1. Eyes of the Beholder

Written by Ryan Kaufman, VP of Narrative, Jam City.

Cefaphro stood alone, watching over Massina City from the ramparts of the Cauldron of Fire. His eyes could see to the very horizon, where the world curved away from view, and the edge of the sea met the sky. There, a single fish leapt from the waters, and he watched the bubbles pop after it splashed back down.

The setting sun lay on the shoulders of the hills surrounding the city; its bony, rocky spine rising up to where the Great House stood, on the black-sand slopes of Mt. Volcanus. Cefaphro studied the tiny creatures scurrying through the streets; the pinprick lights they carried and the warm glow of their dwellings. He let his gaze settle and focus, and now he could see the stones and chipped plaster of the houses. He could see the platters of food being set out by kind, weary hands. He could even see the children sneaking glances as the families said their evening thanks to Alteus before eating.

Their prayers drifted up to him, over the river, and the chains on his arms clanked in lonely echoes as he adjusted his scabbard. And below him, deep below, buried in the bowels of the citadel, lay the thing he protected: the entire meaning of his life.

He had been the lone Guardian for some time. His partner, a Gatekeeper named Lissa, had been assassinated by the servants of Maiax during the Night of the 7622. He missed her keen intelligence and bravery, but he had begun to accept that his watch would be served alone. The sun set over the Harbor of the Fallen, and he settled in for another solitary evening.

Male and Female Vigilant

Then, in the moonlight, he saw Paxa.

She rose up from the stone staircase that hugged the rampart, and swung her long legs over the battlements. The glow of her Fire Essence gave a soft red light to the stones of the walkway. Her silver hair was tied back, in warrior fashion, and she handled a long battle-spear with practiced ease. A Sadaari– the embodiment of warrior confidence. Yet her face betrayed worry and annoyance.

“Are you Seff– Seff…” she began.

“Cefaphro?” he prompted. The name was an ancient one, not typically found on the lips of modern Massina.

“Right,” she said, with a sigh. “I’m your backup.”

But this would not do. “You are no Gatekeeper,” he told her.

“Gee. How could you tell,” she quipped. Then she sized him up with a quizzical look on her face. “You’re not a Gatekeeper either. For one thing, you’re male.” She took a longer second look. “I think.”

Her lack of manners did not shock him. Sadaari were not well-known for their tact. “You must leave,” he said.

“Trust me, I don’t want to be here either,” the Sadaari said. “But I was sent by the High Priest.”

Cefaphro shook his head. “The second Guardian must be a Gatekeeper. The partnership is always a Gatekeeper and a Vigilant.”

“So, that’s what you are?” she asked. “A Vigilant?” The warrior smirked, and she admired the view. “Some kind of Celestial, I assume? Just hanging out, up here by yourself. Watching.”

“You should leave,” Cefaphro repeated. “Tell them there has been a mistake. The Guardians of the Sacred Flame must be a Vigilant and a Gatekeeper — lest the safety of the Flame become jeopardized. A Sadaari is not a suitable replacement.”

The Sadaari turned and met his gaze with defiant eyes. His indigo Celestial skin glowed with tiny jewels of light, much like the city below them. “I’m more than a match for any Gatekeeper, or you for that matter,” she snarled.

Cefaphro softened. He had seen too many years of fighting and rage; too many tempers run amok. “What is your name?”

“Paxa,” she said. “Champion of the Western Colosseum, two years running.”

“Then why did they send you here?” He gestured to the windswept guard post.

She looked away. “Too opinionated,” came her terse reply. “I said the wrong thing to the wrong person. They don’t like it when I tell the truth.”

She looked at Cefaphro, daring him to comment, but he nodded calmly. How talkative these young beings sometimes were. Full of impulses to explain every thought.

“So,” she said. “What’s your story? You being punished by some grand Celestial deity?”

“Punished?!” Cefaphro cried. He collected himself, and began again with seriousness. “This is no punishment. This is an honor. The Cauldron guards the gate between dimensions. The Guardians are entrusted with the sacred duty of keeping it safe.”

Paxa’s face was frozen, as if waiting for him to break into laughter. Then she smiled slowly, hesitantly. “Not really, though.”

“Yes,” he insisted. He studied the Sadaari. She was old as the mountains, and yet to him, still seemed so young. He felt a separation; the all-too-familiar distance he always felt when speaking to those who were not from his world.

“It’s not a real gate between dimensions, though, right?” she scoffed. “That’s just a legend, isn’t it? Something the High Priest tells new acolytes to keep them humble.”

Cefaphro put his hands to his hips in disbelief. “Do you even know the story?”

She tapped the hilt of her spear on the flagstones, and looked annoyed. “I don’t have time to memorize every crusty old story–”

“Well, I do,” he raised an eyebrow. “Allow me to tell it.”

When Alteus began composing the music of Creation, the notes of his song first appeared as simple truths. Crystal tones, hanging in the void.

Eventually tones began to resonate with one another, and formed phrases, and then complex melodies, like intertwined strings. Sentences became stories. Beautiful equations and elegant mathematics. These multiplied into a musical mosaic of many sounds.

Alteus sought to bring order to his grand design of reality, so he created the Keymasters and gave them one single mission: to make sure the songs in his symphony all stayed in the same key.

And so they did. Whenever the Keymasters found an anomaly, they cast it out. To contain these anomalies, they created a place far below their own dimension, from which there was no escape. And they called it Hêla, which meant “disharmony.” (We know this place as Hell.)

Meanwhile, Alteus kept building and building. As more and greater anomalies appeared, they too were safely cast out. The music of reality remained immaculate.

Eventually, the anomalies in Hêla, forever swirling about in restlessness, began to coalesce. They formed themselves into creatures: the Whisperers, the brutal Darulk, and many more aberrations who had no names at all. And as they became sentient, they began to curse their prison, and fight one another for dominance.

