Spoilers For Whatever The Hell Steel Did At The End Of Episode 47

spoilers for whatever the hell steel did at the end of episode 47

Long moments pass, the western sky is hell itself. You see, glimmering for a moment, a point of green light appear. Concentric circles, lined with runes, stretching some hundred and twenty feet in all directions begin to spin in the manner of a gyroscope of light and figures, arithmetic and language arcane around the figure of the Wizard Slain, who appears in the sky.

Lowering a staff of the leader of the Citadel's war mages, he carves a line into the heart of one of the shahoran, destroying one of the sorcerers below. Raising up his staff, he begins to abjure, protecting the war mages around him as best he can. 

And the sun rises in the west. A sorcerer, so radiant as to blind you even some miles away, hangs in the air and extends a finger towards the Wizard Slain, beckoning him towards the light. And the Wizard Slain is unmade.

You look, and see, crowned in light and gold, a robe and cloak some forty feet in length, twisting nobly in the wind behind him - first one set of arms, a second, and a third, as Harmas Raunza, leader of House Raunza, appears, in visage over the battlefield.

As he appears, points of light begin teleporting and some hundred nobles of the House of Raunza appear on the battlefield, from across the wide world of Umora.

He points forward, towards Twelve Brooks. The dreadnoughts converge, and as he raises his hand, he opens a door in space. Hundreds of spirits, bound to the House of Raunza. The Bashaal - the spirits of those of his house that failed the trial of their ordeal to enter into sorcerous covenant with their noble lineage, who now bear the heads and wings of white eagles made of blinding light, wielding broadswords, doublehanded, curved at the end, fly forward, gushing onto the battlefield. A cheer goes up from the forces of Gaothmai. "For the Cauntaranacht! For Raunza!"

As the lord of House Raunza holds his hands wide, "It is here we make an end to their tower!"

A white cape, streaking through the sky from the Epiphany. A flash of steel, a glint of a sword.

A bubble forms around the leader of House Raunza, and a white cloaked woman with auburn hair, who hangs in the air before him.

Time slows. She twists her wrist, turning her sword ninety degrees to the right. All of the world is mapped out, like a map of the stars. Your own body is simply lines, and the names of your joints and blood vessels. She twists to the left, raising the sword up in front of her in guard position, vertical, matching her straight spine. All the world is rendered in black and white, as though drawn in charcoal on fresh paper. She levels it.

Straight out, floating in air, written in the Lingua Arcana, is simply her namecloak - "The Wizard Steel". And before her, the symbol of House Raunza. With her offhand, she touches that symbol, undoing his true name in front of her. She points, draws her sword back. The image fades. It never happened, it was just a dream. How could she have changed the nature of the world itself?

The point of her sword, at his heart. "You shouldn't have brought so many of your grandchildren, old man." Pushes the sword through his heart. Blood bursts like a wave from his back, killing not only him but each and every one of his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren on this battlefield, who fall like rain from the sky, their light extinguished.

The Sword of the Citadel hangs in the air as the leader of a Great House falls before her blade. The cheer from Gaothmai dies, as quickly as it was born.

The Wizard, The Witch and the Wild One, episode 47

(Worlds Beyond Number podcast)