The party is scattered across and around the square after the activation of the pillars. Dash Heidmann remains close to the square in his Lucius Shadowbane disguise, EkdÃkisi Tintreach, Eos, is surrounded by members of the Crisis Response Unit, Eldrin Drosk is being pursued through an alleyway, and Boreal Paleclaw is wounded and desperately trying to escape the executioner. Boreal still carries The Seal, with Remington Maleficum safely contained inside, meaning that despite everything going wrong around them, the rescue itself has technically succeeded. Watching the chaos from a rooftop is Hatsu, recently returned and, for the moment, unnoticed. Almost immediately, however, the party begins to realise that the pillars are doing far more than suppressing magic. Eos catches sight of the exposed skin beneath her clothing and notices that the purple is disappearing, while Boreal watches his claws begin to recede as his hands take on an increasingly human appearance. As those changes begin to take hold, Hatsu joins the fight from above, attacking one of the guards, while Thorngrim Bloodstone, Ironclad, begins pursuing Boreal alongside the executioner.
Dash turns his attention toward one of the pillars themselves, hoping there might still be some way to shut the trap down. He approaches one of the glowing structures and examines it carefully, searching for a switch, mechanism, access point or any other indication of how it is controlled. Despite a thorough inspection, he finds nothing built into the pillar that would allow him to disable it. Whatever controls the network appears to be located elsewhere, leaving him with no immediate way to stop what is happening. With the square becoming increasingly dangerous, Dash gets over the wall and begins moving around its exterior. Eldrin, meanwhile, continues forcing his exhausted body through the alleyway as members of the Crisis Response Unit close in behind him. Passing a nearby civilian, he flips the man a moon and tells him **"you never saw me"** before creating the unmistakable sound of his own heavy armoured footsteps continuing further up the alley. The phantom noise carries onward as if Eldrin has kept running in that direction, hopefully drawing his pursuers away while he turns toward a nearby building. His escape route immediately fails him when he discovers the door is locked.
Boreal remains airborne despite his wounds and worsening exhaustion, weaving through the surrounding streets while archers continue tracking him from above. The executioner and Ironclad are steadily closing the distance, forcing him to keep moving even as every movement becomes more difficult. The pillars continue pressing their influence upon Boreal, Eldrin and Eos, repeatedly threatening to drag them deeper into exhaustion. Eos continues leaning into the appearance of a genuinely sick civilian, openly displaying the blood from her nose and calling desperately for a medic. The members of the Crisis Response Unit surrounding her are no longer persuaded by the performance and begin drawing their weapons, though Eos manages, for a short time, to fight off some of the exhaustion already affecting her. From outside the wall, Dash sees the wider consequences of the trap unfolding. Gig Schniezek is being restrained and arrested by guards, while Helga Daunt is fighting in her minotaur form as terrified civilians flee the square. Still hidden, Dash tries to intervene by firing one of his grapple-line daggers toward the guard restraining Gig. The attack misses, but the dagger retracts without revealing his position, allowing Dash to abandon the attempt and continue moving south around the outside of the square.
The civilian Eldrin bribed proves remarkably committed to his role, loudly insisting to the approaching guards that he saw nothing. Unfortunately, the Crisis Response Unit continues after Eldrin regardless. With them rapidly closing in, radiant wings manifest behind Eldrin and carry him upward onto the rooftop above. He crosses the building, trying to break line of sight and put some distance between himself and his pursuers. Boreal also reaches a rooftop and lands, only to find himself confronting the terrifying possibility that the changes happening to his body may soon take his wings as well. Eos, realising that the Crisis Response Unit surrounding her are preparing to attack, abruptly disappears from where she stands and reappears a short distance away before immediately sprinting south. The magical exertion buys her space, but the pillars respond to it, worsening the sickness and exhaustion already tearing through her. At the same time, Asuka Toshitsugu arrives and begins pursuing Ironclad, trying to keep him away from Boreal. She manages to strike him as he leaps toward the rooftop, while Hatsu finishes off the guard he had stunned and then launches himself at Ironclad, landing a hit before returning to the rooftop.
