarch, Ulysses Arceneaux, told him that inspired the creation of Shangri La in the first place. Alphonse inherited the whole of the underground cities’ development and protection from his forefathers and that also involved the barrier that Zero and Zeik so expertly dispelled upon their arrival. Their curiosity led Alphonse to the true inspiration for the cities under his protection and confirmation of a prophecy that came to him in a dream almost a decade ago.

Alphonse found himself at the edge of a great cliff facing out into an expanse of total darkness. When he looked behind him, he found himself atop the capitol of his great underground community from the spire atop the Arc HQ. The building hung like a stalactite from the hollowed out cavern tens of miles wide to support the lives of the millions of people who called the underground city their home. Founded by Ulysses Arceneaux to provide those of his ilk with a more perfect society to thrive in, he crafted the cavern in his liking with his tribe striving to create a perfect union of nature and machine, providing the underground city with all the features of life on the surface. Fresh water, abundant flora, natural light and breezes he provided through the craft and cunning that the Arceneaux Corporation fostered through their research and development. Alphonse felt the breath, the will, the call of his forefathers in every heartbeat of his that pounded for his people, the underground city of Shangri La, and its people. The city and its bustling life stretched above his head while the ceiling of Shangri La, normally outfitted with a pair of orbs and dotted lights that simulated day and night sequences stretched beneath his perch.

He felt no unease with his world turned upside down, held no question for the blackened sea beneath him at the foot of the tower drowning the artificial sun and moon as they orbited the tower silently. His eyes rose to the inverted city above him, and with every beat of his heart, Shangri La pulsed with life and light. His mind was filled with the voice of his father form his early childhood, spilling stories of the blood of the Arceneaux that pumped through each prototype of Arc Tek that existed before him, their blood literally laying the foundation for Shangri La to be built.

His eyes gently fell to the black sea below them that completely swallowed every speck of light, the sun and moon that offered light to the city completely gone. The luminance provided by the windows of the building slowly disappeared floor by floor, climbing up the spire on which he stood until nothing was left but Alphonse standing on a plane of pitch black.

“Alphonse,” an almost unfamiliar voice said.

He craned his head to look around, but couldn’t find the source, almost as if it rang out directly in his eardrums.

“Alphonse,” the voice said again, this time with more force. “Do you fear?”

His eyes squinted as he processed the word spoken to him, as if fear hadn’t been washed from his heart ages ago. The Arceneaux Family of Shangri La wanted for nothing, had access to everything they could possibly want and provided that same level of abundance to the city they stewarded. On the face of Vescrutia, they were cemented as one of, if not the premier technological producer and weapons manufacturer at large and at scale, providing high powered arms to every continent on the planet for centuries. The Arceneaux name was respected or feared wherever he went and he, along with his family, provided pragmatic solutions for any conflict they came against, even if it meant utterly destroying the opposition. His calculated nature gave him a matter-of-fact outlook on every situation that was fostered by every Arceneaux Patriarch that came before him.

Fear was an emotion he forgot existed.

In that moment, as each detail ran through his mind, a being stepped toward him from the darkness, but opposite the plane he stood on. This hooded creature, humanoid in shape, stepping toward his reflection in the sea of darkness below took measured steps slowly, appearing maybe a hundred feet out and making its way forward.

“Fear?” Alphonse asked the voice, keeping his eyes locked on this creature steeped in darkness. “I have no use for it. It stifles innovation, curtails resolve.”

“An answer to be expected from one of your faculties.”

“My father would be ashamed should I falter in the face of any challenge.”

“Indeed…”

Silence filled the space between their voices.

“As the steward of a modern paradise, I can offer you the chance to do away with suffering for all people on Vescrutia. You only have to grasp the opportunity.”

“Eliminate suffering? I’ve already done that for the people of Shangri La, what use is the rest of the world to me?”

“As the Patriarch of Shangri La, your people have no need unmet. A man of your faculties has much to offer the realm beyond the limits of the dreams of your forefathers. Your particular skills can provide a new paradigm for the rest of the world with the power that I offer you. A timeless force that will swallow this world whether you choose to receive it or not.”

“And if I refuse?” Alphonse asked with a confident snark under his breath. Far be it for him to deprive the world of his gifts if the alternative is such grand power being offered to the unworthy. Opportunities like this came once in a lifetime maybe, and he felt it in his heart, his soul, pumping with the ferrous metal in his veins, the truth spoken from this ambiguous voice accompanied by a figure stepping toward him in the reflection of this expanse of darkness. Like with the shimmering lights above, the footstep of the reflected figure thumped through the black in sync with his heartbeat. The rhythmic rumbling was all Alphonse could hear for quite some time, watching this unknown being get closer and closer to him on the plane opposite his own.



