Breaking the Wall

The Arrestables barely made it into the desert before Muskelon’s soldiers caught them. Weakened from their last encounter and outnumbered, they were thrown in prison wagons with the remnants of Maribel’s shattered revolution. Maribel herself was among them—bloody, bound, and unconscious.

Their destination: Wellguard. A sprawling prison city built to erase threats, break spirits, and silence rebellion.

Upon arrival, the party was thrown into cells with the rest of the captured Dharetti. The air stank of despair and blood, but even here, hope lingered. Somewhere inside the prison was Devlin—a Dharetti elder and powerful mage who had hidden in plain sight as a harmless, frail prisoner. Muskelon had been hunting him for years, never realizing the man he sought lived under his nose.

But Wellguard offered more than lost allies—it also brought bitter truths. Vorden’s twin brothers, Brad and Braden, had betrayed their family. Hungry for power, they joined the Xaviers and Muskelon, believing their birthright had been denied. It was their betrayal that delivered the royal family into enemy hands. Vorden soon discovered his parents and sister were already imprisoned... and sentenced to die.

In the dim, cold belly of Wellguard Prison, Shadow moved like a phantom through the cellblocks—silent, unreadable. The battle for escape had begun, but something had drawn him away from the chaos. A presence. A whisper in the stone. A heartbeat he hadn’t felt in years. There, shackled but unbowed, knelt Master Renzo—the venerable leader of the Dragon Clan and the only father Shadow had ever known. His once-proud robes were torn, but his eyes still burned with quiet fire.

“Master,” Shadow breathed, dropping to his knees.

Renzo offered a weak smile. “You’ve grown.”

But the reunion lasted only seconds. A slow, mocking clap echoed through the corridor. From the darkness emerged a man in deep crimson monk’s robes, his head shaved clean, his expression carved from cruelty and arrogance. It was Saryx—the Viper Clan’s Grand Master, and Shadow’s greatest rival.

“Such sentiment,” Saryx sneered. “Your clan is dying, Shadow. Muskelon will see to that.”

Before Shadow could rise, Saryx struck. The blow came not for him—but for Renzo. With a blur of movement, Saryx drove a serpent-fang blade into Renzo’s chest. The old master gasped, then went still. Shadow caught him as he fell. Something broke inside him. But there was no time for vengeance—not yet.

Then came Garrick. The eldest Xavier son, Garrick lured the party to a quiet break room for a clandestine meeting. He had a secret of his own: he’d been working against his family from the start. Garrick revealed that Alinora’s death had been faked—a carefully orchestrated escape to protect her from enemies who wanted her bloodline extinguished. He’d kept his true loyalties hidden, knowing full well the Arrestables weren’t great at keeping secrets. Now in charge of Wellguard and overseeing the mock trials, Garrick had brought his personal guard—loyal only to him—and laid out a plan for escape.

With help from Devlin, Maribel, and the many Dharetti sympathizers among the guards, they planned a revolt.

At dawn, the prison erupted in chaos.

The Arrestables fought through narrow corridors and rusted gates, side by side with rebels and loyalists alike. Garrick’s elite soldiers swept aside the remaining loyalists to Muskelon. In mere hours, nearly three thousand prisoners surged from the gates of Wellguard, racing south toward the ancient wall dividing Okepia from Dharetti lands.

The Wall was built to keep the Dharetti out. It was not designed to repel an assault from the Okepian side.

As the army of freed rebels approached, they were joined by another force—led by Alinora herself. Reunited, the Arrestables prepared for one final push.

Shadow and Jonathan scaled the wall in the dead of night. They slipped past guards, sabotaged ballistas, and turned the fortifications into deathtraps. At sunrise, Jonathan revealed himself with a grin, sparking the battle before the enemy could arm themselves.

This wasn’t just another skirmish. This was personal.

Among the defenders stood figures from each of their pasts—oppressors, traitors, executioners—and at their center: Brad and Braden. Clad in cursed armor and wielding weapons gifted by the dreaded Mother Fornault, the brothers met their kin on the battlefield.

Vorden offered mercy.

They spat it back.

As the revolutionaries surged over the wall, clashing with guards and corrupt nobles, chaos roared across the battlefield. In the shadows of the fortress towers, Jonathan found himself locked in a different kind of conflict—quiet, personal, and razor-sharp.

While disabling a catapult crew on the wall’s northern side, Jonathan spotted movement out of the corner of his eye—too smooth, too calculated for a panicked guard. He turned just in time to parry a poisoned dagger with his cursed blade. Standing before him was a lithe, masked assassin dressed in shadowweave cloth, his strikes silent as breath and twice as fast.

