Stoking the Flames

John stirred the coals and added another log to the campfire around which they had gathered, sending a spattering of orange and red into the air as the new fuel settled into the blaze. The flames were almost a relief, not so much for warmth as for their innocence. The permeating scent of fading ash and burning wood was a reminder that not all fires bore the nauseating stench and equally upsetting purpose of the pyres that had blazed through the whole of the afternoon.

The small yet persistent waves of undead had stopped a little over an hour after John had begun his 'training'. Kwang and Adantia had returned not long afterward, Adantia's grin speaking of a story she wasted no time in relaying to them. They'd succeeded in tracking two of the Northern Ashes' low-grade necromancers to the Barrier they were operating out of, and had cut the pair down before they had a chance to flee.

"Should've seen this guy infiltrating," Adantia had boasted on Kwang's behalf. "He made it sound like he was maybe kinda decent at going undetected. When he wants to disappear, though, even I have a hard time keeping track of him."

Kim had elevated herself at the compliment, stiffening her spine and jutting out her chin. Kwang hardly reacted other than a slight tilt of his head.

John's own afternoon had not been so well-spent. Two hours of staring at a tree, trying to pretend that he was feeling anything other than a headache. For all the reinforcement Etriyya had given, John still felt disappointed in not making any perceptible kind of progress on the matter. The sigh of relief that escaped him when they finally called off the exercise for the night spoke volumes on the matter, further reinforced by the groan of relaxation as he settled in with the others around their campfire. Only Etriyya declined to join them, waving the invitation off with mentions of duties around the camp and 'blockheads that can drive a sword, but not a stake'.

"So," John ventured once the fire was crackling and the others had settled in with food, blade, or entertainment as they saw fit, "for those who have seen a war in the Abyss before... for a first day, how did we do?"

There was a glance exchanged between Kim and Moira that John couldn't fully decipher. A shadow of the greater conversation that passed through long, silent looks shared by Lord Brighton, Kwang, and Adantia in alternation.

"The situation here was rather dire," Lord Brighton began cautiously. "With such a wide area controlled by such discordant forces, it's no surprise that a single loss allowed their lines to collapse almost completely. We were fortunate for that, in a sense; the undead we faced here were low-ranking, likely all conjured by the pair of necromancers Kwang and Adantia caught out this afternoon."

"Could be. With one of their own Fateweavers working against them, they might have been working on it a while," Adantia concurred. "If they did have help, they either got away and left their friends to die or they moved on to another area of the front. We won't get that lucky again."

"By lucky, do you mean the capture, or...?" John ventured the question casually, but something about the way so many eyes rotated to him made him feel almost sheepish about the clarification. He distracted himself by turning back to the fire, adding a handful of kindling and a few thick branches to the pile.

"The whole ****. This was nothing compared to the kind of shit they can create." Adantia adjusted her stance, shifting her weight around on the log. One of her cables emerged from the ground at her feet, laying itself across her lap, shimmering from the light of the runes inscribed along its length. "These fuckers are decently strong and crafty, and that's a bad combination to be up against. Before I got taken out of the fight, they started to cover their minions with extra enchantments. Little runes that weren't even useful half the time—but it made it hard to identify their cores or tell which parts of them were more important than the rest."

Adantia laid a palm over the thick cord resting over her thighs. A quiet grunt fought its way out of her, and then the subtle thrum of mana powerful enough to hear filled the air around them. One by one, the runes which had gone dark slowly started to glow again, energy draining from her into the enchanted weave.

"They may know ways to ward against our holy magics." Moira grimaced, but she wore a mask of determination as her fingers clutched at her necklace and the charm on it. "But it will take time and cost them dearly if they want to prepare every creature they reanimate to face any of us."

"Our numbers and the variety of our skills will be our greatest asset," Kim noted. "But that would require us to remain united. That would limit our ability to affect the war on a scale that matters."

"If we split up, it will be important to keep moving." John met their gazes this time, idly spinning the stick he'd been using in the palm of his other hand. "Not only to keep them from preparing countermeasures for each of us specifically, but to make sure they don't have time to reorganize and focus on one area."

