Darkness swirled around the statue and then moved downwards.
It stopped some distance from them and then grew in size, changing shape constantly, until it settled on the form of a tall man.
The shadows coalesced, ant the immaterial darkness turned into a person.
Tharion was dressed in a simple yet beautiful set of black plate armour, including a helmet which covered his head completely, save for the two thin slits at the eye level.
At his waist hang a strange sword made in a similar style to his armour, and it was just as black.
"We need your help sir Tharion." Nickolas bowed respectfully.
"I know." Calen recognised the familiar voice of the Shadow in his dreams. "And drop the sir, I was never knighted – don’t use Lord either, Sy might come from the nobility, but I don’t. If you have to use my name, just do it."
"Of course." Nickolas nodded. "Are you familiar with the situation we’re in?"
"Yes. If you haven’t called for me I might’ve gone and solved it myself – normally I try not to interfere in human conflict unless the civilisation’s survival is threatened, but this time the Serakhiin are involved so I’ll help."
"So the sword really did come from the Blightborn?"
"It did, but not the ones you think. The fact that the Blight inside is suppressed points to one of the rebel groups rather than the empire. They probably wanted to recruit Arthur and gave him that sword as a part of the bargain – or perhaps as an experiment, who knows."
"So, what’s the plan?" Cassian asked.
Tharion looked at him for a few seconds in silence, clearly inspecting him for some reason.
"We will wait until tomorrow, and attack then. Our goal is not to kill Arthur and his loyalists, but to destroy the sword and overpower them."
"Overpower seven masters of aura and a cursed-sword-wielding madman? Even if Nickolas, Leon and Greg each take on two people and you handle Arthur, one aura master is more than enough to take on the six of us." Calen pointed out.
"It is true." Tharion agreed. "Which is precisely why I’m going to give you some pointers of how to fight – except you Calen, for you I prepared a body-strengthening medicine. It will equalize the power of your body and flame, allowing you to draw out all of its strength without worrying about drawbacks."
He handed Calen a gray, round pill reminiscent of a pebble and turned to Isara.
"Fool’s heir, Moon’s reflection." He greeted her. "Have you mastered object phasing yet?"
"Only for things smaller than myself."
"It’ll do. In Fool’s notes find a Chapter pertaining to phase traps and study it carefully – it’s something that even aura master would find problematic." He looked at Elira next.
"Sy’s student, I never thought I’d get to actually meet one." He chuckled lightly. "This is a gift your master wanted me to pass onto you."
He presented her with a delicate golden bracelet decorated with plant engravings and few small emeralds.
"It’s an artifact that will help to train your connection to Nature, meditate on your power as often as possible to make the best use of it."
Finally, he faced Cassian once more.
"My champion." His golden eyes shines with an undecipherable emotion beyond the narrow slits of his helmet. "You chose to add my gift to your sword instead of the other way around – why?"
"I feel more comfortable fighting with my own sword because I’m more familiar with its shape."
"That’s a lie." Tharion stated in a completely neutral voice. "My weapon can take any shape possible, if you truly cared about the familiarity of the weapon you could copy your original one perfectly – so I ask again, why?"
Cassian didn’t respond for a while – he simply stared at Tharion, trying to come up with another excuse.
But ultimately he decided against it.
"I did it because my sword is a precious memento from my father and I care about it more than a random magic sword."
"Good." Tharion nodded. "You will come with me, I’ll show you the other powers of this sword and give you some guidance on your aura."
He started walking towards the front of the temple but then stopped and looked over his shoulder.
"And for the record my relic isn’t just a random magic sword."
Cassian didn’t respond and just followed him.
Once Tharion and Cassian disappeared gods know where inside the temple, everyone began their own preparations:
Elira found a quiet corner and started meditating, while Isara retrieved her book and searched for the Chapter mentioned by the Guardian.
As for Calen, he was standing surrounded by the rest of the group who didn’t get any special orders.
"I’ve never seen a pill like that." Alfred commented.
"You haven’t seen a lot of things." Leon countered.
"Do you know what it is then?"
"Well no, but that’s because I don’t know much about herbs and pills. I’m sure Nick knows-"
"I have no idea what it is." Nickolas cut him off. "It’s a very unusual colour for a pill, I can tell you that much."
Suddenly, Greg sniffed the air.
"It’s made of blood." He declared. "At least partially that is, there are a few things in the smell I don’t recognise."
"Blood? Blood of what?" Leon questioned. "And since when you can guess the ingredients of a pill from just the smell?"
"Since always. My kind has much sharper senses than humans, recognising scents is a child’s play for me." The devil shrugged. "As for the blood, I have no idea what creature it belongs to, but I’m certain it’s not something corrupted – blood of those things stinks on a completely different level."
"Not corrupted..." Calen frowned. "What are the chances that I’m about to consume human blood?"
"Well, that’s better than I thought – anyway, it’s not like it counts as cannibalism... I think."
He simply shrugged and popped the strange pill into his mouth.