You let Andrew off your back.

Telepath: Several scouting parties have been sent, but we don't have the means to deal with the leviathan. Yet.

You hurry through the city in a civilized manner, quickly making it to the capital building. The guards quickly let you in, and you're shortly in front of Elizabeth's desk. Several mages are standing by on one side of the room, and Liam is beside her. Torrent appears to be missing.

Elizabeth: "Alright, let's get down to business. What happened since the last time I saw you."


________________________________________


Faren-Wuust: Schals are known for being capable of growing back their bodies with just their cores, several other core beasts can do this as well.

The guards let you through the gate and you use the key to let yourself in.

An empty, doorless room to the right, and ahead is a large living room of sorts, with a kitchen on the right (past the first room).

Stairs are to your left, and you head up to the second floor. Four bedrooms and a washroom, and it looks like all the bedrooms are taken already.

Well, you could use the empty room on the first floor, you guess.


________________________________________


Elizabeth: "We've noticed the strange behavior of the leviathan, witches, dragon, and construct, but we'll get into that matter soon enough.

Your assault on the Heartstone facility - did you encounter any of the facility's weaponized creations? When did reinforcements arrive?

Did you see how many Heartstones there were overall?

What were on the newspaper clippings? Do you have the director's notes?"


________________________________________


Guard: "We have the situation handled, citizen. This building is also off-limits to the public and has several confidential items. Leave now and we'll brush aside your intrusion."

She takes the note and reads over it.

Elizabeth: "What is so horrible that you can't even write it down in your suicide note?"

Setting the note on her desk, she clasps her hands and lets out a sigh.

Elizabeth: "With Linna and Caelum forces securing the Heartstone facility, we can focus on the next objective - retrieving Emiel.

You're wanted by the Whitehawk for some reason, go see what they want and return when you're done and I'll discuss the details with you and your team.

Any questions that can't wait until later?"


________________________________________


You head back downstairs, flop on the couch, and let yourself drift off into the darkness of sleep.


A woman is sitting in a padded chair beside a large window, looking out at the sea. Her details are obscured by the haziness of the dream and you can't see her face, but you have a hunch you've seen her before.

It's already happening. They're making their moves.

Your vision shifts to that of a far-away city. Walls like Vranhal, but miles of villages and farms on the outside, and towering human buildings within.

With your view high in the air like an eagle, you can see three entities approaching the city from the North, South, and West.

One of them resembles a massive, white hawk with a dozen red eyes and a long, lustrous black beak, blasting apart human mages with kinetic blasts and incinerating them with super-heated beams of light.

Another is a figure twice the height of a man, concealed in a tattered black cloak with only its numerous red eyes visible under its hood. The creature blinks in and out of existence, teleporting around while ripping apart humans and buildings with its dual black blades.

The last resembles a children's spinning top - a round, wide conical object with a pointed bottom, with the sides of the object appearing cloth-like. The top is a forest of black blades that sit packed together. The object simply floats several feet above the ground, moving towards the city at a constant speed. When several divisions of mages and soldiers approach, it turns inside-out with the cloth-exterior pulling down and hundreds of blades attached to organic fleshy arms launch outward, impaling several people before all the limbs retract and the object reverts back to its previous form. The blades all spin in alternating directions like a hundred blender rotors, mincing the caught bodies and spraying gore across the land.

A single voice commands the witches, working towards an outcome that will end us all.


________________________________________


You leave the building and head south, quickly finding the village of white tents set up in the fields. Countless men and women occupy the temporary settlement, all wearing white robes with the same emblem on their backs.



One of them approaches you.

Whitehawk: "Can I help you?"