"Kid's right. Trust me, I hate to admit it, but they've got some pretty decent trump cards up their sleeve." Adantia's features twisted, the memory playing across her expression. "It's in our best interest to keep them on their toes and pick the battles ourselves. Whatever I did to their big toys, they'll fix it eventually. They'll start making tougher ones, they won't send small contingents like today. And... Wren's still out there, too."

It took a moment for some of those gathered to remember who bore that name. Some of John's family didn't know it at all—but they recognized the somber silence that fell over the camp after its utterance. Feet became restless, eyes shifted with no safe place to rest. Not all were uncomfortable, but no one seemed ready to trample over the somber moment of a woman thought dead for decades grappling with someone she'd thought buried now walking the land as an undead servant.

"You should all get some rest." John played the part that was needed, idly churning at the embers beneath the roaring campfire as he spoke. "I don't need to sleep, and I can't anyway, since I have no idea if the Barrier will hold. Probably not. Though, without traps or wards to draw those who cross it in, I'm not sure it does us all that much good."

"One more layer they have to get through to come at us," Lerianna grunted.

"We'll need to set a watch, won't we?" Vallya chimed in. Her tails were wrapped firmly around her navel, the tips drifting toward the heat of the fire. "Not that I don't trust you to keep watch, Master, but you should be able to relax some of the night too. Besides, considering you're one of their biggest targets, you need someone to watch you, don'tcha?"

"Gerry did say they were losing commanders and Fateweavers left and right." The agreement came with a grimace from Sophia. "Our Father must be protected. Particularly from this assassin that troubles them.

John's eyes flicked to Adantia’s. There was a chill in them, but she did not look offended. Rather, she nodded, a faint thing meant only for herself.

"Indeed. The camp and John will both need guards. We'll need to set two watches with rotating shifts, one in the physical realm and one inside the Barrier, but even that is easily worthwhile." Moira nodded firmly. She stood, the clanking of her armor dispelling the last threads of the solemn quiet that still clung to the circle. "Without detection, we are more ****, but it is still a comfort to know that they cannot simply walk into our campsite without making it through your Barrier, John."

"I will take the first watch," Lord Brighton offered. He climbed to his feet in Moira's wake, hand moving subtly to the mace still strapped to his side. John hadn't thought much of it until now, but the Lord Protector was the only one still wearing his weaponry—Moira's hammer and shield were stowed, and even Kim and Kwang now kept their blades resting at their side, rather than strapped to their forms. "I won't be getting much sleep for a spell anyway. I'll gather a few of the knights that were not wounded today and arrange a rotation for them through the night."

"Thank you, Lord Protector." Moira's back straightened as she clasped her hand over her chest. Lord Brighton returned the gesture with a bow, and the two walked off in separate directions. The gestures weren't exactly stiff, they were practiced and veered toward a smooth easiness, but there was a stricter atmosphere to it out here. A sense that this went beyond formality, beyond tradition; there was value in maintaining the order, in giving the soldiers something sturdy to keep them faithful and disciplined, even when none were around to witness the interaction.

Lord Brighton wandered off to the east, where the bulk of the Order knights and medics had set up their denser campsites. Moira walked to the transports parked nearby and pulled open the back doors of one of the carriers to reveal not a passenger compartment, but an expansive foyer.

She lingered just long enough in the open air for John to glimpse several additional doors near the back end of the room. Then Moira called her good nights, stepped into the vehicle, and swung the doors shut behind her. Looking through the rear windows revealed only the same blank walls and empty benches John had spent far too much time inside of earlier that day.

Kim took her own leave not long after. She made little eye contact, said nothing more than a curt farewell, and offered only a bow to John before treading off to an empty section of the landscape around them. Kwang left with slightly more politeness, though an equivalent chill. Adantia didn't waste much time in taking her own leave, trodding off to an empty patch of land and – to John's amazement, if not quite surprise – proceeded to weave a cocoon from her cables, blocking herself off completely from the world around her. The weave was so thick and tightly drawn that John couldn't help but worry about her air supply.

