Over the years, the distinction between basic classes, advanced classes, subclasses, and specialist classes have blurred beyond all recognition. Definitions vary from culture to culture, even dynasty to dynasty. To some a basic class is one that can be attained without assistance or following a calculated set of actions, but then most advanced classes are brought into question as well. After all, before a guidebook could be written, someone had to discover them in the first place.


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    Eythron waited patiently at his chosen location, a private stone pavilion in the middle of the closest thing to a park the city had to offer. Several tables with benches were set up in rows, testament to the pavilion’s ordinary usage as a party venue. Today, Eythron was the only one present.


    Jair had gone off doing whatever Jair things he thought were necessary, probably taking his girlfriend shopping or something. At least he was able to do that much without fussing and worrying. Given how hard he worked to control everything around him, it was pleasant being the one thing the time traveler didn’t try to micromanage.


    Not that Eythron would have cooperated if the kid had tried.


    Eythron spent the morning wandering through the markets and financial districts of the city, having casual conversations with everyone he met, and mentioned that if they happened to meet a sorcerer named Sekir he wanted to talk.


    Now, Eythron sat atop one of the tables, legs crossed and chest back, breathing calm and steady as he passively observed his surroundings.


    The curtains over the arched openings fluttered in a warm breeze. A spider’s lurking was disturbed by the movement and she promptly set about repairing the damaged section.


    The hunger of Zoress tugged at him perpetually, an inner void that could not be satisfied. It was not incited to the extreme lengths it had been before Jair took on control of Meliarn, not unbearable, but still very noticeable. It pushed him to move, restless dissatisfaction without an outlet.


    Eythron breathed slow and sat unmoving. He was not a slave to his desires, and even less to those externally imposed.


    He expected to be at this for days, cycling from city to city until his path and Sekir’s overlapped.


    It didn’t even take three hours.


    The man who walked in was dark-haired and unexceptional in height and feature, could have been any random Veori citizen. He wore a grubby tan overrobe that marked him as a member of the working class, but he carried himself with the confidence of a king.


    "I understand you''ve been looking for me.” The man made a small bow, more an acknowledgement than any true mark of respect, smiling the whole time. “It''s not often I''m called to a meeting so forwardly."


    "Eythron Zoress, Heir of Death. You Sekir?"


    "Indeed. Sekir Lifekeeper, Starslayer and Tidecaller. It is my utmost pleasure to meet you. I must ask, when you claim the name of Zoress, does that mean...?" Something in his tone was overly-familiar, almost possessive.


    "I lived within the dungeon for a time,” Eythron answered carefully. “Its collapse, that was you?"


    “You’re the first to put that together.” Sekir’s smile widened and he gave another acknowledging nod. "Indeed. Zoress was rather clumsily done, I had little experience at the time. I assure you, I can do much better now."


    "As can I."


    The two men regarded one another silently for a very long moment. Eythron didn’t even know what he should be feeling. For so long he''d been searching. The sheer weight of coincidence necessary to force this meeting was unfathomable.


    Yet here they sat. Survivor and destroyer, face to face.


    Perhaps this was fate.


    Sekir''s eyes flickered faintly with purple light as he activated his soulspell.


    Eythron raised his sword. "No. Talk or fight, but keep your soul to yourself."


    “Very well.” Sekir let the power fade. "What would you have us talk about, Heir of Zoress?"


    When he made no move to attack, Eythron lowered his sword. "Tidecaller. You took the upgrades for shattering Zoress and then destroyed the entire continent to conceal your passage."


    "That is a very crude way of putting things. Besides, I believe Zoraam survived many years after my departure."


    "You don''t try to deny your culpability in its fall."


    Sekir shrugged and took a seat on one of the benches, facing out opposite Eythron. He leaned back and sprawled an arm across the table behind him languidly. "Why should I? It''s not like you''re going to tell anyone. We both know there''s no way you''re leaving this place alive."


    "Then explain yourself, Tidecaller."


    Sekir laughed softly. "You want to know why I''m sinking continents? How I''m calling the mindless monsters to their feast?"


    "Yes."


    "Alas, those are answers I can share with no one. Not even the survivor of Zoress."


    Eythron lifted his sword to point at the sorcerer. "Then I can only conclude you are a monster yourself."


    Sekir laughed, maintaining his casual posture. "This from you? When you''re following the Phoenix Healer around? Do you have any idea what that man is capable of? He makes me look tame. I may break apart the land and open the path of the sea, but he is an emptiness deeper and hungrier than any seascourge. I am but a servant. If any who walks among us is a monster, it is Jair Welburne."


