Kasyn’s feet were sore and his whole body was weary. They’d been walking for weeks, stopping in each state to gather up the soul tithe on their long march to the capitol. He’d been to Yomichi only one other time and that was when he was a child. His only memories of the visit were of the massive toshokan where Akumu stored records, tomes, and scrolls of lore. The city held five such toshokans, but only Kokyo Toshokan was open to the public. The other four required you to petition directly to Akumu for access. The great ruler of Yume wasn’t stingy with knowledge but he did want to ensure the knowledge was being sought for legitimate reasons. Otherwise, the toshokans would certainly be overrun by every scholar, visiting dignitary, and even the common folk.

Kasyn hoped to have some time to study in the different toshokans before his turn to be offered to the great Akumu came. As the thought of being offered to Akumu sprang up, so too did his own fears. He found his hand clutching the symbol of Akumu that he wore around his neck and he shut his eyes briefly in silent prayer. Akumu was not a god, but that didn’t stop people like Kasyn from treating him like a proxy deity. A significant minority of Yume’s population worshiped Akumu in some form or another even though Akumu was quite explicit about his lack of divinity. Still, it was hard not to view Akumu with reverence. He was, after all, omniscient of everything that went on within his lands. There was no law breaking he didn’t respond to, no rebellion that wasn’t quashed immediately, no obedience that wasn’t commended.

“It’s an honor to be offered,” Kasyn muttered over and over to himself.

Kasyn, his eyes still shut, tripped over an uneven patch in the road and flailed wildly before crashing to the ground. His face struck the road and opened a gash on his left cheek. A few people laughed. This was not the first time he’d tripped while his eyes were shut in prayer.

“Maybe Akumu wouldn’t mind if you prayed with your eyes open?” a friendly voice suggested.

Kasyn looked up to find Emilie Tracy, one of the Sages of the Mercurial Robe, offering her hand to help him up. There were others, like Emilie, who were traveling with the soul tithe.

“Thank you,” Kasyn said, accepting the offered hand.

“Here,” Emilie held out a small pot of ointment, “for the cut.”

Kasyn nodded his thanks again and applied a small amount of the healing balm. Within a few minutes, the cut was healed.

“Handy stuff, that,” Kasyn said, pointing to the pot as Emilie put it back into her pack. “You make it yourself?”

“Nah, healing’s more the Tower of Light’s job. I got this from Theresa over there.” She pointed and waved until an older woman in full plate armor, the emblem of the Tower of Light on her chest, nodded back. “She acts tough but has a soft spot for us wayward souls.”

“I bet she’d love me, then,” Kasyn said with ample sarcasm.

It was no secret that the Tower of Light was ideologically opposed to Akumu. They worshiped everything that was good and righteous and spoke out against evil, as they saw it. In centuries past they had tried to send their armies across the border, only to be struck down. In more recent history, the Tower of Light had become less militaristic and more focused on living good lives and pushing for peace between peoples. They’d even been allowed to build their churches in Yume now that they weren’t trying to attack it. That didn’t mean everything was great between the Tower of Light and those who revered Akumu, though.

“Eh, I think she just sees you all as victims of Akumu.”

“Akumu follows their ideals better than they do,” Kasyn said.

“”Don’t let any of them hear you say that,” Emilie warned, looking around in case they’d been overheard.

“It’s true. Akumu has ensured peace for Yume for so long that it predates any history books. There’s practically no murder here, no theft, no war. And all he asks for is the soul tithe.”

“Right, but doesn’t that mean none of you get to go to the beyond? I mean, your souls are consumed. That’s it. The end. No eternal rest for you. Theresa says that’s worse than murder.”

“It’s painless, from what I’m told,” Kasyn shrugged, “and besides, how eternal is the beyond anyway? What happens every time the pantheon’s change? I’ve never heard of a single successful seance following a pantheon collapse and rebuilding. And that happens every couple hundred years or so.”

That was a long standing question, one that the Tower of Light had no answer to and their gods had never answered them when they asked about it.

“We’re due for a pantheon change, aren’t we?” Emilie asked.

“I never kept track of it,” Kasyn admitted. “That’d be a question for the Tower. And anyway, I thought it was sort of random when it happened.”

Emilie didn’t seem to know either and they let the subject drop.

“So what’s called you to the city?” he asked after a few moments.

“Research,” Emilie replied.

“Ooh, plumbing the depths of magic? Are you one of the Sages spellweavers?”

“No, nothing like that. I’m more of an alchemist than anything else, but I’ve been studying magic more and more lately. Enough to be able to join the Sages of the Mercurial Robe at least.”

Kasyn was about to ask more when a shout rose up from the people at the head of their procession.

“What’s that?” Kasyn asked.

They were near the back of the procession so it was difficult to hear precisely what was going on.

“Hang on,” Emilie said and began chanting, her hands flashing into complex motions, until an orb appeared in front of her, displaying an aerial view of the procession. “I don’t see anything,” she went on, then began to shift the viewpoint around until it revealed the source of the disturbance.

“That’s…

Kasyn’s voice caught in his throat as they both saw the army charging towards the city.

“Those are Tower of Light banners,” Emilie pointed out as she zoomed in on the image.

Rage filled Kasyn and he swung around, looking for anyone from the Tower of Light.

“Traitors!” he bellowed as he found Theresa and her knot of Tower of Light adherents in the crowd.