"As if that woman would let a little thing like lack of oxygen slow her down..."

"You should get some sleep, too," John said at last, shifting on the log he'd claimed to face his gathered family. "I'll send you all back home so you can rest properly."

"Father, you must be protected. We cannot-"

"You're not all staying awake, and as much as Moira says the Barrier is nice, you'll sleep better knowing that no one can reach you," John interrupted. He placed a hand on Sophia's thigh, squeezing affectionately while giving the winged warrior a warm smile. "I'll have Lord Brighton watching over me, and if anything does happen, I promise to call you all up. Can you let yourselves rest, so I can do the same?"

"I- yes, Father." Sophia's objection was bitten back with the same **** of will it would have taken to bite off a piece of her own tongue. "What you say is sensible. I still do not like it."

"I'm not asking you to like it," John assured her. "I'm asking you to get a good night's sleep."

"I will try."

"If it really is about rest..." Shishun's tentative voice rose, an occurrence rare enough to garner John's full attention, "...may I stay?"

John tilted his head, leaving the air silent in a way that invited explanation. Shishun grew even more nervous, but kept herself intentionally rigid when she went on.

"I would be abandoning my duty to protect you by going where I cannot reach you." The pink-haired lamia's fingers stretched in a way that was either a longing for weapons that would be impolite to hold in this setting or a rare slip of her so closely controlled physical responses. "That would leave me far more restless than any threat of an enemy attack."

John considered the request, and found Sophia's response now fit the shape of his own feelings.

"Very well," John allowed with a sigh that brightened the shine of Shishun's sharp eyes. "I'll get a tent ready for you. I brought a few, but I wasn't going to bother setting one up since I have to stay awake."

"Thank you, Master! Please, wake me whenever you desire. I will be ready for a shift watching over you at any time, for however long you need me." Shishun bowed, then slithered off across the campsite. A few soldiers - both of the Order and the GPA - cast glances at the long serpentine woman as she went, some curious, others almost horrified. A few with interest. John cataloged their faces purposefully.

"Oh, and-" John lowered his voice to a bare whisper as he turned to Sophia. He found there what he had expected. A stony expression, stable and reliable as ever, with just the barest hint of disappointment and self-flagellation that was subtle enough even he had to search for it. "-it's not that you're less dutiful than her. But that duty is all she has. There's more to you than those instincts to serve your Father. And don't you dare think of that as a failure—I love you, Sophia, and those parts most of all."

The word, still so new and weighted after its year-long absence, wiped away the faint regrets and inadequacies before they could bloom further. A look of gratitude fractured her stoicism in its place. The particular gratitude of someone who had received something they hadn't even realized they needed yet, and found it all the more meaningful to be seen so completely.

"Will you call us in the morning? Even if there is no attack?"

"Even if there's not a skeleton in sight," John promised. "Now, go."

Summoner's Warp sent Vallya, Sophia, and Lerianna across the boundary between worlds with a quiet breath of air into space that had been occupied moments ago. Left alone, John had little to do save throw another handful of sticks on top of those that were still crackling away and turn his eyes toward the GPA mages. Their campsites were not unlike the mages themselves—a mishmash of varied and disjointed living conditions all crammed together in a way that screamed "patchwork" much more than it did "united ****" or "cohesion".

Wealth and status were clear by the level of comfort each warrior claimed when the sun dipped below the horizon. Some were able to conjure up small cabins on the spot, complete with bed and basic accouterments. Others called up fully-assembled tents, furniture, and necessities from pocket spaces in the same way John managed his inventory. A few constructed the bare minimum, either unpacking mundane camping gear in the way that John had elected, or constructing rough housing from the landscape, bending earth and wood into reasonable approximations of civilization.

"This alliance was supposedly formed to protect them from encroachment by Himiko," John thought to himself as he eyed the coalition. "But how in Gaia's name would they have accomplished that? I can't even imagine. Adantia could tear through these mages almost as easily as she tore through the horde of undead today. Himiko's mobile Barriers would shut down every mage in their army, leaders and all. Her personal one... I don't even want to think about it."