Dash climbs onto a rooftop of his own to get a clearer view of the unfolding disaster. From above, he can see Eos fleeing below and Hatsu fighting in the distance, though Eldrin is nowhere immediately visible. Dash begins running south toward Eos while the Crisis Response Unit pursuing Eldrin manages to reach his rooftop. Eldrin attempts to shove one of the guards back over the edge, but the man barely moves. His exhaustion has reached the point where even simple acts of resistance demand more strength than he can comfortably give. Boreal, meanwhile, looks down at himself and realises how dramatically the effects of the pillars have progressed. Most of his feathers are gone, replaced by bare flesh, and his hands have become pale and human. With Ironclad still closing in, Boreal makes a desperate decision. He passes The Seal to Hatsu, entrusting Remington to him and telling him to get Remington to safety. Then Boreal turns his remaining strength toward Ironclad. The enormous warrior’s body twists and shrinks until, impossibly, Ironclad is transformed into an owl. The desperate gambit succeeds, temporarily removing one of the greatest threats pursuing them.
Eos creates more distance with another sudden displacement through space, but instead of continuing to flee she turns back toward the Crisis Response Unit. An enormous explosion of flame erupts amongst her pursuers, engulfing the street. Several civilians are caught within the blast, and at least two innocent people are killed. One surviving officer immediately reports Eos as a **race threat**. The cost of the spell is almost as severe as its consequences. The magical exertion dramatically worsens Eos' exhaustion, making something increasingly clear: using magic within the influence of the pillars appears to accelerate whatever they are doing to those caught within their reach. Boreal suffers the same delayed consequence for transforming Ironclad. His body finally gives out, and Hatsu watches him collapse upon the rooftop. Boreal no longer properly fits inside his armour; the body beneath it has become that of a thin humanoid man, almost every visible trace of his avian form gone. The moment Boreal loses consciousness, the transformation holding Ironclad ends. The owl abruptly becomes Ironclad once more while clinging to the side of the building. Hatsu shouts to Asuka to take care of Boreal, then turns away with The Seal now in his possession and begins fleeing the area.
From his rooftop, Dash finally gets a clear view of just how badly the situation has deteriorated. He sees Eldrin fighting for his life against the guards, Boreal collapsed upon the rooftop, Hatsu fleeing after being entrusted with The Seal, and Lysa Sablewood forcing her way through the crowd in the direction of Asuka. Trying to get Eos' attention without openly calling out to her, Dash imitates the call of a white raven and directs the sound toward her. Eos recognises it and looks toward him. Eldrin, now barely capable of moving, surrounds himself with divine protection before trying to continue his escape, but the use of magic causes the pillars to punish him even more severely. He reaches five levels of exhaustion, and from where Dash stands it is obvious that Eldrin is putting everything he has into moving only a handful of feet. Eos is in similarly dire condition. She uses the last of her short-range teleportation to continue south, removes her plague mask and replaces it with the mask made for her by Dash's mother, and also reaches five levels of exhaustion.
Hatsu continues sprinting through the city with The Seal, prioritising Remington's escape over any desire to return to the fight. Boreal has already sacrificed himself to give Remington a chance, and Hatsu decides that sacrifice has to mean something. He commits fully to escaping. Dash, however, sees how desperately Eldrin is struggling and turns toward him. He sprints across the rooftops and fires his grapple line ahead of himself, using it to throw his body across the city and cover an enormous distance in seconds. He manages to get within roughly forty feet of Eldrin, but Eldrin has almost nothing left. His movement has been reduced to only a few feet at a time, his body simply incapable of carrying him any further. Realising this, Eldrin removes his goggles. With his radiant wings still spread behind him, he looks upward toward the sky. The light in his eyes fades back to an ordinary hue, the wings disappear, and his body drops from the air. Eldrin crashes heavily onto the rooftop below. Dash arrives moments too late to save him.
Eos, meanwhile, reaches an almost empty street only to find another group of men approaching from behind. After everything she has already endured, there is still no clean escape. Desperate for one final chance, she tears open a passage through space and reaches toward the familiar sewer entrance near the Ninth Gate, trying to cross roughly two hundred feet in an instant. She emerges on the other side, but the use of such powerful magic forces the effects of the pillars upon her again. Eos immediately collapses. The last thing she sees is her own skin, now human in colour and slick with sweat, before she falls onto the empty street. Hatsu and Dash are now the only members of the immediate group still standing and free, while Lysa and Asuka remain somewhere amongst the chaos. Hatsu considers returning to the battle, but there are simply too many enemies. He trusts Asuka to survive and remembers that his priority is protecting Remington. He throws down a smoke bomb, conceals his escape from the rooftops and drops into the crowds below, blending with the fleeing civilians as he begins making his way toward the sewers.
