Something was wrong in the Bastion.

In the twilight of a balmy Southern night, an anxious, furious bellow sounded across the Beacon, "No, no, no!" Passersby clustered in the military district, gawking at the sounds emerging amidst rippling light from the typically orderly, spartan keep. Finally a harried man emerged to speak with the gate guard, Rahim, Seneschal of the Akkari. One of their ailing number was failing, and the impossible must happen to preserve the symbiote: a new host must be found.

A call went out, desperate and terse, and volunteers stepped forward. As it was explained, the body of the native of the Spirit plane was failing within the climate of Prime. To become a host was to share body and soul, to merge, to become one, vessel and mind both. Finally, it was Ywena, tutor of the Illuminai, who offered herself, she who had breathed in the faith of the south for the entirety of her life, and after the War of Night had taken her family, had nothing left to lose.

Exarch Aban sequestered the woman within the bastion's tower, while Rahim coordinated their remaining clerics to begin the ritual. Those who were present bore witness to great courage and great loss, as through a ritual forced into success by will and need, the symbiote was excised fro Pelath, the duelist's body granted peace, and embedded within the substance that was Ywena.

Weak and disoriented, Ywena was quickly born away into the bastion to recover, and be fed the herbs and medicines that had sustained the Duamvi within the foreign plane for so long. Surprisingly, she recovered more quickly than the Duamvi had anticipated, sybmiote putting to order the ailments of her spirit, her own sense of duty pushing her body to adjust through training.

It began simply, walking and gaining her balance, then the basic hand and stance combinations every Tekura practitioner learns. Her movements began to alter, a distant muscle memory altering the style of the form, a battle of wills between woman and symbiote that merged into something new. Throughout her exploration, Ywena began to train with guards familiar to her, and beggared one as a scribe to document her process. Her sensitivity of spirit altered, not just the mind in telepathy but the edges between body and sense of self developing a psionic connection. The zeal remained, spirit and spark coming to her more readily in purifying flame, married with the rediscovery of a Duamvi chain weapon and how fluidly it complemented their martial arts.

While the woman explored the latent talents of the host her symbiote had lived within, Aban and Rahim focused upon the ritual. They had more of their number failing, and a plane deteriorating, the hope of their people a tenuous line sketched across Enorian.

First it was Afshin, a stalwart soldier with little patience left for the world. In the dark awaiting dawn, Knight Rasani Morrog stepped forward, willing to risk or share their life for the chance to preserve another. There upon the floor of the Akkari tower, the Knight's chest was rent open, and struggling symbiote found home, a final favour for a friend.

Then it was Medir, the smith whose final instructions guided the forging of Ywena's silver chain. Karhast of the Illuminai stepped forward, embodying the faith of his people to stand upon the brink of the unknown for the sake of hope. The ritual ran more smoothly as the runes and prayers were refined, each risk and each attempt guiding Aban to the next.

Lastly, it was eagle-eyed Letari, who was carried to the top of the Temple of the Gods where the wellspring of spirit within the Flame could better sustain her. It was here that Aban had laboured, his carving the great glyph upon the temple floor followed by the Beacon filling it with molten silver, the metal reactive to the element of his home plane.

There, beneath the open sky, Benedicto traded breath and pulse for eternal fire. The strength of the Grand Flame nearly consumed him, as light lanced overhead, a bridge between hearts and souls as symbiote left one body behind and sank into another. For a terrible moment after, all was dark, and still...then the Pentarch's shuddering gasp revived with the newfound life pulsing through his veins.

Thus began a new age for the Duamvi, one of a constrained but thriving hope as the mixed-essence of Sapience provided the vessels that couls sustain them agains the very threat they faced.

Penned by my hand on Gosday, the 10th of Arios, in the year 481 MA.
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