Zenozarax III

12.04.2026

Zenozarax, beyond the anger and fear, felt the humiliation. Quadirymir was right of course, he should never have assumed this place to be safe. Because no place was. It was something Quadirymir had told him again and again, it was the reality of being a chaos wizard. It was something he had known when he had become a Warrior of the Order, and something he had understood the moment he had left Artlenburg.

And yet, with the hubris that came so easily with dismissing a mentor younger than oneself, over time, he really had come to think of the Edge of the Universe as a safe place. As home.

That horrible smile of absolute content contempt had not vanished from Quadirymir's face as he answered, he didn't have to think long about it, afterall, he had obviously expected this situation sooner rather than later.

“It’s quite simple now, isn't it? You are weak. Compromised. And you lied to me. I’m willing to forgive the latter; it’s a natural thing for us to do after all,” Quadirymir explained calmly, but the smile was vanishing from his face. “But this petulant behaviour of yours will stop now. I’ll let you keep most of your collection of emotional mistakes, I understand their importance to you. But that will come with some concessions on your part. And you will do as you’re told.”

Unwaveringly he met Quadirymir cold stare. None of that came as a surprise. It was what he had expected, if anything it was almost reasonable. And there was nothing he could say that would change any of it. So he asked,

“Did you have the Dawnbreak destroyed?”

“If I let you continue like this, your reckless actions will get us all killed. Not that I care much about the riff raff you have with you, but you are connected to me, too, Zenozarax. I have given you a lot of rope, and as I expected, you are hellbent on hanging yourself with it.” Quadirymir continued like he hadn't even heard him.

“Did you betray us?” Zenozarax asked again.

Finally Quadirymir scoffed. “Betray you? That’s rich coming from you. With him here?” There was no amusement left in the now scolding frown on Quadirymir’s face. “I am letting you walk freely on my station all the while you have him here, STILL connected to Mezchinhar!”

And for a fraction of a second Zenozarax was taken aback by the genuine anger in Quadirymir's tone, because it made him, for the first time, consider the possibility that all this was not just a sadistic plot to cause him as much suffering as possible. It felt like a hefty slap in the face that left him temporarily without any good reply.

“That’s what I thought.” Quadirymir clicked his tongue, like he had read his mind. “Can you, for one second in your life, try and entertain the idea that you are not the centre point of the entire multiverse?”

“Everything is under control. He can be trusted.” Zenozarax said firmly, and it sounded horribly defensive even to his own ears. He had dreaded this moment, imagined the worst outcomes, trying to figure out all the ways out of it — and now he stood here and Quadirymir acted nothing like he had imagined. Zenozarax was still angry, of course he was, but Quadirymir, thus far, wasn't escalating the situation.

Quadirymir had never really trusted him, but right now, he also understood that the risk Quadirymir accused him of taking was very much real. It couldn't justify the death he had caused before he could have even known the nature of Zenozarax’ secret, but he understood that this one time, Quadirymir had a not totally unreasonable point. Still. That only made his own frustration worse.

“Is he now?” But that didn't matter because Quadirymir made another step forward — towards Ravalor. “That is the one problem we still have to take care of.”

“What are you doing?” Zenozarax tensed up, he saw Ravalor back off back slightly, and it was finally now that Zenozarax really saw the terror in Ravalor’s face. As if he needed to be reminded of that horrible prophecy. The fingers of Ravalor’s hands twitched, and as his mind and body were ready for an immediate attack he even saw miniscule flashes of light pulsing sporadically in the veins of izthra beneath his skin.

“Ravalor. Whether you can be trusted or not is irrelevant at this moment. You can't stay here, not like this. Either you truly join him, or you have to die and return to Mezchinhar. You being here, knowing what you know, is going to kill everyone connected to you,” Quadirymir said threateningly low to Ravalor, then glancing at Zenozarax, ”You know I’m right.”

“I can't go back, and I won't,” Ravalor said weakly, a tremble in his voice.

“Then you put your money where your mouth is and commit to it! I didn't believe it was possible, but your arrogance is truly outshining his,” Quadirymir snapped at Ravalor who winced back.

“That’s enough!” Zenozarax barked, while every fiber of his body wanted to tear that wizard to atoms. Quadirymir's eyes met his for a second of pure disdain and hatred. Then Quadirymir started to raise his hand and blinked out of existence, for a split second dissolved into a glimmer of light and shadow, and in that second, Zenozarax looked to Ravalor before he fully computed that Quadirymir stood now right before Ravalor. It happened so quickly a single blink would have missed it. A dizzying and sickening sense of horrible déjà vu pierced through Zenozarax, freezing him into place as he saw Quadirymir's hand grasp Ravalor's throat.