A power deep within Kasyn welled up. He’d never felt this before, but he wouldn’t turn it away now and he let it burst forth. His finger was pointing, accusingly at Theresa and he used that as the focus for this power. It surged out of him in a flash of arcane light, deep purple with hints of red and orange flickering across the distance between him and Theresa and smote her across the face. The blow lifted her off her feet and cast her to the ground.

Undead hands were already reaching up from the ground, grasping at the other members of the Tower of Light as they tried to draw their weapons. The honor guard of undead skeletons were similarly turning on the members of the Tower of Light who tried to fight back.

“No!” Theresa shouted, though there were too many people in the way for Kasyn to see her. “I didn’t know! I didn’t –

He was running towards her when he found the spot where she’d been. Only disturbed soil marked the place now.

“They pulled her under,” one of the other members of the soul tithe said.

The rest of her entourage were in the midst of being dragged under as well and Kasyn couldn’t help but feel relieved at how swift Akumu had responded.

“I wonder if all of their members are being dragged under as we speak?” Kasyn said.

“I hope not,” came the response. “My mom’s a member, but not a fighter. She just likes their sermons and says her prayers.”

Kasyn didn’t know what to say to that and instead made his way back to Emilie while the last members of the Tower of Light were pulled beneath the ground and things calmed down. He expected much the same was happening to the army. However, when he found Emilie again and looked at the orb she’d conjured, he found that not only was the army not being dragged into the earth, they were still advancing on the city.

More and more people were gathering to watch Emilie’s spell and silence gripped them all. The city defenses would stop them, surely. And yet, the city gate was breached within minutes.

“They must be hastened,” Emilie commented. “There’s no other way they could be covering this much ground and fighting this quickly.”

“But what about the undead?”

“The army’s hallowing the ground as they advance,” Emilie said though it sounded more like a guess than a statement. “You normally can’t hallow ground in Yume for more than a few minutes, but that’s all they need since they’re moving so fast.”

“We have to get to Yomichi,” Kasyn gasped, tearing his gaze away from the orb.

“We can’t do anything,” someone in the crowd replied and Kasyn knew they were right, though he still felt that strange power within himself and wondered if there was more he could be doing.

“Let’s at least keep moving towards the city,” Kasyn said and slowly they all resumed their long walk.

Emilie kept her spell going and they watched the battle progress as they marched on the city. The army’s defenses weren’t impervious and every step they took was paid for in blood but their numbers were immense. Every barrier the city threw up in their path was beaten down by their shear numbers until, at last, they reached Nemuri no Shiro and began to teleport inside. After several more minutes, the army was inside.

“Look at the Yomichi,” someone gasped.

This entire time they’d been so distracted by the army that they hadn’t been looking at the rest of the city around them, but now as Emilie zoomed back out, they could see the immense destruction left in their wake. Gates were smashed, buildings were on fire, and a line of corpses trailed the entire way through the city. Only now did they notice that there were splinter groups of the Tower of Light who were still fighting in the city.

“Did they get lost?” Kasyn asked but no one had an answer for him.

They weren’t even near the main path of the army but seemed to have gone in more or less a direct path towards where they were. Magical explosions usually heralded the end of each group, though the source of such explosions was unclear.

“I can still see the fiends and elementals fighting them in Ichiba Wa, near the Tower of Light chapel.”

Sure enough, a final group were holding out against the city’s final defenders, the fiends and elementals Akumu had bound into service. They were most potent because if they were defeated, they would simply reincorporate and rejoin the fight. It was all but impossible to truly kill one of them inside the city.

Without warning, a burst of arcane power surged out from Nemuri no Shiro, withering everything in its path and draining all life. It was followed by an equally strong pulse of radiance that restored the withered life and even healed most injuries. The double explosion of magic knocked Kasyn and the majority of the soul tithe to the ground.

“My eyes!”

“I can’t see!”

“I’ve gone blind!”

Shouts from the front reached Kasyn and Emilie and they joined the others in hurrying forwards to see what had happened. What they found were dozens of people with their eyes burned out of their sockets. It was a grisly sight to say the least.

“What happened?” Emilie asked as she began casting magics to try and identify the source of this mass blinding. “I don’t understand, everyone was healed by the second pulse, why should these be blinded?”

It didn’t take too long for the answer to become apparent. They were the ones who had been looking directly at the city when the explosion happened.

“They’ve been soul burned,” Emilie explained. “Our eyes are the most direct path to our soul, and if something overwhelms that pathway it can damage or even destroy the eyes. It’s like a mage over channeling, forcing too much power through an insufficient instrument.”

“Will they be alright?” Kasyn asked.

“They should be alright, besides being blind,” Emilie nodded, “as long as we don’t overtax them. Their soul’s grip on their body is weakened but that should heal within the next day or two.”

“Alright,” Kasyn called out, “let’s help the injured. Anyone with healing salves or the like should come and help apply it. Then let’s get moving again. We’re only a few miles from the city now. Emilie Tracy has found a group of survivors from the city who’ve set up camp in the foothills outside the city. We’ll make for them and see what’s going on. Akumu willing, the army has been defeated and we’ll be able to get on with…with everything.”

He’d been meaning to say ‘get on with our lives’ but since the majority of his listeners were members of the soul tithe it didn’t quite seem appropriate.