Chapter 69: The Fog of No Return: Scoria ​Her expression remained utterly vacant, the distant condescension in her eyes had morphed into one of pure compassion — the kind of look reserved for something fundamentally broken that needed necessary remedy. As Finn’s razor-sharp wings bore down on her, she opened her mouth and spoke. ​[Order Edict: Clarity] Immediately, just like the formless wave of chaos Nathaniel had displayed with his Chaotic Reassembly spell, ​a similar effect occured. Except, with Althea’s spell, instead of chaos, the effect actualized in a silent, brilliant wave of order that pulsed outward and struck Finn directly in the forehead. ​The pulse halted his wings mid-strike, making him stagger backwards and fall to the ground like a drunk man. The spell bypassed his toughened metal-likr skin and his bone-deep Ferropteryx rage, hitting the chaotic epicenter of the newly assimilated soul mass directly. Pure agony overwhelmed his mind immediately. So this was why the Ferropteryx soul was wary of Althea, he thought from somewhere at the back of his mind. The Order spell was targeted at the Ferropteryx alone, but because of the deep nature of his embodiment he bore a part of that targeted attack, feeling it in the form of pain. ​The influx of Order clashed violently against the chaotic essence of the Ferropteryx. It felt like his mind was being peeled from his skull. ​For a terrifying, drawn-out moment, Finn’s mind was flooded with perfect silence. He detachedly ’saw’ the soul debts — the paranoia, the ego, the isolation, the compulsion to be like the Ferropteryx — sitting in his psyche like cancerous tumors. ​Then he felt an equilibrium balance them out, mellowing them till his mind — his normal mind — returned back to full clarity. ​The spell did nothing about his transformation, though. Finn’s wings still remained spread wide, and the tufts of black, feather-like fur that had spurted out of his skin refused to retract. The physical debt was immutable. ​But now his mind was sane. The Ferropteryx no longer dominated his psyche... at least for the time being. ​Finn gasped with widened eyes as the clarity returned. He took in the blood that colored the room, took in the carnage he had wreaked, and the realization of his own actions fully settled on him. He shakily stared at Nathaniel’s pulverized body a few steps away, thinking he wouldn’t be able to handle the sight now that he was sane. ...But he did just fine. In fact, he felt nothing at all when looking at the mush of his headless body. If anything, he actually felt it was... justified? He tore his eyes away from the gory remains of the deranged man and instead looked towards the person that actually made him feel a sense of guilt now that he was sane. Althea. ​I... I almost killed Althea. He searchingly looked into her eyes that were ancient and unlike the Althea he knew, struggling to understand what had changed her so much. He could sense the familiar feeling of wrongness in the air. Except this time, there was no wrongness within it at all. In fact, everything felt ’in order.’ It was just the familiar taste of non-standard magic that stood out to him. Suddenly, a smile cracked on Althea’s lips, and the ancient look in her eyes receded as she saw Finn return. "Welcome back, Finn," she murmured, before swaying unsteadily, like she was facing a backlash from the fragment of the Transcendent will she had embodied — as Preceptor Elias had said earlier. The Preceptor was right by her side, steadying her calmly with a rare smile on his face. "Althea Seneschal. You have more than made up for the rage I felt coming here. I must apologize to you... both." He glanced at Finn quickly but returned his gaze to Althea as she slowly massaged her head like it ached. "Don’t worry. It will pass," he consoled. "I’m surprised you can even stand. Your soul strength index must be extremely abnormal to embody a fragment of a Transcendent that expertly, without prior knowledge, I presume...?" He whispered the last part almost like a threat and watched her face for the slightest change of expressions. But if she knew about it before, she gave nothing away. She simply shook her head, straightening up as her head cleared. "Right. Of course." The smile returned to the Preceptor’s face and he cast his gaze at the surrounding carnage as if the weird moment had not happened. "The one you faced, Althea, was a bearer of the Abstract magic: Disguise," he walked to Nathaniel’s pulverized body and stared down. "This one on the other hand, was inconsequential. He was likely just a High Reaper of the Harvester cult. Maybe even possibly an Ordained Reaper...? " he muttered the last part to himself as if in deliberation, but he shook his head at the idea after glancing at Finn with a dismissive look. He continued. "I had used you both as a lure to smoke them out of hiding. Xanth is a boiling pot of different cultures of the world, a spectacle of a city. But in its dark recess, the Harvester Cult operates. This island city is one of the last stops for Harvester cultists and those looking to join the cult, to head for the Fog of No Return... within which lies The Chain Islands of Scoria: Home to the Harvester Cult headquarters, and home to the most notorious criminals from all three continents — Rogue Arcanists and Revenant Soul Mages alike." He stared into the distant night with a serious look in his eyes. "It is a group of lawless islands worse than you can imagine, where the three Tyrants of The Sea lord over like emperors," he frowned as if remembering a terrible memory. Then he sighed and turned to look at them. "This island is one of last stops where hidden sea vessels leave from, carrying along with it hopefuls, who look forward to becoming members of the Harvester Cult, or simply rogue Arcanists and Ossuarists looking to join this paradise for criminals under the umbrella of a Tyrant." A whole lot of thoughts cycled through Finn’s mind. He had suspected the Preceptor had a reason for allowing them to roam the city willy-nilly. But he never could’ve thought it involved something like this. They had been used as pawns like he suspected, but now he didn’t really know how to feel about it. So instead, he kept listening. "All three continents know of the fog of no return. We do not have the means to traverse the fog without losing our way. But someone in this city does. Every single year, a ship sets sail for Scoria, but despite all our power and resources, we do not know which it is," the Preceptor explained. "I had personally suspected an abstract magic at play. One that shrouded and cloaked the existence of the ship and its inhabitants. And it turns out I was right." Finn narrowed his eyes. He really wanted to ask some questions, one of which was the personal way the Preceptor talked about Xanth, like it was under his jurisdiction. Just how large an area did the Ossuary assign to him? He held his tongue for the time being, though, as he was unwilling to interrupt the Preceptor. "I knew that so long as the ones doing the recruiting were high-ranked members of the Harvester cult, they surely knew about the secret existence of Abstract Magic. For people like those, there was no way they could resist the temptation of acting on either of you who saw traces of that Lost Age." "Lost Age?" Finn finally couldn’t help himself and blurted. "Was that what we saw?" The Preceptor looked at him silently for a second, then responded. "Yes. What you witnessed was a pocket space that contained echoes of that Lost Age..."