The question was raised, then, why the alliance was considered successful. Why Himiko – or any of the Deities, for that matter – had not already defeated and absorbed them, crushed the life out of the unaffiliated regions around and including Springfield, and stormed over the other mid-sized regions.

But it was a question that John did not have the answer to, and he failed to find one in the quiet night before Lord Brighton returned at last.

"The guards are set, within and without," Lord Brighton announced without fanfare as he settled back into his still-warm seat. "As for you, Moira will be here in two hours. Kim will take the next watch after her. Kwang offered to take the final watch. I suspect he wants them to wonder if he's really sleeping, or if he's looking over his daughter's shoulder. Watching the watcher, as it were."

"Do you think he actually will?"

"When it comes to his daughter?" Lord Brighton laughed. Laughed in a way John had not heard the man sound in a very long time. "I'd say it's at least a fifty-fifty shot."

The silence settled back over them. A comfortable one, broken only by the crackling of flames and the faintest of breezes. Whether that breeze was shared across the real world and the Barrier imitating it or a mere byproduct was something just vaguely dull enough that he was beginning to contemplate it, to fill the void with something mindless, when the Lord Protector's own words returned to his mind.

"You mentioned you would be awake whether you were on watch duty or not. I didn't expect you of all people to have trouble sleeping," John admitted. "Are you worried about something?"

"You assume I've grown immune to the horrors of war, then?" The older man let out a bitter chortle. "Regrettably, you may be right. I suppose I have the same worries that always follow me, but that is not what keeps me awake."

"The Blessing?" John's guess came before he had fully considered the weight he was adding to the conversation. Lord Brighton's nod was slow when it came, heavy and certain.

"What has Moira told you of the effects the Blessing has?"

John had the composure not to openly wince at the implication. He buried himself in thought, and made sure to start speaking before those contemplations could turn toward the Blessing's more intimate ramifications. "She mentioned something about it when you were sparring with Adantia," John recalled. "She didn't say much, but she seemed worried about the Blessing affecting you - she almost sounded like it was dangerous."

"Yes, it certainly can be." The words were almost dismissive, but they were delivered with the dark tone of a sentencing. "Every man or woman who wields the Blessing is affected by it. The greater the use we make of it, the stronger the effects, but even simple use of the Lady's other magics can build up over time. The effect manifests differently for Warden Lords and Lord Protectors, though. In some ways, we are not so different from you."

"From me?"

"Yes, you and that Shard in your chest," Lord Brighton affirmed. "We carry the Lady's wrath for those who disrupt the order and peace of the world. Her magic lights a fire in us, and we must learn to quench it or risk being consumed by it. It instills within us the drive to strike down even the slightest of evils, where we might otherwise find mercy in our hearts."

John's eyes returned to the blaze between them. He busied himself tossing another log onto the flames and stirring at the coals. "It's true, the Shard can have quite an influence on me. It was especially powerful in the early days."

"You know well how easy it is and how fulfilling it can seem in the moment to enact justice and retribution." Lord Brighton paused. His eyes flitted around the empty seats, then settled on John once more. "I think, by the way she acts, that the one you call Vallya knows something of it as well?"

This time, John failed to fully subdue his reaction before part of it slipped through the cracks of his composure. He could tell by the way Lord Brighton's brow twitched, and the way his eyes bore into John without another word.

"Vallya is... complicated," John admitted after a moment, choosing the word that was both the most accurate and least descriptive.

"A phrase spoken often, and never with much good to come of it," the taller man noted, nodding sagely. "She seems quite protective of you."

"She is. Except when she isn't. She–" John lingered a moment, recalling the words that Jiina had spoken to him. When he spoke again, his voice was lower, and his eyes traced the perimeter of their camp. "Vallya is different from the others. She wasn't Purified from the same thing as the rest."

"Not from a Barrier monster? The way you told it, this 'Farrah' was the first of her kind."