    "He may be an arrogant child but he holds no malice."


    "He is a soul-devouring monster." Sekir raised his hands. "Ask the seers if you doubt me. Ask why the future is fragmented and the fate of our world in chaos. Ask whose blade has split apart what is and what should be. You will find it is not me."


    "Convenient claim, when I''m not going to leave the room alive."


    Sekir waved a hand. "Oh, come now. There''s no need for us to be barbaric. I can prove it to you, if you’ll allow me. If you will not permit my soulspell access, may I offer a memory?"


    Eythron frowned, but dismissed his sword back into his soulspace. "You imagine you can convince me to see your perspective as anything but monstrous and unacceptable? You''re welcome to try."


    The sorcerer held out one hand, the palm-imprint facing Eythron. The faint lines of light seemed to blur for a moment as they rearranged—proof that the man was at least a two-layer caster if not more.


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    It was always hard to tell with humans when ''arch-something'' meant the actual technical status and when it meant anyone they perceived as very good at a thing.


    Eythron was a four-layer mage himself, which was substantially above the curve for mortal races. He might be able to reach five or six if he dedicated himself to it, but even that was questionable. He was more likely to seriously damage himself in the attempt than he was to survive all the way to High Mage, let alone true Archmage.


    But full elves were not limited by the same restrictions as he. They could spend decades making a single division, ensure it was flawless, and then do it again. They would win by sheer weight of time, even if moving far slower.


    The spell imprint on Sekir''s palm clarified, then began to glow white.


    Eythron slid down from his tabletop and slowly approached. Once they were within range, he reached out with one hand. Sekir leaned forward to meet him and the spell flowed violently into him, direct contact transmitting it from manabody to manabody like an electric current.


    The hardest part of sorcery was ensuring that the translation between caster and target was comprehensible. It was all too easy to begin a spell only to wind up transmitting pure nonsense. Like trying to harmonize with another singer you couldn''t hear. Very easy to do incorrectly and wind up sounding like a fool instead. Or missing the mark just enough to create dissonance.


    Sekir was an artisan. His spell asked and answered in tiny questing images, first static, then a vague impression of a field under a blank sky, then more complicated and detailed as it adjusted itself in seconds to match Eythron''s own frequencies. He found himself impressed despite himself. He’d already known the man was good but this was a whole other level. Sekir wasn’t just a true arch-sorcerer, but probably a specialist as well.


    Mere moments later, he received the invitation to the memory, a gentle layer that tried to insert itself between his manabody and mind. He didn''t resist. Though it would leave his body physically vulnerable he didn''t care. Information was more important.


    And then he was someone else.


    Sekir stared at the fragmented mirror, forged of the purest metrochite and backed in soulsilver. It had been a magical wonder, part of the world''s heritage of the power of creation.


    The Crystal Eye. The only known augment for seers that allowed access to other timelines beside the current one.


    For generations it was used to guide possibility through dangerous paths to the outcomes best suited to Suthyrel’s empresses and emperors. More than simply a national treasure, the Eye also lured the greatest seers and scholars, curious students and magical tourists. It had made Suthyrel''s capital one of the richest and most prosperous on the planet.


    And now it had shattered.


    Sekir knelt down and stared into the fractured pieces, each one stuck in a different image of a future that may never be.


    Every one contained the image of a sword. Not the same sword, not at first glance, but the core shape of it remained similar though the colors and patterns changed.


    A sword through the heart of the Empress. A sword through the skull of a frost dragon. A mirror dragon. Star hydra. Brobeg. Vampires.


    The sword through the screaming outline of a fleeing soul. Sekir stared closer at that one, breath catching. His fleeing soul. That one was repeated in five different fragments, five different swords in five different futures.


    There were more. The sword demolishing a mountain in a single strike. The sword shattering Zelura. The sword a looming shadow against the sun in an image that should have been beautiful but instead evoked nameless dread.


    The sword on fire, crimson light reflecting from the cold eyes of its wielder as the man waded through an army dispassionately, leaving death and ashes in his wake. The sword transparent ice, driven through the core of a dungeon, snow falling from far above.


    A hundred more. A thousand. Scene after scene of destruction and madness.


    "Who is he?" Sekir asked, his gaze drawn back once again to the image of the man wreathed in golden fire as he hovered above a city-shaped crater. His features weren''t distinctive, the image distorted oddly as all captured visions tended to be. "When is this?"


