The skiff's engines hummed with a low, ancient vibration as it banked sharply, leaving the transit bridge behind. Inside the cramped cabin, the silence was heavy—not with awkwardness, but with the quiet intensity of four distinct powers sharing the same space.
Seraphina sat on a crate, her gaze fixed on the Solar-Flare Butterfly fluttering near her shoulder, its wings shedding embers of golden light. Her long hair, a vivid, untamed red that seemed to absorb the light like a consuming wildfire, cascaded over her shoulders. It matched the raw intensity flickering in her amber eyes.
"So," she began, her gaze moving from Kaelen's composed form to Elara's placid face, before finally settling on Lucas. "An ice-specialist from the Sentinels, a flora-expert from the Bulwarks, and you." She gestured with a lean, strong hand toward Lucas. "The 'researcher' who walks without making a sound. You're a strange group to find heading into a Rift-Zone."
Elara adjusted her silks, her jasmine flowers pulsing with a faint green light. "We are seeking raw materials. Kaelen provides the control we need for the eastern rifts, and my roots offer the defense. Lucas is... providing the direction."
Seraphina's smile was wolfish—all teeth and intelligence. "Well, you found the right guide. The Vanguard-Institute doesn't teach you theories; they throw you in the jungle with a dull knife and tell you to survive. My Butterfly and Rose-Drake have cleared more paths than any Academy textbook."
"She is sharp, Papa," Moxie's voice was a mere breath in his mind. "She can't see the Yin within you, but she smells the stillness. She knows you aren't just a scholar."
Kaelen leaned back, his gaze fixed on the viewing port where the Rift-storms raged. "We have the Vanguard for the front, a Sentinel for the crowd, and a Bulwark for the walls. We have four of the five pillars of the Empire sitting in this cabin." He glanced at Lucas. "Assuming our 'Researcher' fits the Reaper profile for scouting."
"There's still one missing," Lucas noted softly. "We don't have a Weaver."
"The Healer class?" Seraphina snorted. "The Academy hoards those 'holy' types for the high-rank guilds. You'll never find a Weaver willing to get their robes dirty in a ghost city. One scratch, and they panic."
The sky ahead shifted from bruised orange to a dense, cloying mist that smelled of wet earth and ancient decay.
"Orizon-Sub," Seraphina announced, standing up and pulling her red hair back. "Keep your eyes open. This mist is alive with rogue mana."
The skiff broke through the fog, revealing a sprawling, subterranean labyrinth. Colossal, white-stone structures from the era of the First Kings were choked by massive, glowing green vines. It was a beautiful, terrifying tomb where the advanced architecture of the past was being devoured by the primordial forces of the present.
The skiff landed on a fractured plaza. The silence was absolute—until the vines began to writhe.
"Ambush!" Seraphina roared, her briar-sword flashing out. Kaelen slammed his hand onto the ground, creating a frost-wall, while Elara began chanting to bind the vegetation. But the vines weren't just attacking; they were being driven. They moved with a desperate, jerky motion, as if fighting their own nature.
Suddenly, a strange, resonant hum cut through the noise. The green energy in the vines was violently yanked backward, and a voice, young and strangely cheerful, rang out.
"Now, now, my sweet green ones. It is not time to feed. Your guests are here."
The vines went limp.
Through the parting, deflated jungle stepped a girl who stopped them all in their tracks. She couldn't have been more than seventeen, but her hair was a shocking, brilliant green that seemed to grow like moss, flowing down her back. Her eyes were wide and filled with a radiant, almost childlike kindness.
She was dressed in a tattered, old-style Academian cloak, but the most unsettling part was what walked with her.
Behind her shuffled four armored skeletons, their bones etched with glowing green runes and wrapped in living, writhing vines. In their skeletal hands, they held simple, polished staves of Iron-Oak.
"You have very energetic signatures!" the girl chirped, beaming at them as she skipped forward. She stopped and curtsied to the four stunned students. "Hello! I am Cora. I haven't seen a healthy pulse in years! And one of you looks positively dynamic!" She beamed directly at Kaelen.
"This... is not a standard Weaver," Moxie whispered, her mind filled with a rare, cold dread. "Papa, she is something else. A Necromancer who heals."
Elara stared at the skeletons, her Bulwark affinity vibrating. "You... you heal them with life-mana, but you drive them with death. That is a contradiction."
