WARNING: Spoilers abound throughout this section.
- Corsis recruits Frulgrath, who has parted ways with Brigand Company due to his dislike of Ashe, Gnorok, and ViRauni.
- Following an attack that kills several warriors of Brigand Company, Gnorok reduces the unit to a smaller team simply called the Brigands, out of concern that their infamy would imperil less-powerful members of a larger group. Ashe then finds a follower of Durduun who warns of betrayal within the Roaq Coalition.
- Avril again attempts to attack Nirva psychically through the Realm of Thought, and Corsis again thwarts her.
- In a transitional scene, Ashe and ViRauni admit they love each other.
- Avril and the Sphinxes travel from her Panic Room pico Realm to Trojis in Ramansa’s airborne manor. They discover Corsis has transformed the last of Avril’s Krian order into fleshmancy horrors, including her adoptive father, Eric Enzali. Avril and the Sphinxes are forced to kill them. This is heart wrenching to Avril. And Corsis then possesses her comatose body to taunt them further and reveals all the Game’s Rules to them before Ramansa forces him to leave.
- One of Durduun’s sisters, Suso, also learns that Nirva’s forces are looking for the Mosul Flute in the ancient catacombs beneath Lan Porthica, a port city on the southeastern coast of Alagar. It is a lost artifact that commands the dead, imbued with a significant portion of Durduun’s power. They find Ashe and Gnorok and let them know of this development. Ashe and Gnorok prepare to raid Lan Porthica.
- Avril and the Sphinxes perform some reconnaissance on Nirva’s subconscious in the Realm of Thought’s Divergence. They discover that her precognitive painting had a large hand in driving her to take over Sufrinzon, and Corsis now actively encourages her conquest.
- Ashe and the Brigands raid Lan Porthica along with a larger force of Velsuvian marines. These take the financial district with minimal losses, and free Switt from enslavement, who joins the Brigands. The locals give them a cool but optimistic welcome, having no love of Nirva’s growing empire.
- After securing the city, they go on an excavation beneath Lan Porthica, searching for the Mosul Flute. Gnorok, Welt, and ViRauni use the privacy to arrange a meeting with Ashe, Tin Skin, and Arwith along with Avril and the Sphinxes in the Realm of Thought’s Convergence. Welt invokes the Unsaid Rule, and he reveals the Game and its Rules to the gathered group. They all now know that Corsis is the source of their problems, and he travels about Sufrinzon in his Svithe guise. They resolve to stop him.
- Following the Game’s revelation, ViRauni uses a gossamer suit to touch Ashe and they make love, knowing that much strife looms in the future.
- Nirva and Svithe discover the Brigands and the Velsuvian marine force have covertly invaded that Lan Porthica. They mobilize a response that includes leveraging Dread Corps, and horrific fleshmancy pit that was once the city of Maws. This sets off the Battle of the Two Cities.
- Ashe, Salatha, and Thebes fly on the Ghost stealth craft to destroy the Maws fleshmancy pits while Gnorok, ViRauni, and the other remaining Brigands rally the defense of Lan Porthica with the Velsuvian marines. And Durduun’s sisters accelerate their desperate search for the Mosul Flute in the catacombs. Avril and the Sphinxes also begin their infiltration of Nirva’s mind through the Realm of Thought’s Divergence, intending to force her to relinquish Avril’s sword in order to allow Avril to be healed. Or failing that, kill Nirva. This is only if they’re able to reach her consciousness through Corsis’s many layers of psionic defenses.
- Ashe destroys Maws with a wand of annihilating light he got from Gnorok. During the escape, the Ghost crashes. Ashe, Salatha, and Thebes evade capture by Nirva’s forces on the slower Underburner, and are forced to make a longer return to Lan Porthica.
- Ashe returns to an overrun Lan Porthica. He rallies the defense with ViRauni and Gnorok and the other Brigands. But the tide turns against them. Frulgrath returns and kills Tin Skin. Thebes dies saving Salatha from a blast from Quar Iniv. Ashe then strangles Quar Iniv and pops off his head, but cannot reclaim Nirva’s sword before it levitates from the corpse into Nirva’s possession. Corsis snatches the Mosul Flute from Durduun’s sisters and he has Garland deliver it to Nirva. This all occurs while Avril and the Sphinxes overcome a series of Nirva’s mental defenses only to come to a pulsating tumor that leads to a Time Tunnel. Ramansa gives Avril a ghost blade that will guide her through it where it will intersect with reality halfway through its total time and near its end. The only way they can reach Nirva’s mind is to enter it.