    "We don''t know. No one in our histories. As for when..." the man pointed to the upper left corner, then ran his hand down and around from there. "This is the soonest." Upper right corner. "The farthest."


    Sekir scanned through the fragments again with that in mind, and found a disturbing trend to them. "The farther forward, the more destruction."


    "Yes."


    The earliest images were merely single people, monsters, and sometimes just the sword on its own. The farther on in the timeline the visions went, the bigger and worse the attacks became.


    Shattering Zelura wasn''t even the final one. There were two more after it.


    The first was hard to comprehend, the sword driven into a cracked and broken mesh, odd shapes spread out across a backdrop of blue. The scale was off. But he finally recognized it as a view of Neptus as seen from the moons, somehow moved close enough to see only the planet and not the space beyond.


    "That''s... the whole planet?"


    "That is our guess, yes."


    "And he just... breaks it?" It made Sekir''s acts of destruction look downright tame. What was sinking a continent here or there compared to shattering every landmass in the world at once?


    Then he turned to the final image. What could be worse than—


    The memory blurred, thought and perception going hazy as Sekir obscured whatever happened next. Eythron reflexively tried to refocus, but the memory shifted and faded.


    Now.


    In that moment of dissonance, he struck out with his off-hand, soulsword appearing even as he moved. His eyes were closed—vision would have been useless even if his senses weren''t completely overwritten by the Sekir-memory version—but he knew how to move without his body''s feedback. He was training to take on the kind of creature that attacked the soul, a simple disconnect between perception and movement was nothing.


    The vision was collapsing around him, sound distorting and fading. "I never thought I''d say this, but you''re the lesser danger." Eythron couldn''t tell who was speaking, not even whether it was male or female. "At least your destruction will be slow enough to escape. If we must—"


    Then he was back in the room, his own body, and Sekir''s lifeless body slid from his sword to land in a pile at his feet.


    "You''re wrong," he told the dead sorcerer. "The boy is a lot of things, but a mass destroyer isn''t one of them. You''re going to need a better argument than some nebulous prophecy from a broken mirror to turn us against each other."


    Sekir coughed and groaned, pressing one hand across the hole in his chest. "He will destroy you too. If you keep protecting him, you''re only ensuring your own destruction."


    "Then I will be destroyed. No one lives forever, not even immortals." Eythron drove his sword through Sekir''s eyes one after the other. "Leave us alone. I know the taste of your soul now. If you think Jair is dangerous, you''ve been worrying about the wrong person."


    Sekir laughed wetly, voice gurgling through the blood as he coughed. "If you were going to kill me, you would have already. You''re not sure who to believe. You know I''m right. He''s dangerous. That sword of his is an abomination."


    Eythron snorted. "That sword is the least of your worries. I''m giving you one chance. Leave him alone. Don''t touch his friends or family. This is your chance to prove you''re not a monster. Otherwise, I will hunt you without mercy."


    Sekir tried to speak again, but even his power could only go so far. His body was dead, his spirit fled, and the mutilated corpse fell still for good.


    Eythron flicked the blood off his sword and dismissed it back to his soul, knelt to check the body for any valuables, then walked away with his hands in his pockets.


    If Sekir thought he’d catch Eythron off guard easily just because he’d been outfought in a previous timeline, he was deeply mistaken. Even if he had a swordmaster ally, a sorcerer was still a sorcerer. And a mageblade was still a mageblade. Spellshields were all well and good for mundane weaponry, but a soulsword was another matter entirely.


    Meeting a mageblade alone as a pure spellcaster was enough of a mistake without compounding it by getting within touch range.


    It wouldn’t be this easy next time, but that didn’t matter. An advantage was to be used, not hoarded indefinitely. And he had the feeling his message had been received quite clearly.


    Eythron opened the door and came abruptly face to face with the crimson elf blademaster, eyes alight, twin blades already moving.


    “Overconfidence,” he grumbled, as he barely blocked one of the blades and the second slid into his thigh despite his attempts to twist away. He was in an assessment layer at the moment, and switching mid-combat was always challenging. He leaped back and began the process anyway, as he prepared to fight for his life.


    He could only hope to drag this out long enough to think of something out of the box. Ordinarily, a twinblade would be no real danger to him, but knowing he''d already lost to the man once meant he needed to take this absolutely seriously.


    Sekir may not be the only one who''d made a fatal mistake here.


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