To patrol and guard these demons, the Keymasters in turn created the Gatekeepers — battle-ready wardens whose purpose was to ensure that no anomaly cast into the pit would ever return. And the Gatekeepers created the Vigilants, who could see farther than any other being.

As Alteus’ grand creation grew and grew, the anomalies within it became larger and harder to dislodge. Ultimately, one immense anomaly grew so formidable that the Keymasters could not remove it. This entity was both unstoppable and immovable, and it named itself The Absolute.

Alteus himself battled The Absolute, and their clash nearly ripped apart his entire Creation, but Alteus, calling upon his utmost powers, conjured the powerful finale to his song. He was able to wound The Absolute and lock him inside Hêla.

But this great sacrifice cost Alteus all of his strength, and he was utterly spent. As he died, he fell out of the Celestial Dimension, and into our world, and his body became Massina.

From his blood sprang up the Titans, and they began to war.

And all this, the Celestials merely watched, from the safety and isolation of their dimension, having promised never to become involved with or influence the affairs of this world– the privileges of Creation being an honor reserved only for their maker and master Alteus.

Meanwhile, the demons of Hêla, under their new leader, began to plot a deception that would bring all of it crashing down, like a shattered sky.

The sound of Cefaphro’s voice, and the story he wove, still had a resonance of the old music of the Celestials, and Paxa found herself under its spell. She roused herself as he ended his tale. “A deception? You’re talking about the Undermaze,” she said, pointing down. “The dungeons and tunnels they dug beneath us. That’s where the Gate is?”

“That was how we failed this world,” said Cefaphro, with a deep sadness. “The Gatekeepers and Vigilants alike. We betrayed our oaths, and were ourselves cast out.”

Paxa raised her eyebrows in admiration. “We? I thought this was just a story.”

“I was there.”

The Sadaari took a step back, out of surprise, and then respect. The Celestial who slumped before her seemed to carry the breadth of the entire night sky. His elegant skin rippled with stars, and his eyes were sorrowful and lonely. The weight of it was almost too much to bear.

“It was our fault. We allowed ourselves to be deceived by the forces of evil. And in the war that followed, we paid for that failure. My brothers were decimated. I am one of the few remaining Vigilant.” He hung his head.

“You’re the ones who let the demons through,” said Paxa, in a dawning horrible realization.

“Yes, and I wish I had joined my brothers and made an honorable end. But I did not. So now I attend the Gate, to make sure it shall never happen again. It is my soul’s only remaining purpose.”

“My life,” she began, tapping her chest. “I thought my life had been cursed for a long time. But yours… yours has been cursed since– before time even started.”

Cefaphro smirked a little. Paxa allowed herself a small laugh at her own joke.

Paxa continued. “Look at me. I became a Sadaari warrior when I was nineteen — and why? Not to protect anyone. No, I was looking for adventure. I thought it would be fun.” She hacked a dry laugh in scornful disbelief of her younger self. “Make some coin, and maybe split a few skulls. But things got out of hand. We ended up on the wrong side of a very ugly war… and as punishment, we all became this.”

She made a noise of disgust, as she revealed her fangs and claws. “Bloodsuckers.”

Cefaphro had seen a Sadaari before. He did not recoil.

“I can’t undo what has been done. And now I’m just this thing,” she gulped. “Ravenous… and horrid.”

Cefaphro’s eyes rested on her. The Sadaari who stood before him was irreverent, overly talkative, and ignorant of history. But they shared something familiar. A strange feeling rippled through his body, and that troubled him.

“You’re still a guardian, still a protector,” Paxa said. “At least you’ve retained your soul.”

Cefaphro nodded quietly. No one had spoken to him this way in centuries. Much less a Sadaari.

“I do not find you horrid,” he said.

Paxa shrugged in ambivalence. She contemplated her talons. They were a part of her now. Her strength. And there were things this Cefaphro did not yet know about her, about the things she had done in her many years. Paxa found she suddenly feared his leonine gaze.

“Of all beings in this world, the Vigilant see most clearly,” he said. “And I can see the curse which changed your body did not conquer your spirit.”

The sudden clomp of boots up the stairs broke the moment, and Paxa turned to see two Temple guardians. “What is it,” she said, her spear at the ready.

“Only rumor for now, but we decided to bring it nonetheless,” said one of the guards. They both bowed to Paxa and Cefaphro.

“Speak it,” said the Celestial.

“The street urchin network reports that an unusual amount of activity has been centered around the Library of the Arcane and the Cauldron of Fire. The High Priest fears our temples are being observed and our weaknesses probed.”

“Observed? By who?”

The guard shook his head. “It’s unclear. But the urchins have tailed these observers back to the Ministry of Bone.”

“Thank you, Captain,” said Cefaphro. The guard saluted him and then retreated back down the stairs. The Vigilant looked at his Sadaari counterpart. “There are those who would still try to open the Gate. To wield its terrible secrets.”

“I still don’t fully understand,” said Paxa. “There’s a lot of history behind this.”

Cefaphro nodded, his hand on his sword. He gazed out at the city again. “You’re very right. This is an old fight, and it is not your burden, Sadaari.” He looked at her and tried his best to smile, although he hadn’t had much cause in several hundred years. “You are free to go, if you want.”

“No,” she said. Paxa rested her spear on the ground, and took her place next to Cefaphro on the battlement. “I think I’ll stay.”

As they stood guard, she could feel the heat of the distant volcano on their backs. The streets and alleys of Massina below roiled with mysterious movement, like circling sharks under dark waves. But what would surface next and where?

As the last rays of the sun died away, the massive leering skull of the Ministry of Bone seemed to grin at them from across the city.

***