Immediately I had to throw myself to the side, rolling through the muddled salt, as a stream of black flames hissed through the air where I had been just a second ago. I could feel no heat from those oily flames, but not getting hit by them seemed like the smart thing to do.

“Lure it back from the others!“ I shouted once I had my feet under control again, pulling back from the countless wyrms writhing on the body of the Dragon of life.

Another flame flicked past my face before I deemed this son of a darkness-loving lizard whore worthy of the expenditure of a little more Mana. A razor-thin wind blade raced across the ground, impacting the snout of the wyrm just as it pulled back for another gout of flame.

The wind cut his face, splitting the snout in half, before it violently dispersed, losing the edge but pressing the creature back with considerable force. The oily substance of its body dripped from the wound in thick globs, sizzling as they hit the ground.

These were just like the creatures I had fought under the Abyss, and the young leviathan I had fought outside in the lake, creatures of shadow and burning acid. I knew by now that you could never be sure how wounded the creature truly was until you had hacked them to pieces once and for all. They were nothing if not sturdy.

“Their blood and flesh burns! Do not get touched.“ I warned Simue, who was busy circling into the back of the wyrm. I could see her eyes take a hard look before she disappeared behind the creature, blades a blur in the mist.

My wind blade had hurt the thing, and it darted towards me on its stumpy legs and a waddle that would have been comical, if not the torn open and bleeding maw of the lizard was at the front of the assault, opening wide, showing rows of teeth. It was damned fast. Once more I rolled through the salt, dragging Kingsbane into a messy strike behind me as I got to my feet again. I hit something, but I already was diving behind a rock.

Not a second too late, as the splash of the sizzling black flames washed over the Rock. Smoke rose up where the stone began to dissolve in front of my eyes.

As the wyrm rounded the stone, Simue whirled along its side, blades windmilling through the flesh, black streaks of blood flying high. The beast roared, raised itself upon its hind legs. I jumped on the stone, driving Kingsbane into the exposed underside of the angular jaw. Kingsbane glided through the soft flesh of the lower Jar, pierced the ceiling of the mouth with no resistance, and cut brain and skull without even slowing down.

I threw the creature off my sword, cutting the head neatly in half with the motion. Kingsbane had learned to be terrifyingly sharp. Or was that against creatures of pure darkness only?

We watched as the body wisped away in a kind of oily smoke, while a good part of it soaked the ground, muddying it.

[Shadow-Ink Wyrm defeated! Reward 15 EP]

“They give a good amount of Essence.“ I mumbled.

[And you should know that you got one EP from Simue. You get a part of all of their Essence gains. I guess she gets more than you for the wyrms because she is...you know, mortal. I was busy, but I learned a lot about managing Essence in the Afterlight! I am excited to show you! -Lily]

While I had been busy reading Lily‘s message, Simue had come up to me, balancing a small piece of Dragonamber on the tip of her dagger. It was sooted and dirty, even still slightly sizzling with the rest of the shadow stuff clinging onto it.

“Was that in the wyrm? Its work?“ I asked, but she just shrugged, pointing to the place she had found it, dead center in the middle of the acid puddle the wyrm had dissolved into.

“Likely.“ I concluded. “But the Wyldlings would hardly have to fight these things for every piece of Dragonamber. They had a thousand and more.“

Simue frowned, looked around, and threw me another piece. It had been just lying on the floor, scattered everywhere around the dragon, slightly buried in the salt and the mud. “Oh.“ I said eloquently but caught the stone with some amount of competence.

It was hard to tell if the other wyrms even had taken notice of our fight, they seemed just as busy to devour the corpse of the dragon as they had before, so I beckoned Simue to follow where we would have enough of time and security to use her notebook for communication.

“I am torn.“ I finally said as we crouched down, one eye on the mountain of black. “We need the Dragonamber. They are producing it.“

What else is there to discuss? I agree. Simue wrote. Not like we could fight that anyway.

“We fought the Weirderbeast. We can fight that. That much we have learned today. I...I feel like destroying the plague. I feel like striking at the darkness wherever I can. I feel like retaliation for all the pain and suffering they have caused me and mine. I just don‘t....want to let them exist.“

Men. She rolled her eyes at me. Do you need the body of the dragon immediately for something?

