“She is mine!“ Zora hissed into my ears as I opened my eyes to another world. Colors were dead here, pale and weak, and a torrent of dust spiraled up into the air, all around us, to disappear in a sky that was pure black.

I tried to answer but the air got sucked right out of my mouth, leaving me with a forceful screeching sound. There was no breathing here, no living. Things lurked in the shadows, hungry things.

I saw my death there, lurking, waiting. It could wait a thousand years or one, but it would be right there, expecting me. I stood there in front of me, or an image of myself, and the hunger in my other's eyes frightened me to my core.

Zora appeared before me, a pale version, eyes ablaze with cold fire. But she was as real here as I was, more real than her banshee form had been. She was...existing...here in whatever place this might be. She watched the blood -my blood - dripping off her daggers with burning eyes, then searched my neck for a spot to plunge them into next.

“I will not share her. I will kill you. I will kill her. I will kill myself in truth. But she is mine and will be. Death will not change that.“ She stated matter of factly. “Stay away.“

She seemed to have made up her mind as she raised her blades against me once more, but turned around at the last second, screaming in anger.

Simue was there, eyes pressed shut, tumbling through the strange not-world with surprising speed, even for her. She screamed, but the sound never found me. But her hands did. She pulled at my cloak as she raced past, dragging me with her.

We fell hard onto the blooded stone of the pillar, back in the reality of the Hidden Garden. Just then Simue dared to open her eyes again. She slapped me, fighting back the tears that were streaming across my face. Slapped me again, then fell onto me as she realized I was alive, still.

“I’m sorry.“ I murmured, stumped onto what to say. I felt like an ass.

There was no more communication for the rest of the day, written or otherwise. My mind though...never stopped racing for even a minute.

“What...“ I tried asking the next morning, my voice sounding hoarse in my own ears. I poked the lizard meat on the fire, fat bubbling in the heat. It smelled tasty. “What was that yesterday?“

[Ghost Step]. I call the place Otherworld. I can travel through it. I don‘t look around.

“Listen, I...“ I started, but Simue shook her head, interrupting me with a raised finger.

Don‘t. Never again. She showed me her words and wrote a new line, taking a deep breath, effectively changing the topic. There is no snow, only salt.

“Huh?“ I said, looking around. Of course, she was right. Why was I just seeing it now? Because everything was white and that had seemed right. But it also was warmer than it had any right to be in winter. The air was chilly, sure, and the wet clothes yesterday had amplified the cold that was here, but it was nowhere near as cold as it had been up in Ravenport. “What is happening?“

How deep are we? 3 miles? Simue wrote. Deep enough?

She wrote quickly, trusting that I would read the missing words between the lines. Deep enough for such a high temperature in winter, she meant.

“Maybe. It was damn warm in the Abyss.“ I mused. “But maybe...maybe there is something else at work here. Something we are searching for.“

Simue nodded, not quite smiling but with a hint of satisfaction in her eyes. We are close. She hesitated. To whatever.

Just for the sake of it, I activated [Sense Corruption]. To no one's surprise, the spot in the Hidden Garden where none of the colorful flowers were growing was a beacon of corruption, reaching as high as I could see. I sighed. There was a difference between knowing that something was there and seeing the corruption of what now was my enemy sitting below Ravenport in such a large display.

“We should visit the corruption over there first.“ I said. “I want to know what lurks below Ravenport and threatens our people.“ I said, making my decision on the fly.

Soon we jumped off the rock, making our way through the forest of strange flowers, every now and again climbing up to see if we were still on track. It turned out that the distance we had to travel was deceptively far. Distances were hard to judge in an alien landscape which no reference we could use to judge the height of the flowers from afar, and the murky light and the constant layer of mist was not helping either.

It turned out to take a day of brisk walking in the end and we decided to rest again as neither of us wanted to enter the field of corruption by the darkness at night. It was not easy to get a fire going with the wood of the strange plants, but we managed in the end. They burned slower, but once enough heat was put to them, they blazed as any fire I had ever seen, just with strange strings of color dancing in the flames.

It made me curious as to what a professional [Fire Keeper] like Cogar could do with these strange plants. He had been very particular about which wood to use for what, and the ritualistic way he approached his job was an indication of the magic at work. Maybe he could use new materials for new Skills and effects? Was it worth bringing something up for him? Probably not. The Staircase would be finished sooner or later. Sooner if we could finish the pier and dry out one-half of the waterfalls.