The two circled in the flame-lit dark, steel flashing between them. The assassin moved like liquid shadow, ducking and weaving with inhuman grace. Jonathan held his own—barely—dodging a flurry of precise strikes and landing a few slashes of his own. But before the battle could end, the assassin vanished in a puff of magical smoke, retreating deeper into the crumbling fortress.

Jonathan, breathing hard and bleeding from a shallow cut across his ribs, gave chase.

As the revolutionaries stormed the southern wall of Okepia, Shadow saw Saryx standing above the battle with arms crossed, awaiting him. Without a word, Shadow leapt through the smoke and flame. Their bodies collided with the crack of stone and steel, and the two martial artists burst into combat atop the wall’s highest rampart.

What followed was a blur of motion—a symphony of strikes and counters, fists cracking like thunder, legs sweeping like scythes. Wind howled around them as they exchanged flurries of devastating blows, their battle spilling from rooftop to parapet to collapsing tower. Every style the Dragon Clan had taught Shadow was tested. Every cruel technique of the Vipers answered in kind.

Saryx fought with poisonous precision—venomous strikes aimed at pressure points and tendons, seeking to cripple. But Shadow fought with fire in his heart and the memory of his fallen master guiding every motion. At last, they landed on a precarious ledge jutting out from the main tower. Saryx lunged in for a killing blow—a double-palm strike laced with ki meant to stop a heart.

Shadow caught it. Redirected it. And unleashed his own dragon strike—palm open, fire trailing his fist as it connected squarely with Saryx’s chest. The Viper's body went flying from the wall. He hit the ground below with a final, sickening thud. Shadow stood, breath ragged, the wind swirling around him as the battle raged on below. The past had been avenged.

In the heart of the rebel camp, smoke drifted lazily through the air as fires from the battle still smoldered around the ruins. Maribel, bloodied but alive, leaned weakly against a shattered wall. She coughed, reaching for her staff, when a familiar voice called out—strong, regal, laced with concern.

“Maribel!” Vorden’s father sprinted across the rubble-strewn courtyard, his royal armor streaked with ash, his face stricken with worry. He knelt beside her, cradling her shoulders with shaking hands. “You’re hurt—stay with me.”

She tried to speak, to warn him of the assassin that had fled earlier, but the words never left her lips.

His hand moved swiftly.

The dagger slipped between her ribs, clean and deliberate.

Maribel’s eyes widened, not with pain, but with heartbreak.

Alinora arrived just in time to witness the strike. She froze, staring at the impossible scene—Vorden’s father rising slowly, blood on his hands, eyes cold. “Why…?” she whispered, stunned. The figure turned, voice still identical. “It had to be done,” he said calmly, stepping toward her.

Alinora lashed out but the king's knife was faster and pulsing with magic. The speed caught Alinora off guard and the blade cut her deep she fell to the ground. Johnathan seeing Alinora fall struck the king from behind, but he moved with an impossible quickness. Then the royal face melted away, revealing the assassin beneath—a twisted, grinning creature cloaked in stolen shapes and stolen trust. The assassin dropped his disguise, grinning through a blood-spattered mask. “You’re always late, halfling.”

“No,” Jonathan muttered, drawing his blade. “I’m just in time.”

The fight was brutal.

This time, Jonathan wasn’t reacting—he was on the attack. He used the cursed blade’s unnatural pull to trap the assassin’s weapons, matching speed with cunning. Blades rang out in the courtyard as firelight danced around them. The assassin fought like a creature born of nightmare—climbing walls, flipping through air, and throwing poison-tipped knives. But Jonathan matched him step for step, darting under swings, parrying lethal jabs, and using every dirty trick he'd ever learned on the streets.

The assassin finally faltered when Jonathan feigned a stumble—only to drive his blade deep through the shapeshifter’s side. The assassin gasped, a final illusion flickering across his face.

Jonathan leaned in, breath ragged. “See, just in time.”

The shapeshifter collapsed, his body reverting to a twisted, featureless form as he died.

Sinas locked eyes with Braden—Brad’s twin, betrayer of the Copper bloodline, and now clad in cursed armor that pulsed with dark magic like a second skin. Braden grinned beneath his horned helm. “You may be big goliath but you are small minded, just like my brother. Are you ready to die?” he mocked, drawing a cursed whip gifted to him by Mother Fornault. “Let’s see how your faith in weak gods holds up when I tear you apart.”

Sinas stepped forward, armor dented, blood already drying on his cracked knuckles. He gripped his mace with both hands, the head of it glowing with divine radiance. “I don’t preach,” he said quietly. “I deliver judgment.”

The ground trembled as they clashed. Braden came at him like a berserker, strength and fury amplified by the cursed weapon he wielded. His strikes weaved with his evil magic. Each swing was meant to kill, to humiliate, to break the ideals Sinas carried like a shield. But Sinas didn’t yield.