"Not like Farrah," John agreed, grateful for the subtlety. "At the time, I didn't know what it was. I just knew that something else had wormed its way into my Dungeon Barrier, commandeered the whole thing. It wasn't until later that I met Jiina."

And so John told Vallya's tale to another for the first time, with no small amount of questions from Lord Brighton, and many a surreptitious glance toward the Order soldiers and the alliance mages alike. They could not leave the Barrier without dismissing it, and could not create another within, so they made due with vigilance and a handful of tricks. Lord Brighton warded the campsite halfway through, etching golden runes between blades of grass with a steady hand and furrowed brows. John stilled the air in a half-sphere around them, creating a vacuum that silenced the world beyond it and kept their words from straying too far.

"...An avatar of one of the Fragments themselves." The words escaped the older man without noticing, his mind turning over the implications, the subtext, the possibilities. "And one that's taken a personal interest. One that can reach into her mind at any time."

"Jiina said she wouldn't," John offered. "She said she wouldn't risk corrupting Vallya further."

"Jiina admits to being a creature beyond humanity. A fraction of a fraction of a Goddess, designed to feel no compassion, no empathy, no sense of honor—only glee and delight at punishing sinners. To assume that her word holds weight would be foolish." Lord Brighton spoke the words with simple confidence, but his face was troubled. His mustache twitched and fretted as he paused, and a huff escaped him before his next words. "It is no small wonder that the look in her eyes reminded me of- of the way the Blessing affects Warden Lords."

The verbal stumble was so small that John could've missed it, were it anyone else. Lord Brighton did not falter. The words were as steady and reliable as the man that spoke them. But he did not comment on the matter.

"All the same, I feel like I trust her." John expected the words to be fragile. They emerged with more conviction than he realized he had in them.

"Instinct, or something else...?" Lord Brighton left the question open enough for ideas that did not fit a specific category, which was perhaps exactly where John's slowly coagulating thoughts belonged.

"Theory. At best." A huffy laugh escaped John, equal parts self-derision and the sort of uncertainty that comes from a man trying to understand the workings of a goddess. "But she didn't seem like she was acting. Not when she was sadistic, and not when she was... whatever the rest was. She told me that the first time she touched Vallya's soul, something was exchanged between them—part of her to Vallya, part of Vallya to her. And she said it made her feel things that she never had before. Things she wasn't meant to feel."

John paused as he tried to put into words the cascade of thoughts that had been quietly stirring within him since that bizarre, terrifying meeting. The silence was respectfully left until the structure was sound enough to present to the world.

"Maybe what Vallya felt – and what you and I have both felt – goes the other way too. If Jiina really wasn't capable of feeling the full range of emotions before, and suddenly she's confronted with things like affection, empathy, guilt, remorse," John made an all-encompassing gesture directed toward the universe, "then she wouldn't have any defenses for them. Wouldn't know how to manipulate them in others or control them in herself. I don't have any idea if Jiina is inherently honest... but what I saw in her looked like genuine guilt, even shame. I trust that, at least."

The silence returned. It was all-encompassing, by this point. The conversation had dragged on long enough for the other mages to settle into their camps, for the last dregs of the day's adrenaline and emotional turmoil to finally seep off into the landscape and rest to be mercifully found. John tossed a thick log onto the fire, and was surprised when that was what finally drew a response.

"Are you cold, lad?"

John froze, his arm still outstretched as the wood noisily settled into its place in the fire. "I... no? Well, I guess it's a bit chilly, but I don't feel cold. Why?"

Lord Brighton made a non-committal noise, adjusting his position, leaning away from the flames that slowly rose to eye level on the back of the fresh fuel. "You build quite a fire, that's all, lad." He chuckled in a way that did not align with the laugh of earlier, and did not comment further.

John let the matter hang. But the abrupt shift to an otherwise mundane question had him second-guessing himself for the rest of the night every time he reached to stoke the flames. He checked often, but never found himself uncomfortable. The sun was gone, and there was a chill in the air.