Vanished – Not Where, But When?

Snow fell in silence — but the battlefield did not. Before the chapel walls, beneath a sky heavy with ash and winter, Sagiatto witnessed the moment that would fracture something deep within him. Vates stood beyond reach, shielded not by steel nor spell, but by the trembling bodies of children he vowed to save. Every arrow loosed would mean innocent blood. Every strike would damn the hand that delivered it. And so Sagiatto did not strike. He trembled. His breath came shallow. The battlefield roared, but inside him there was only cold. Desperate, he reached for the whistle — the one bound to otherworldly allies across the veil between planes. He raised it to his lips and blew. The sound pierced the chaos. It carried hope. It carried plea. It carried despair. He waited. No answering echo came. No shimmer of planar light. No allies stepping through the unseen threshold. Only wind. Only snow. The silence that followed was heavier than any blade. Overwhelmed, Sagiatto staggered toward the chapel and placed his trembling hand upon its frozen wall. The stone was cold — lifeless — sealed in ice, as if winter itself had claimed it. It matched the frost spreading through his veins. His reaction froze just as the stone had. Grief wrapped around him like iron. Yet the battle did not pause for sorrow. And while the war raged on, a ranger stood motionless against the frozen chapel wall — caught between duty and mercy, between legend and failure — as Vates continued to fight behind a shield made of the innocent.

The battle did not falter. Through chaos and cries, through the shifting wall of terrified bodies, Greg advanced. With iron resolve he forced his way forward, and where he stepped, magic bent and died. An antimagic field bloomed around him like a sphere of silence in the storm. The compulsions that held the civilians shattered. Their eyes cleared. Horror replaced obedience. Screams broke free as they fled, scattering from the nightmare they had unwillingly formed. Greg did not hesitate. In his grasp, divine power coalesced — not merely spellcraft, but judgment given form. A weapon shaped by holy will blazed into existence, radiant and merciless. He brought it down upon Vates with the force of righteous wrath. But Vates was prepared. At each crushing blow, his hand darted to one of the strange buttons lining his belt. With every press, the earth convulsed and a monstrous rose erupted from the ground — overgrown, twisted, its thorned vines lashing outward in savage arcs. The thorns tore through flesh without discrimination, impaling the very children who had moments before stood as his shield. Greg struck again. And again. Not from cruelty. Not from darkness. But from terrible certainty. He knew he could bring them back to life. Each swing was a calculation of sacrifice and restoration — a grim arithmetic only a cleric confident in resurrection would dare to make. Pain now. Salvation later. Meanwhile, Kilijan moved like a shadow of intention. He began the incantation, weaving space itself, seeking to wrench Vates from the battlefield and cast him into the chapel for a duel beyond interference. For a heartbeat, the vortex warp took hold. Reality twisted. Vates flickered, caught within the spell. Then came the snap of disruption. A counterspell shattered the forming rift, and the warped air collapsed into nothing. Kilijan’s magic unraveled in mid-breath. Vates smiled — just barely. Seeing advantage tilt in his favor, he stretched his will outward and summoned one of his goblins to the top of a crumbling tower. Small. Nimble. Obedient. The creature raised a blowgun and loosed a dart. It struck Greg. The poison worked with unnatural speed, racing through veins sanctified by divine power. Greg staggered. The radiant weapon flickered. Blood touched the snow as he coughed — once, twice — crimson staining white in the midst of those he had sworn to protect. Disease spread through the cleric’s body like rot in sacred wood. And then Kilijan chose. Winged boots flared with arcane lift, and he soared above the remnants of the shattered human shield. Over thorn and body, over ruin and frost, he flew — not as artificer, not as strategist, but as something more. He reached Greg and called upon holy light. Radiance poured from him — not crafted, not engineered, not assembled with tools and calculation — but sworn. Oath-bound. Faith-forged. The poison recoiled beneath the brilliance. The disease burned away. Breath returned to Greg’s lungs. In that moment, suspended above bloodstained snow, Kilijan understood a truth deeper than craft: Not everything can be repaired with a screwdriver and a hammer. Some battles are not won by mechanism or mind alone. Sometimes the line between ruin and redemption is drawn by faith — and by the oath that makes a man more than the machine he builds.