With the immediate battle effectively over, Dash remains hidden long enough to watch what happens to Eldrin. The guards strip Eldrin of his weapons, equipment and anything else he might use before handcuffing him and beginning to move him away. Dash tries to determine where they intend to take him, but he cannot hear enough of their conversation to learn anything useful. Knowing he cannot rescue Eldrin alone, Dash descends from the rooftop and changes out of the Lucius Shadowbane disguise. On his way back, he encounters the same civilian Eldrin bribed earlier. The man immediately tells him **"I didn't see anything"**. Dash maintains his false identity and tells the man that the entire situation was a test before introducing himself as **Dorian Hawk, security consultant**. He instructs the man that if he learns where the person he "didn't see" is being taken, he is to report that information to Dorian Hawk.
Hatsu moves through the city like a ghost, deliberately refusing to travel directly toward the safe house. His thoughts become increasingly paranoid as he remembers enemies capable of invisibility, disguise and changing their appearance entirely. He does not want to survive the escape only to lead someone back to their allies, so he takes an indirect route through the streets and alleys, constantly checking whether he is being followed. Eventually, he safely makes his way toward the sewers with The Seal. Dash takes an entirely different approach. He returns to the nobles and other attendees he had been with before the rescue began and slips back into the Dorian persona, claiming that he had become ill and was caught up in the confusion. He remains there long enough to maintain appearances, participating in the expected shock and gossip surrounding the disaster before quietly making his own way toward the Ninth Gate.
Hatsu reaches the safe location first. Around an hour later, Dash arrives. They wait for the others, but another hour passes, and then another. Eldrin does not return. Boreal does not return. Eos does not return. Lysa does not return. Asuka does not return. Nobody comes back. Eventually, Dash asks what went wrong, and Hatsu answers simply: **"Everything."** The answer finally breaks through whatever composure Dash has been holding together. He collapses against Hatsu and begins uncontrollably sobbing. Hatsu holds him and quietly prays to the Mother of Light, asking her to bring peace to those who are suffering and those in need, and Dash joins him during the latter half of the prayer. Hatsu then places a hand upon Dash and channels a small amount of healing energy into him. The sensation is gentle and warm, like late evening sunlight across a field, and as it passes through him there is a faint glow from Dash's chest where Alfred had previously healed him. Hatsu tells him, **"We might have lost the battle, Dash, but we will win the war. I promise you that."**
For all the loss surrounding them, they remind themselves that the original mission technically succeeded. Remington remains alive inside The Seal. They consider releasing him immediately but decide that doing so in their current location would be far too dangerous. An army had effectively been waiting for them at the Purity Edict, and they have now seen firsthand that simply fighting their way through the Crown's forces is not an option. They need allies, information, time to recover and somewhere secure enough to release Remington without immediately putting him back in danger. Hatsu believes Remington may know far more about what is happening and could help them understand what to do next, but survival has to come first. They decide not to return to the ship for several days, instead remaining hidden and allowing the immediate response to settle while keeping watch for the missing members of the party. Dash arranges for people to look out for Lysa and Asuka and also makes arrangements for the horse aboard their ship to be removed and cared for so that nobody needs to risk returning to the vessel simply to keep it fed.
Two full days pass without anyone returning. At the beginning of the third day, Dash finally receives a message. Many of the magical people affected, captured or recovered following the Purity Edict incident have been taken away for **study and research**. The wording immediately brings one name to mind: Emilia Harrow, Dr. Harrow, who had been present at the execution itself. At last, the fate of three missing members of the party is revealed. Eldrin, Boreal and Eos are alive, but they are prisoners deep beneath the city. They have been taken into Dr. Harrow's laboratories beneath the scorched remains of the penitentiary, the same facility where Slate was created. Eos has been isolated from the others because, after killing people during the escape and being declared a race threat, she is considered the most dangerous of the three.
The physical changes caused by the pillars have also persisted. Eldrin's eyes no longer glow. Boreal has no feathers. Eos' skin is no longer purple. Whatever the pillars did has either stripped away or suppressed the magical traits that had shaped their bodies. The whereabouts of Lysa and Asuka remain unknown, leaving their fate unresolved. Then Dash receives one final piece of information: the survivors from the incident have been taken to a location last believed to have been the home of Marcus Heidmann, Dash's father. The rescue of Remington succeeded, but the cost has scattered the party more completely than ever. Dash and Hatsu remain free with Remington in their possession, Lysa and Asuka are missing somewhere in the aftermath, and Eldrin, Boreal and Eos begin a very different journey as prisoners within Dr. Harrow's laboratories.