Ravalor didn't even wince, only his eyes widened in shocked surprise, now staring directly into Quadirymir’s face.

“So what is it going to be, Ravalor?”It was at that point where that sick smile returned to Quadirymir’s face. Seeing the shock and terror in Ravalor’s face curled the corner of his lips upward, the sickening delight at Ravalor’s mortal fear — he whispered when he spoke next, by his nature compelled to make it worse. “Doesn't this feel familiar?”

It all happened so quickly, Zenozarax felt like the entirety of his neural network was melting into nothing but useless slag. He had to kill Quadirymir right now. Kill him, jump the station, hide them all, make sure the other Part of Ravalor were safe, the other’s parts—

He started to raise his own hands — it seemed so slow to him as his racing mind expanded his awareness into every millisecond. He saw Quadirymir glance in his direction before his body could follow, bound by the same merciless drag of inertia.

If he did this now they could all die.

Quadirymir would only lose one part.

They could lose everything.

They didn't have the resources.

And the people—

Every second dragged out for an eternity.

Quadirymir would have anticipated the possibility of being killed, which meant that—

Then he met Ravalor's eyes. And he saw something in them that scared him more than anything before. A fatalistic determination. Grim acceptance. A choice made.

And Zenozarax had no time to speak, nothing more than the first vibration of a breathless “Don’t—” passed his lips as already, Ravalor's hand had shot up —

grasping Quadirymir’s wrist —

Reality broke around them.

The moment Ravalor’s hand connected to Quadirymir, the entire magic of his body started to glow violently — so did Quadirymir — and a charge of something exploded from the two of them. A burst of energy so distilled and violent it felt like a thousand exploding stars compressed into one. The pulse slammed into him and for a moment the world just turned dark before his eyes and his mind went blank in an instance.

When he blinked again, his awareness was ringing in a high pitched scream and the vision before his eyes was reduced to balking images for a few moments longer. He was laying on his back, on the floor. He gasped for air, trying to get up, his hands, no his entire body was shaking so badly he could barely move, in his skittering vision he saw Quadirymir trying to stand up as well, stumbling, as whatever had just knocked out Zenozarax had not left him unaffected either.

But most startling, there was Ravalor, the lines of izthra as well as his eyes still burning so brightly they appeared almost pure white. He was still standing, almost peacefully, or maybe shocked, staring at his own glowing hands.

This wasn't normal. This had never happened before.

Zenozarax’ arms caved in as he tried to stand up, desperately he struggled against his own failing body. He needed to take care of Quadirymir.

“What did you do…?” He heard the old man rasp. Horror in his voice.

Then there was Aeven.

Just as Quadirymir was almost standing again, Aeven had passed Ravalor, a heavy torque-wand raised high in his hand — and with an explosive and bone shattering force the heavy tool smashed into Quadirymir's face, throwing him backwards. Zenozarax saw the distorting hate in the prince's face as he was right back above Quadirymir even before he had fully hit the ground and the wrench smashed back this time into his chest. By the third hit, lords he was quick, Aeven had grabbed one arm and with inhuman strength almost separated the hand from the body with the blunt tool. Then the next— Zenozarax realised almost horrified how methodically destructive Aeven's seemingly wild hits were in disabling the wizard below him and he was violently reminded that this man had been trained all his life to kill wizards, Hammer or not — Another hit. Wet grinding of metal, magic and flesh. And again. Red blood mixing with black splashed into the air with every swing as the deceptive envoy body was broken down to its core structure.

— There might be a life-link! A fail safe! Don't let him kill him! His Wizard nearly shouted at him through the haze in his own mind.

Zenozarax staggered up, finally moving, falling forward more than walking. He reached Aeven, grasping his wrist in mid swing, pulling him roughly off and away from Quadirymir. He fell down to his knees, and taking all his focus a violent sphere of chaos appeared around him, encasing the twitching body of Quadirymir, hiding him in the surge of energy. The sphere was small, but his own mind was weak enough that he had felt its violence tear across his mind like a serrated knife. But it was stable.

“Xaronzul, jump! NOW!”

— Get them out of there!

Zenozarax felt his breath hard in his chest, looking up, he felt the station grow louder around him, then the jump alarm started to blare. There had already been panic in the restaurant, now people scrambled to get down and hold onto anything for dear life.

He looked at Ravalor.

Ravalor didn't seem to see him. He didn't seem to be aware of anything.

Then the light in his eyes faded, faded more, and turned pitch black. And Ravalor started to fall.

Zenozarax tried to jump up, catch him before he could hit the ground, but Aeven beat him to it, the very same moment the entire station gave a violent lurch as it jumped across the multiverse.

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