#oh also miz is short for misraaks but he’s not the one we see ingame he’s just named after him

[aria-33-20]

Callisto Yin’s Burning Mark

In a park in the First City, under the shelter of the Traveler, a group of children - one human, one awoken, one eliksni, one cabal, and a psion - played a game of tag together. They chased each other through the grass and the trees, laughing and shrieking with delight, until the eliksni called a time-out suddenly.

“What gives, Miz?” The human asked him.

“Remember that storyteller I told you guys about? The one with the story about the Titan from back in the City Age? That’s her,” he replied, pointing toward a nearby bench. On it sat an elderly lady with a severe look, tapping away on a datapad.

“Okay, so?”

Miz turned to him with a look of annoyance. “You guys wanted to hear it, right? She hasn’t been here in forever, what if she never shows up again? We should ask her to tell us the story.”

The awoken girl quickly chimed in. “She looks scary though. I don’t think we should bother her.”

“Your tusk is too short, Maryam,” responded the cabal child. “I’ll go do it.”

“I can’t even grow tusks, Vorri!” she shouted in indignation.

“You came from a lab, surely you can give yourself some.”

The human boy tapped Miz on the shoulder. “Hey, where did Varec go?”

Miz looked away from the two girls getting into it, only to see his psion friend already walking up to the bench.

——————

The old lady’s concentration was broken by a tapping on her knee. For a brief moment as she looked up, her face contorted with frustration, only to change to surprise at the sight of a psion child in front of her.

“Hello there. Do you need something?”

The child pointed first at their chest, then at her head, a nonverbal request to communicate in their native language. She nodded a yes a in response, and a psionic greeting filled her head, followed by the word “Varec” and a series of images and small sensory experiences that she quickly realized were their names. The feeling of friendship came next, then questioning, and something she could only call the experience of getting caught up in a story.

“Your friend,” she confirmed, “said I have a story to tell?”

The psion nodded.

“Is your friend here now?”

The psion nodded again, then pointed back at Miz and their other friends. Surprise washed over the old lady’s face again.

“Miz, I see! I’d been hoping to see him again. Which story would you like to hear?”

The psion replied with an image of a human and a ghost on fire, causing her to draw back. Seeing her concern, they quickly changed the ghost to have a fire in its eye instead.

She thought for a moment, then realized which story they were referring to. “Ah, the one I told Miz before about the Risen you see sometimes whose ghosts have fire inside. Hm… could I ask you to help me create some images to go along with it?”

The psion lifted their hand in a thumbs-up.

“Wonderful!” Raising her voice, she called out to the other children. “Miz, I’m telling the story you heard before! Bring your other friends over here if they want to hear it.”

——————

This story takes place long ago, in humanity’s City Age, when the cabal were under the rule of their great hero Dominus Ghaul, and humanity was still at war with the cabal and eliksni; The First City was still called the Last City, and the Risen were still needed to protect us from those who sought us harm.

During this time, the Risen defenders of the City, the Guardians, divided themselves into classes: Hunters, lone scouts who braved the wilderness outside the walls to see who was preparing to move against us and stop them before they could gather strength; Warlocks, wise mages who worked tirelessly to understand our foes and the world around us; and Titans, towering defenders of the walls that kept us safe.

The Titans alone divided themselves further, into large groups they called Orders. Each order established for itself its own fighting style, doctrines, and icons. Most were dedicated to standing guard over sections of the walls, defending refugees fleeing to the City, or assisting with the City’s policing and peacekeeping.

One Titan Order was different though. With the ever-burning flame of the Fire Victorious as their icon, they called themselves the Firebreak Order, and they took it upon themselves to bring the fighting away from the City, to the strongholds of our foes. The Firebreak Order believed that by stopping them before they could move, our enemies would be unable to harm the City.

And they were not wrong. Many attacks on the City were thwarted by Firebreak assaults. However, other Titan Orders looked down on them. Their method of fighting was called “reckless,” and “needlessly aggressive.”

Perhaps it truly was, because when the City stepped into war with the cabal, Dominus Ghaul decided that the City’s strength made it a worthy opponent. He planned to crush the City all at once, to end the war that we started in one fell swoop, and so he sent in his very best. The Red Legion swept over the City’s walls under cover of smoke and storm to lay waste to it, and those defending them were powerless to stop the assault.

The Titans of the Firebreak Order, with their doctrine of offense, would later cast the blame on themselves for not being there to help with the defense. They claimed it was their fault the City fell, when there was so little they could have truly done. As for those of them still in the City… well, most of them didn’t survive to blame themselves. But those who did stand proud, because what they did then may have saved the Order.

When the Red Legion marched into Firebreak Plaza, home of the Order’s headquarters, they met fierce resistance from those of the Order still there. They stood to defend the Fire Victorious, burning eternally in its place of honor at the center of the plaza. The line held for hours, even after Ghaul caged the Traveler and the Risen lost their Light. Dozens of civilians were sheltered in the plaza while they waited for City Hawks to evacuate them.

When Ghaul’s forces finally broke through, the Order despaired. Worn ragged, their remaining forces were pushed back all the way to the burning pedestal at the center of the plaza. As cabal tanks came into view, a cry of fear, pain, and exhaustion could be heard. Those last few defenders knew that should even one of those tanks fire, the blast would not only obliterate them, but it would extinguish the Fire Victiorious. It would signal the end of the Firebreak Order, even if there were other members still alive outside the City.

In a fit of desperation, one Titan among them took action. Every Titan wore at their waist an icon, a mark. The mark was a piece of cloth signifying the deeds and influence of its wearer or the group they belonged to, and was shed after battles to show others to come what occurred there. Callisto Yin, one of the few Firebreak Titans to survive to that point, tore hers from her belt and cast the end of it into the Fire Victorious, and when it caught, gripped it tight in a closed fist as she broke for a gap in the cabal.

With her at the fore, the Firebreak Order abandoned the plaza. The eternal flame of the Fire Victorious was quickly extinguished by the cabal forces in the belief that it would break the Order’s spirits, but it lived on in Callisto Yin’s burning mark.

With the Order’s hope restored, they battled their way through the crumbling streets of the Last City, making for a gap in the walls where they could escape into the mountains beyond. Once free of the danger of the streets, the flame was passed to campfires and torches, to keep the Order warm and safe in the wilds.

In the weeks that followed, it would be split many times over and held by many hands, ensuring that even if one ember were to be extinguished, the rest would continue to burn. When the City was retaken, it was decided that the Fire Victorious would remain among the Order’s members, carried in the shells of their Ghosts. Though the Order is no longer active, their symbol still burns in the plaza and among those who once served it, pushing back the darkness when it creeps in close.

——————

The old storyteller smiled as the children returned to their games, having said their thanks for the tale shared with them. As she watched, a Ghost, glass windows in its shell flickering with flame, floated down to rest beside her.

“You know, if I remember correctly your mark was actually still clipped to your belt when you lit it on fire,” they noted.

“Of course,” she replied, still keeping an eye on the children, “but if they knew that I’d never hear the end of it.”