A man of composure, Alphonse gently readjusted his cuffs and collar, leaning into the leverage granted by this unknown individual in their negotiations for the future of Vescrutia. His eyes didn’t leave the form of the inverted figure growing closer and closer, growing larger and larger as it approached him.



“Oh?” he said as the figure growing closer and closer to the soles of his feet was growing larger and larger in its approach. What he thought was a figure about his size was a towering behemoth of a hooded vagrant, cloak hiding any semblance of discernible features from view, but clearly growing to about twice the height of Alphonse himself and still quite a ways away. The confident smirk slowly faded from his face, his assessment of the situation changed slightly, as the individual appeared to be much larger than he thought…

And growing still…



Steady steps grew from a soft patter to thundering booms echoing Alphonse’s heartbeat.

The figure, growing from twice his height to towering above him in the darkened reflection stepped silently still, now a figure stories taller than he, just as tall as the Arceneaux HQ beneath Alphonse’s feet that reignited in pulsing lights as the figure approached it. Alphonse looked down at the shadowy body, fully cloaked and without any distinguishable features other than its massive size and foreboding presence, in silence. He felt himself within the shadow of the force, his heartbeat muffled in his own ears as he was dwarfed by the figures size opposite him in this darkened realm.

Alphonse looked back up to the utopia of his forefathers and was able to see one by one, in sync with his heartbeat, its shimmering lights snuffed out one by one by a crimson-grey smoke.

His heart skipped a beat.

And as Shangri La steadily became engulfed, every inhabited building, towering tree, sweeping valley, and rushing waterway swallowed in the corrosive crimson-grey smoke, Alphonse lowered his head to see the cloaked figure clad in darkness gently moving one of its arms to escape the mysterious shroud.

“It will not be offered again.”

The voice was right. A man with Alphonse’s faculties knew when a deal needed to be struck for the good of the business, for the good of his people, for his own good. Not begrudgingly, but with a slight taste of defeat on his tongue, Alphonse reached forward with his right hand into the darkness before him.

“An end to suffering it is, then,” he said, opening his hand to seal the deal with a handshake. The skyscraper sized figure beneath him reached a pale arm and hand from behind the thick cloak and phased it into the rippling form of the Arceneaux HQ at Alphonse’s feet. The same moment provided an ornate spear to Alphonse on his side of the plane, burning into existence in the same crimson-grey smoke, pulling the sweltering energy scouring his city from his sight and distilling it into a single spear, tall and thin with a deadly blade at either end. Its gunmetal rod was adorned with crimson carvings and ruby gems that dangled from its head on both sides. Shangri La above him and the Arceneaux HQ below him burnt into darkness as quickly as the spear was granted form in his hand, and the figure disappeared with them.

Alphonse felt a pulse of energy from this tool, but even with his Anthem’s magnetic abilities, he sensed no metal in the device he wielded. He stood alone in the darkness in stark silence with only the gentle chime of the spear’s adornments to fill the air. He held it up, rolled it in his hands, and turned to walk away from the empty plane.

Just as he turned, the hooded figure appeared in front of him.

“Indeed.”

And thrust its pale arm into his chest up to his forearm.

Alphonse gasped for air and woke up at the head of the table in the dining room completely alone, the sides of the tables lined with empty chairs, his lovely wife’s seat opposite him vacated, windows drawn, a single candle lit before him, and beneath it the same spear that appeared in his dream just a moment before.

He remembered that evening viscerally every night since then, even now a decade later, and its sequence played back in his mind immediately after the Nulgurian barrier fell. Though he was able to outfit it with his own workings to protect it from outsiders, the barrier itself preceded his intervention by centuries, recorded by some of Ulysses Arceneaux’s oldest journals, preceding Shangri La. Once it broke, like his intrinsic knowing of the truth spoken by the mysterious voice, he knew the pike had to be moved beyond its reaches to the place at the End of the World.

He knew.

In his knowing, Alphonse flicked his fingers in time with the devastating blades bearing down on his dear, beloved daughter and her body, moving faster than it naturally was capable of, tearing the sinew and bone from the Arc Tek woven into her form, arm and pike burning with the crimson-grey energy coursing through her, tossed the decorated spear directly below her into the fresh, glistening, glossy grass below them.