The strange warmth of the Hidden Garden was obvious this time. Especially in contrast to the howling gusts of air as cold as the frozen hells assaulting us out of the beacon of corruption.

Walking out of the garden was like jumping into the freezing bay, like walking into a wall of cold. All energy, all vibrant life, was sucked out of us as it had been sucked out of the environment. It did not hurt, not really, but our shoulders immediately sagged deeper as if under an invisible weight and every step was harder to make than the one before.

We just shared worried looks, but kept on going, aiming for a new rock formation in front of us we could use to get a better overview over what essentially turned out to be a giant basin or even just a hole in the ground.

When we reached the rocks we saw the dragon...and did not see it at all. Far enough down that the corruption had eliminated all and every color but for black and the white of the salt on the ground there was a mount, no a mountain of black. And it was moving.

There were worms, thick like a tree trunk and just as long, hundreds, thousands of them, writhing in a giant pile at the bottom of the basin, their oily skin glistening in the half-light, their sectioned bodies retracting, shuddering, expanding as they fought for and digested what surely must be the body of the Dragon of Life, buried under tons of these worms.

Beside me Simue made a retching sound, pressing the back of her hand on her mouth and nose. It was true that the air smelled stale and like decay, but surely it was not that bad?

She looked at me wide-eyed as she realized that I was not fazed by the smell. She shook her head as if to say: Unbelievable. Now it was my turn to be surprised. Was I jaded enough to not even be bothered by the smell anymore? A bit of soul searching showed that I unconsciously had used [Iron Mind Behind an Iron Mask] to detach myself from the horrible reality, to remain functioning even in the worst of situations.

It was just second nature to me by now. So much so that I had not even registered that I was doing it. I nonetheless bound me a mask of cloth in front of my nose and mouth, just like Simue was doing, because there might be worse things trying to enter my orifices down here than a smell. The worms did look rather slimy.

“Do we try to get closer?“ I whispered to Simue, but she was too busy being disgusted to answer me, so I made a motion for her to follow me and snuck out, ducking from stone to stone until we were but the throw of a stone away from what now towered above us like a real mountain, albeit a small one. The smell was worse, the writhing of the giant worms was worse up close, and even more disgusting was the sound.

It was a cacophony of slurping, munching, biting, shitting, grinding, and leathery skin slapping upon leathery skin with meaty sounds. Now the disgust finally reached my stomach, which immediately sank to my knees, and not even I could restrain myself from pressing my hand onto my mouth, not without using a Skill, anyways.

„Damned Gods.“ I cursed. “How do we fight that.“

One at a time. Simue signaled by raising one finger and taking it away again, repeating the motion a couple of times.

I nodded. “We have to fight one, at least. We need the information what they are and we need the Dragonamber.“

They do not look to be quick. Simue wrote in her little book.

“Damn you, Simue.“ I hissed. “You have been gone too long. Never say such things around me. Fate has a way to make my Nightmares real, just to make me suffer. Now they will be able to fly, just you wait.“

Now she was smiling, grabbing a loose rock from the ground, judging the distance. She arched an eyebrow at me, asking for permission, and hurled the rock once she had seen me nodding. We waited with baited breath, but even though the stone had been heavy, as big as a closed fist, and hurled with force, the worm it hit never stopped in what he was doing.

“I am escalating the violence.“ I mumbled, stepping out of the cover of the stone we had been hiding behind.

I formed silent words on my lip, more to not mess up my own complicated Skillforms, then imbued a single slice of [Cutting Wind] with [Imbue with Cleansing Flame], cutting the air in front of me with a well-calculated strike of Kingsbane. I had aimed for the lowest one, farthest to the side, and had angled the air-blade that raced forth such that it would only hit the one, even if it were to cut right through the creature.

The worm reared up, just before the wind cut into its leathery hide, and fell back spasming as the force of wind and cleansing ate into its flesh, cutting away a whole chunk of its body that slapped onto the rocks with a splash.

Yet, the worm rolled on, turning around with the rolling motion, and black tendrils extended off of its body, while the tear I had inflicted upon it closed with a gooey, black mass slowly inching into the wound from all around it. It stood up as the tendrils formed into proper legs and even claws, and what had been formless before, opened a well-defined lizard mouth, a tongue of shadows flashing in and out as if to taste the air.

Ah, I remembered now. Wyrms. Wyrms of darkness and not worms. Well, I was not sure which would have been worse.