The storm had not yet spent its fury. In the bleeding snow, where cannon smoke mixed with frost, Manasa stepped forward — and became something more. Flesh surged. Bone reshaped. A roar split the winter sky. He transformed into Bananza — an enormous gorilla of muscle and wrath — towering above the battlefield like a primal god awakened. Across from him stood the corrupted Hero of the Leaves, Bambara Grimmgrinn, artificer and a cloned guardian, his form wreathed in mechanical precision and decay. Bambara answered with thunder. Guns roared. Cannons spat fire. Iron and alchemy screamed through the air. But the gorilla did not fall. Fueled by adrenaline — by fury — by something dangerously close to joy — Bananza crashed into Bambara in a single-handed duel that shook the frozen earth. Massive hands seized cannons and hurled them deep into the woods. Steel twisted beneath raw strength. Snow exploded beneath each step. Bambara fought back with relentless calculation. His battlesmith construct lunged — and was seized, lifted, and smashed to ruin. Metal shattered like brittle bone. Yet victory was not without cost. Cannons tore into fur and flesh. Blood darkened white. The gorilla staggered, wounded deeply. Still he stood — breathing like a furnace, eyes blazing as if delirium burned in his veins. He held the line alone, buying seconds — precious, bleeding seconds — so his companions might end Vates. Then came the blast. A cannon shot, perfectly placed. Magic ruptured. The polymorph shattered. Where Bananza had stood, Manasa lay broken in the snow. His hair spilled across the crimson-stained frost. With trembling fingers, he lit a cigarette. Smoke rose slowly into the freezing air as the snow beneath him turned red. Elsewhere, beneath chaos and shouting, Weneon moved. While Kilijan battled the newly summoned goblin and Vates bellowed promises of Greg’s death, Weneon seized his moment. He climbed to the next rooftop, silent as regret. From there, he saw her — Safwalyn, his only love — standing among those aligned against him. Love did not turn him. He chose the fight. Vates anticipated the betrayal of sentiment. With a flicker of arcane distortion, Weneon vanished — reappearing atop the tallest tower. Clinging to its edge, he shouted across the battlefield, begging Safwalyn to come to her senses — to help save the children. Below, Cobi — father bound by oath — screamed his son’s name into the smoke and snow. Over and over. No answer came. Greg and Kilijan demanded of Vates that he spare Cobi, that he return his son. Vates answered with cold detachment: the father would find his son — in the right timeline. And then the chapel doors opened. Down the ancient steps walked two children: Janus and Lena. Their voices rose together, not spoken, but sung — weaving a spell like a hymn written in a language older than mercy. Greg and Kilijan stared in confusion as Manasa — impossibly — appeared standing upon the chapel walls. His voice carried through smoke and snowfall. For Melcior, his only true love, he would end this. Eldritch power gathered in his hands. Kilijan raised his gun. Both aimed at the heart of the forming spell. And at that very moment, from the shadow of a ruined house, emerged Malcer — Cobi’s lost son. Time seemed to fracture. Vates spoke once more: he would take Cobi with him. There were matters to attend to in the elven forests. Space folded. The enemies vanished — taking Cobi and Malcer with them — leaving the dead, the broken, and the unanswered behind. In the final breath of silence, Cobi hurled a letter toward Manasa before disappearing into the distortion. It landed in bloodstained snow. The seal bore a single name. To my only true love, Cobden and my son Malcer Lynk. Melcior.

The smoke thinned. The snow continued to fall.And in the silence that followed vanishing enemies and shattered destinies, the world began to choose what it would become next. Manasa lay still for a long moment, the letter heavy in his hand. A faint whisper escaped his lips — not surprise, not shock. Only confirmation. He had always known. Without another word, he reached for the ring at his finger. Power stirred. The sky answered. From the unseen horizon descended his dragon, wings vast against the pale heavens. Snow spiraled in its wake as it landed. Manasa mounted without ceremony. Together, they rose into the sky. Below, Kilijan stood amid the red-streaked snow, now wearing the Cape of Leaves — the mantle of Malcer Lynk. The letter trembled in his hands. When he began to speak, the voice that emerged was not wholly his own. Tears traced silver paths down blue cheeks. Clouds gathered overhead. Softly — brokenly — he whispered: “...Mama… Mama…” Again. And again. Not Kilijan, but Malcer. From the rooftop, Weneon leapt — cloak snapping behind him — the Cape of Lorilon Duskwalker flowing like a shadow unbound. When he landed, his voice too shifted, layered with something older. Malcer’s voice spoke through Kilijan: “Thank you, my friend. For not forgetting me and Raijin. For guarding our names. Our graves.” And through Weneon came Lorilon’s answer: “I would do the same again. For my brothers.” As those borrowed voices echoed across the frozen ruins, a figure appeared on the horizon. The corruptet form Bambara Grimmgrinn. But he did not come alone. Behind him surged the people of Gossamer — survivors, kin, the forgotten and the furious. They crashed upon the corrupted hero like a tidal wave of living will. Steel and stone and flesh overwhelmed him. Bambara was torn apart. And so corruption ended not with glory — but with consequence. Greg stood among the fallen. True to his word, he began the work only a cleric of unwavering faith could dare. One by one, the dead drew breath. Color returned to cheeks. Families collapsed into each other, sobbing, reunited beneath a sky that had nearly swallowed them whole. In Greg’s eyes burned joy — and sorrow. He restored others to their families. He would not yet return to his own. For him, death was no ending. Only a threshold. And so he chose to abandon material ties, stepping fully into the path of a true cleric — servant not of possession, but of promise. Sagiatto, standing beside comrades who had walked darker edges than he ever could, felt the truth settle within him. He was not made for shadows without mercy. He would not become what grief had almost shaped him into. Kilijan, drying tears not entirely his own, understood that this battle had not ended a war. Planes beyond this one trembled. Vates still lived. And he would be hunted. Across worlds. Across realities. The words of an oath came to his mind. Weneon stood where Safwalyn had vanished. The snow there remained untouched. He knew — with the certainty only love and tragedy can grant — that she would help create the potion that would one day lead him to despair. Still, he did not curse her name. The people of Gossamer gathered their heroes and their wounded. For two days and nights they drank, sang, repaired what had broken — not perfectly, not fully — but enough. Enough to live. High above, Manasa and his dragon descended upon the ruins of the Almenarch. Broken stone. Silent arches. And beneath them — the grave of Melcior. Manasa fell to his knees. Grief, unmasked at last, overcame him. The dragon lowered its ancient head and spoke — voice deep as mountains, warm as fire long tended. “You, Manasa, are now a dragonrider. As your father Darius was. As your sister Adona was. You loved the mother of Malcer — a hero of the past. You have mastered flame and sky alike. I am proud of you.” The words lingered in the cold air. Even heroes need to hear them. And above the ruins of love and legacy, beneath a sky no longer at war, a dragonrider wept — not in defeat — but in remembrance.