The sound of glass shattering beneath them.


It all came together in a cacophony of carnage exploding from beneath everyone’s feet. Zeik and Zero’s blades cut through a pillar of crimson-grey energy plowing straight up into the stratosphere, painting the early night sky a sinister shade of red. The energy escaping the End of the World shook Vescrutia down to its core, she screamed in pain as the Tarnished Pike exhumed a wound from her that should have been protected from prying eyes of mortals. She shuddered beneath their feet, the shoreline in the Strait of Aeon receded from the island as the upheaval of crimson-grey energy ripped the earth apart.

Terra’s body was out of their line of sight, scrawled with damage from their slashes just barely glanced off by the nature of the energy released by the Tarnished Pike. Alphonse, back in the grand ballroom in the presence of his family and dearly beloved wife, lost connection with Terra once the Pike found its mark. The visor he used to observe the scene cut to static visible to each of his children lining the table and his wife sitting opposite him, all staring with wide, worried eyes. Alphonse’s eyes were just as worried, unsure of exactly what happened or why the feed was cut. The Arc Tek Terra was outfitted with could transmit her vitals to him, but they went silent when the Pike hit its mark.

“Dear?” Gwendolyn asked quietly from across the table, voice just barely quivering.

Alphonse remained silent, flicking his fingers around, trying to recall the feed from Terra’s suit.

“Honey?” she asked again, this time with a more forceful tenor.

Alphonse flicked his fingers around, trying to remotely restart the suit to get a read on their dear, beloved daughter’s vitals.

“Alphonse!”

His face shot up to catch his dear, beloved wife’s eyes across the table from him, lined with the worried faces of all their dear, devoted children.

A single bead of sweat rolled down his brow as he and his dear, devoted wife locked eyes and he rested his busy fingers finally.

“Just… Go get her…” Gwendolyn said, taking a deep breath herself, sitting deeper into her seat with her heart pounding out of her chest.

Alphonse, almost in sync with her, took a deep breath for himself and ran his fingers through his hair, wiping his sweat away from his brow casually. “I’m on it.” He stood from his chair and turned to exit the dining room and head to Hangar Bay 2 to deploy to the End of the World Himself.

The Tarnished Pike pierced the veil beneath the surface of the island at the End of the World and unleashed the subterfuge on Vescrutia. The item sought after by Zero and Zeik was hidden beneath the arctic foundation for eons, protected by a Nulgurian barrier that only the most skilled mages could undo. Though Zero was wise in bringing Zeik to this hallowed place at the charge of the Lucis Acolytes, they would have done better to leave the place untouched, unsullied by the hands of man and the world would be a better place for it.

Alphonse Arceneaux, Patriarch of the Arceneaux Family and Shangri La, took up the mantle of Death's Herald and with it, ownership of the Tarnished Pike, a horrible tool able to bring an end to whatever it touched in the name of the Horsemen. Between the three of them, Zero, Zeik, and Alphonse, they had no way of knowing the true location of the Traversing Mirror, one of Vescrutia's oldest Vestiges and a leyline between the Seen and Unseen for wayward souls who departed the physical realm. The nature of Vescrutia provided space for a number of tools like it, but The Traversing Mirror, hidden beyond the Strait of Aeon, at the End of the World, facilitated a large amount of wayward souls searching for rest in the Unseen throughout Vescsrutia's history. They all found their way into a peaceful realm, one with lush greenery, peaceful creatures, a strifeless paradise where their worried spirits could finally find the peace they deserved.

In their quest to snuff out evolution on Vescrutia, Death set its sights on the Traversed Realm, visible beneath the surface of the End of the World, to enact its primary subterfuge and disrupt the natural flow of life energy on the planet.

With the Tarnished Pike thrust into the Traversing Mirror, its special properties infected the Vestige with the same corrosive, crimson-grey energy that devours Naten itself, afflicting the mirror and the entire realm with Death.

The peaceful space inhabited by wayward spirits is corrupted with the crimson-grey energy, pervading its lush greenery, snatching up every soul into its smothering, smoky aura. The Pike fills the realm infinitely with the corrosive energy of the Horsmen and siphons every bit of "life" from it. Any soul destined for its lush pastures will undoubtedly be redirected to a new plane, one set to serve the sinister machinations of the Horsemen, turning Vescrutia into its own worst enemy.