Nic fell through the world, sinking through a helix of paper that spiraled up and above him. The world was allowing him through its outer boundaries; he sank into a place like a lake of infinite ink stretching on towards all horizons. His feet touched down and ripples ran across the surface.

There was nothing here but blackness and fog.

And Tarquin.

The satyr boy was surrounded by masked figures, each drawn out of the mist and wearing what looked like robes cut from pure darkness. They whispered to him from all sides, a council of ghosts. As Nic watched in horror, a new masked figure started to rise up behind Tarquin’s back, rising out of the ink.

Nic plunged into their midst with a battlecry, sweeping Peacemaker in a circling cut that sent the shadowy figures drifting backwards. Their masks shifted painted features to show alarm.

“Get back!” Nic didn't strike at them directly, but swept the blade back and forth, herding them away as they cringed with fear.

They hadn't made any overt attack - so he'd return the favor.

But his patience was almost gone.

“Nic!” Tarquin hissed with a desperate tone. “I was trying to tell them you’re not a bad guy.”

“It’s not me you should be worried about.” Nic hissed back.

As for the masked creatures, they just…

Wailed.

Like children. The display was so pitiful that even Nic had to take a step back. “You see! You see! It is true. Evil has found the key. Evil has befallen us!” Their chorus of voices rose and fell in wails. “We can see him. We can see him through the veil….”

“I’m not evil.” Nic snapped. “I’m angry, because you tried to steal my friend.”

“Nic, calm down.” Tarquin whispered. “I don’t think they meant any harm. They’re a little…” He lifted a finger to point at his head and made the sign for ‘crazy’. “They’re not all there.”

And despite his rage, Nic did see how fragile and weak-bodied they were. For all the spiral complexity of this artificial world, it was only made of thin paper.

But were they playing up their weakness and trying to trap him?

Or were they just what they appeared to be- part of a hideaway world, alone and childish in their isolation?

“You…” He stabbed towards one of the masked figures. It quaked in fear. “What are you?”

“A stippling...” It whispered, grasping at one of its brothers and trying to pull the bigger creature between itself and Nic. “Only a stippling. A thing of smoke and light, the illusion of somebody there. We watch through the veil and see what a nobody can see.”

“Uh-huh.” Nic was calming down, although his heart still beat a crude war-drum rhythm in his chest.

“They were telling me,” Tarquin said carefully. “That they think you’re being corrupted.”

“Not think!” Wailed the chorus. “Know. We know. It will happen. The vessel will fill with darkness and wrath!”

Nic just snorted. “Yeah, the world’s trying alright. I’ve got at least three different weird things trying to dig their roots into me. But you know what?” His blade jabbed towards the stippling who’d spoken before, making the creature shrink down, its smoky body becoming very small. “It’s not your business. I’ll handle my own destiny.”

He stepped back. “Don’t mess with me like that. And especially not with my friends.”

Tarquin just sighed, running a hand through his messy flop of curling hair.

“He is too violent…” The stipplings hissed in a single chorus. One by one, they raised their skinny hands. “Letting him in was a mistake…”

And an enormous hand of ink exploded from the lake, reaching up to seize Nic in its fingers and push him up towards the sky. Above, the ceiling of paper broke open, preparing to throw him back out to the illusory realm above.

Nic lost the thin thread of patience he’d held onto.

“You’re making a mistake.” He spat.

His four eyes glowed in unison as he fed Esper to the crystals within them. His vision swept away the mist and fog, revealing what was underneath, the webs and endless spirals of the runes holding this world together.

GIVE ME BACK MY FRIEND.

Nic’s voice erupted with the power of the Old Speech, and the delicate runes began to shrivel and burn with the force of his fury. For a moment all the dancing paper that filled the air was blown back, and Nic could see clearly, through the illusions; he saw the stipplings clearly. Their physical bodies- underneath the skin of colors- were like rope dolls made from twisting talisman paper into cords and bundling them together, forming a human shape through knotting and tying.

They cringed back. The hand of ink dissolved. Nic dropped to the ground.

“You are on my last nerve, and the only reason I’m not cutting you down is, that would prove you right, and I’d hate for you to die smug. But if you want to live…” Nic growled. “Let us go.”