He fought with divine purpose—each blow of his hammer infused with radiant energy, a shining contrast to Braden’s cruel shadow-magic. He called down healing light to sustain his allies behind him and warding flares to blind Braden when he surged too close.

At one point, Braden carved a deep gash into Sinas’s shoulder, forcing him to his knees.

“Still standing?” Braden sneered. “You should have bowed to the winning side when you had the chance.”

Blood streaming down his arm, Sinas looked up with eyes glowing like burning coals.

“There is no winning side,” he growled, “when you’ve sold your soul.”

With a roar, he rose, mace raised high. He summoned all the divine energy he could channel, and with a deafening crack, brought the weapon down. The blow shattered Braden’s defense and sent shockwaves through the wall beneath them. Braden stumbled back, dazed. His cursed armor flared with unstable energy, trying to leech from Sinas’s lifeforce—but it couldn’t hold. Sinas stepped in, grabbed the front of his breastplate, and forced Braden to look him in the eyes. “You could have chosen redemption,” he said, almost pleading. “But you chose damnation.”

Then, with one final prayer whispered through clenched teeth, he drove the head of his mace into Braden’s chest.

The cursed magic imploded. A surge of radiant light swallowed Braden’s body as his soul was torn from it—stolen not by divine judgment, but by Jonathan’s waiting hand from the shadows beyond.

The goliath stood over the corpse, breathing hard. One traitor had fallen. But for Sinas, it wasn’t victory—it was penance.

The Wall burned. Rebellion roared like thunder below, but atop the battlements, the world narrowed to two brothers. Vorden and Brad, born of the same royal blood, now divided by darkness and destiny. Brad struck first. A storm of savage blows came from the cursed black scimitar in his hands, each slash charged with dark energy gifted by Mother Fornault. His demon-forged armor hissed and pulsed with unholy magic, every movement faster and stronger than any mortal should wield.

Vorden weathered the storm. He parried, blocked, and ducked under a whirlwind of slashes, his golden armor denting and sparking as Brad pressed the assault. He was on the defensive, heart aching more than his bruised ribs.

“Brad,” he called over the clash of steel, “you don’t have to keep doing this. It’s not too late.”

Brad’s eyes burned red beneath his helm. “Not too late?” he snarled. “You still don’t get it. You were always the weak one—hiding behind honor while I was cast aside. I earned this power!”

Their blades locked, scimitar grinding against the glowing edge of the Sun Blade. Vorden held his ground, eyes unwavering.

“I don’t care about thrones or titles,” he said. “But I will protect our people even if it means stopping you.”

Then, across the battlefield, he saw it—his father, stabbing Maribel. The shock hit like lightning. His sword dipped for a moment. Brad lunged. The scimitar slashed across his chest, ripping through the armor with a vicious crack. Vorden staggered back, falling to one knee. Blood painted the stones beneath him.

H friends were fighting, some falling. Brad stood over him, triumphant, laughing. He could no longer delay doing what he did not want to do, Vorden rose.

There was no rage, just clarity. He stood not for vengeance, but for truth. For every innocent caught in this war. For the honor of his family, and the soul of his brother, already slipping away. Light exploded from his form. The Sun Blade ignited in full glory, divine energy pouring into it as Vorden surged forward. This time, he pressed the attack.

Brad fought back, but he was no longer the hunter. Vorden’s strikes came with righteous fury, each blow echoing like thunder, scattering shadows and pushing Brad across the battle field like a leaf in a storm. The scimitar cracked. Brad’s armor warped. He fell to one knee.

“Please,” Vorden said, one last time, “choose a different path.”

Brad looked up, chest heaving—and smiled.

“You’re still soft.” With a roar, he lunged forward with the shattered scimitar one final betrayal.

Vorden was ready. He stepped into the blow and brought the Sun Blade down with divine wrath. A burst of radiant energy exploded as Brad was struck. His body was cast back, the cursed blade falling from his hand, darkness bleeding from his wounds. He was defeated. As his brother lay broken before him, Vorden did not cheer. He simply gripped his greatsword and moved into the battle, he would not let another of his friends fall this day. With their leaders now felled, Muskelon's soldiers turned and ran. The battle was over for now.

When the dust settled, the wall was taken. Dharetti engineers moved quickly to tear down as much of the wall as they could before Muskelon’s reinforcements could arrive.

Atop the shattered ramparts, Vorden met his father once more. The deposed king, proud but weary, handed Vorden the royal signet. “Restore our family’s honor,” he said, and abdicated the throne. Now exiled, Vorden Copper—reluctant, uncertain, and grieving—was king in name. He had never wanted the crown. But as war loomed and truths unraveled, he knew he could not refuse.