"Oh, 'contradiction' is such a big word!" Cora waved her hand dismissively, her kind smile never wavering. "My green ones were lonely. They just needed someone to help them move again. And I can heal the living too! My moss knits flesh better than any light-magic. I'm a Weaver... just a slightly different kind."
Seraphina was speechless. Kaelen looked horrified. Only Lucas remained calm, his gaze meeting Cora's.
"We needed a healer," Lucas said quietly.
"And we found one," Moxie purred. "The five classes have finally met. The Vanguard, the Sentinel, the Bulwark, the Reaper... and the Weaver of the Grave. The city of Orizon-Sub is no longer just a ruin, Papa. It's a stage."
Seraphina's hand didn't leave the hilt of her briar-sword. The Crimson Rose-Drake hissed behind her, its petals fluttering in a warning display of deep scarlet.
"A Weaver?" Seraphina's voice was low, cutting through Cora's cheerful humming. "I've seen Weavers from the Holy Cathedrals and the Academy's medical wings. None of them walk with the dead, and none of them hide in ghost cities near the Primal Nexus. You're not from Aethelgard. You're not even from the Kingdom of Seth, are you?"
Cora's wide, kind smile didn't falter, but her moss-green hair seemed to shiver, lengthening by an inch as it brushed against the stone. "The Academy is so very far away," she said vaguely, her eyes drifting toward the mist. "And the border is just a line in the dirt, isn't it?"
Kaelen stepped forward, his boots crunching on the frost he had created. "She's a Witch," he stated, his voice like cracking ice. "The Dark Abyss empire to the east. Only their specialized academies would dare to fuse Weaver-class healing with necromantic attribute beast-mastery."
As if in response to his accusation, a heavy, violet light began to leak from the folds of Cora's tattered cloak. She didn't manifest it through her soul-space like the others; instead, a physical tome drifted out, hovering in the air before her.
Unlike the standard white-jade Grimoires of Aethelgard, this book was a deep, bruised violet, its edges bound in what looked like petrified vine and bone. It radiated a heavy, gravitational pressure that made Elara's Iron-Oak staff tremble.
"You're quite sharp for someone so cold!" Cora giggled, reaching out to pat the cover of her violet book. "But my friends aren't scary. Look, they even brought presents."
One of the vine-wrapped skeletons stepped forward, and the ground beneath its feet didn't just crack—it rotted. From the shadow of the skeleton's ribcage, three other forms began to manifest.
Aside from the skeletons, Cora had already stabilized four contracts. A Grave-Weaver Spider with legs like surgical needles skittered onto her shoulder, and a Blight-Owl with three eyes perched on her book. But it was the fourth beast that made even Seraphina's Solar-Flare Butterfly pulse with defensive heat.
A Spectral Chimera-Cub. It was small for now, its body translucent and flickering between a sickly green and a deep violet, but the pressure it released was undeniable.
"A General-Rank potential," Lucas murmured, his eyes fixed on the Chimera.
"She is a monster in a child's skin, Papa," Moxie whispered, her violet eyes locked onto Cora's violet book. "That grimoire... it doesn't just record; it consumes. She isn't just a healer. She's a collector of lifespans."
Seraphina stepped between Cora and the rest of the group, her red hair practically glowing with the heat of her rising mana. "I don't care if you can knit flesh. A Witch from the Abyss with a violet book and a General-rank beast is a variable we can't afford. Why are you here, Cora? And why stop the vines from eating us just to talk?"
Cora tilted her head, her green eyes reflecting the group's wary faces. "Because the Living Font is waking up," she said, her voice suddenly losing its playful lilt. "And even with my friends, I cannot reach the center of the temple alone. The vines are scared of what's inside. You have the Fire, the Ice, and the Forest. And him..."
She looked at Lucas, her smile returning, though it felt sharper now.
"He has the Silence. We need all of it if we want to survive the night in Orizon-Sub."
Lucas looked at his companions—the skeptical Vanguard, the cold Sentinel, and the cautious Bulwark—and then at the mysterious Weaver from the enemy empire. The five classes were finally assembled, but they were a powder keg waiting for a spark.
"We move together," Lucas said, his voice quiet but final. "But the first skeleton that looks at my satchel gets dismantled. Understood?"
Cora clapped her hands in delight. "Understood! This is going to be the best research trip ever!"