The stipplings cried out, and one of them pointed.

Nic and Tarquin turned. There was a golden door behind them, waiting for them. Nic could see Winterhome through the crack in the gate; his crystal eyes saw it was real. He turned back and shot a final glare at the stipplings.

“C’mon Tark.” Nic said. “We’d better get out of here.”

“I don’t think we needed to do that…” Tarquin sighed.

“Come on.” Nic insisted. “This place might not let us leave if we don’t leave now.” The medicine would only last so long, and Nic had likely burned that time down by unleashing his crystalline eyes.

But for a moment, just as they were about to step through.

Nic turned back.

The paper-men were clustered together, the mist of their bodies billowing upwards like the smoke of exhausted candles. Above them, those threads twisted together to form a single massive figure, masked and cloaked, an incense burner hanging from his hands by a chain that bound both wrists.

And it spoke.

When the blood of the altar joins hated foes

Underneath skies broken and many

The vessel will fill with darkness and wrath

And be reborn in old hatred’s cast

---

Nic didn’t remember anything that happened until he stepped through the portal and out into the other side; the brisk winds of Winterhome struck him and he gasped, suddenly releasing whatever hold those eerie words had on his mind, allowing him to think again.

The pill must have run out.

He sank to his knees, breathing slowly, taking stock of his own mind. “Sofia?”

“I’m here, Nicolas. And I’m searching for anything that might have wriggled into your mind while you were vulnerable.”

Just her voice was comforting.

Nic returned to the core of his cultivation, breathing slowly in and out, circulating energy through the golden channels that expanded from the sea of his foundations. Only when he was satisfied nothing was amiss did he open his eyes.

Tarquin was perched on the edge of the minaret top of the tower, dangling his feet over the edge of the teardrop-dome and into the sky.

“You okay?” Tarquin asked.

Nic nodded, moving up to join him.

“Because you were pretty… rough, back there…” Tarquin added. “Like, I don’t think you needed to do that at all. Those creatures were pretty much harmless.”

“Maybe. But if they’d kept us for ten minutes, we never would have left.” Nic’s head ached. It was like he’d overslept by hours, and his mind hadn’t properly cleared the dreams away, leaving flashes of strange scenes and words drifting through his reality. “That whole place was like a drug.”

“I dunno. Doesn’t really seem like that’s their fault. Actually, they might not have known. How many other people- like, real people, I mean- have they actually met, do you think?”

Nic paused to think about that. The Key had done something to merit being sealed away, until it was given to him as a double-edged sword. And there had been the creator of the realm itself.

Other than that…

Had they really never met anyone else? It was possible. Very likely, even, that they’d gone hundreds or thousands of years in solitude.

But. “My job is to keep my people safe.” Nic said, finally.

"Sure, Nic. I know. But you gotta remember to be, I dunno, a person and not just a job. You were really blunt back there; you seemed angry like I've never seen you."

Nic laughed. "So what, you think they're right and I'm corrupted?" What even was corruption? On the path of cultivation, countless powers would try to guide and possess you. The only answer was to grow strong and take command of them before they could steal control of you.

Corruption was just failing to walk the narrow path where you consumed your enemies.

"Nah." Tarquin laughed. "I think they just never met such a big angry dick before."

And he punched Nic across the shoulder.

With a sigh, Nic let go of the last of his worries. They had made it out alive. All was well.

But...

He'd definitely come to a conclusion on what to do with the door. The appearance of that final figure in the mist had confirmed what he feared; there was something lurking inside that he didn’t understand and couldn’t tangle with directly.

Standing up, he lifted a hand to the golden gates.

"You..."

With all his spiritual strength he pushed. The door groaned.

"Are staying..."

A force shoved back. His soul took the pressure, like a grindstone bearing down on his mind, his matter, and the thin fragment of true 'will' that connected them.

"Shut!"

With a final effort he slammed the gates closed. A sudden quiet descended; whispering voices that Nic hadn't even been aware of were cut off, and there was a deathly silence in their wake. The trails of mist in the air slowly dissolved into sunlight.

The pressure against his soul evaporated.

Nic sighed in relief.