- Lan Porthica is lost when Nirva takes the Mosul Flute and the wind blows through it. All of those slain in the battle rise as Nirva’s undead army. The Brigands frantically retreat and are forced to let the marines’ capital ship lay waste to the city with cruise missiles. And Avril plunges alone into the horrid Time Tunnel, knowing she will lose years on the journey, but it’s still her best hope of reaching her mother to force her to relinquish Avril’s lost sword. Ashe is despondent about the many losses and the destruction of the two cities. One horrid. And one beautiful. Both gone.
- Avril emerges from a corridor of slime in the Divergence and encounters Jarah, the ghost of Corsis’s lover sent to intercept Avril by Tempes and Corsis’s direction. She wears the ViRauni armor. She used it centuries before Mol Granz. Jarah asks Avril, “Why must grandmothers die?” And no answer Avril gives satisfies her. The mad woman attacks and Avril flees through an endless forest trail representing the time Tunnel with Jarah in hot pursuit.
- Nine years pass outside the Time Tunnel. The war in Sufrinzon has gone cold with all sides bankrupted from the losses of the prior fighting. Avril briefly reunites with Ashe at the temporal halfway point with Halonir’s help in the Time Tunnel. But she quickly has to withdraw with Jarah in pursuit. Ashe is unable to harm the mad woman. But Ashe and the Brigands now know she’ll reconnect with them in another nine years and they’ll be ready to dispatch Jarah.
- Or so they think. Jarah repels their attempts to contain her when Avril emerges another nine years later in the Divergence. The first ViRauni’s madness cannot be contained. Avril must flee again to fight Tempes who summoned Jarah, who’s his mother. Another two years pass in the Time Tunnel and she at last confronts Tempes and defeats him with the assistance of Eric Enzali’s spirit, leaving the Dread Corps leader impaled to the ground. Jarah then shifts her insane focus to Tempes as Avril departs.
- Avril evades a trap set by Nirva and instead emerges back into reality from Nirva’s painting as an untethered living ghost. She encounters Jasphir Iniv, who’s been in a temporal prison in Nirva’s quarters. As they leave, Avril shreds the painting, knowing it will infuriate her sadistic mother. She needs to confront Nirva and the Brigands must help her and Jasphir do that.
- The Roaq Coalition has since collapsed and the Brigands stage a final attack on the capital of Onno to both help Avril and to decapitate the consolidating empire. Nirva had a premonition through her wrecked painting that Avril would kill her, so she undergoes a fleshmancy transformation set up by Corsis to cheat her impending doom and reverse her daughter’s fortunes.
- Ashe, Avril, and the Brigands wage a series of desperate battles within Onno. The Sphinxes arrive on the scene from their Trojis refuge to help. Gnorok and Salatha are killed by Corsis as Svithe. Durduun’s sister, Suso, dies saving Welt from Nirva. Arwith is critically injured and has to retreat into Welt’s mind to stabilize himself. Avril then duels Nirva with her ghost blade and vanquishes her, and reclaims her stolen physical sword.
- Meanwhile, Ashe, ViRauni, and Ramansa battle Frulgrath, Corsis, and Garland at the edge of a cliff. Ashe lops off Frulgrath’s arm as he gets blown into the pit. Garland gets knocked off next. Ashe bypasses Svithe’s defenses and cleaves into his chest after Avril shoves him. He falls as well. But all three survive and vow to torment Ashe and Avril in the future.
- Ashe uses a powerful pyromancy hex to wreck Onno as they leave, but Nirva survives this and is permanently loyal to Corsis after her transformation.
- The book ends with Ashe and ViRauni ending their relationship because the armor will drive her insane if she returns to Trojis soil. Ashe, Avril, the Sphinxes, Welt, and Arwith withdraw to Trojis, while ViRauni and the rest of the Brigands retreat to Narath with the Velsuvians. Avril is restored to her body, and she integrates her ghost blade into her physical sword. Halonir confirms it has forgiven Ashe for burning its forest. Avril and Ashe resolve to free Celsis Kri next.
Want to read more recaps? Tap here for the Book 2.5: The Brigands: The Favor Recap.