I shrugged. „My quest notifications are very unclear about that. I am collecting keys, but I do not know what for. Maybe the lock they would fit in has to do with the dragon?“

I am very angry. You seem...some kind of confused angry. Let's hunt the Wyrms for the day. Collect the Dragonamber we find. That's what we are here for, right? Tell me tonight if your thoughts on the culling of the wyrms have changed after a day of hunting.

She took her sweet time to write. I was not sure she had ever written so much before, but obviously, she had understood that I needed her council and valued her opinion. I felt that was a good step in the right direction, as we had mostly conversed about loss and vengeance before. And anger, let's not forget about the anger.

“You are right. I need the Essence to gift the Unbound Rangers with a [Raven Companion] and we need the amber. Let‘s go. One at a time, if we can. I need to conserve my Mana, if we are to fight all day.“

Simue stared at me incredulously, as I so casually had mentioned the things I was concerned about as a Twice-Born. Which was dull of me, of course, but If Simue was to be a companion in truth, she had to get comfortable with the influence she had and the problems I faced on a daily basis.

———-------------------------------------------------

In the end, we left the corruption with a considerable amount of Dragonamber in my Dimensional-Flexible - Chest and a lot, and I mean a lot, stains and burns of acid on our clothes and skin. We may have hunted them all day, but visually nothing had changed on the mountain of bodies behind us.

We had been slow, we had been methodical and we had been up to the task. These were mighty foes, but they were a blunted blade, a sword made into a plow. Tools of the servants of darkness to corrupt the very essence of life, nothing more. If there were someone to direct them, they would be the death of any force arrayed against them, but like this...killing pigs in a pen.

I would not be my paranoid self if I did not think to myself, that the darkness was approaching. I had seen the burning eyes of hatred in the mists of the waterfalls. The dragon was coming, as much as my [Reader of Ill Omens] was concerned. Was that not the kind of driving force that could...whip the wyrms into a frenzy?

I felt like time was running out on me. If I were to fight the forces of darkness at my own doorstep, I better had solved the problem with the Wyrms beforehand or I would deliver them the very weapon they needed to defeat me and mine.

What I needed to do was to strike a balance between letting them live to harvest the Dragonamber I needed desperately to protect the rising number of people coming to Ravenport and to sell the stones for everything we needed overseas and to have the wyrms destroyed before the darkness could take control.

I wished Grim was with me now, he could tell me something about population control, but he was up north, scouting the border where the enemy amassed against us.

“Let us look for the light I have seen buried under the mountain.“ I said. “And pray to...well...forget about that. Let‘s hope we find a trail of this key we are missing.“

What light under what mountain?

“I have a Skill called [Lament of the Shackled], I gained as I chose freedom to be my dogma, my guiding light, so to speak. It shows me...beings considered unfree, taken prisoner or slaves. I see some kind of light shimmering through even the thickest walls. There is something down there, following the river.“

I hate slavers as much as you do. More probably, as they have taken my tongue. But how do you want to follow a river under a mountain?

“I have not gotten to that part yet. Let‘s just take a look. Maybe there are other entrances. Cave systems tend to be very elaborated around here.“

Well, the earth has been torn apart by force, if I understand you right.

“Right! So the question is: Where is the water going? Those are massive amounts of water.“

Simue shrugged, having spent no thought on the matter before. Now she was thinking.

It makes no sense. She finally wrote.

“I know, right? It is impossible. The sea would dry out, the water has to go somewhere, something is happening here. Something...“ I wiggled my finger. “...not natural.“

That‘s a given. There are mountains floating above us.

“There is something shackled down there. Something that makes all of these impossibilities possible.“

You think it has your key.

“I think that could be the elemental guardian, yes, wielding the key of fire. I feel like we are very close to our goal.“ I nodded, beaming with excitement.

Elemental Guardian of fire? A raging River? Under a mountain? Have you brought enough salve for the burns you will have when this is done?

“Ah, well. No. How was I to know that there might be a being of fire imprisoned underground?“

Simue gestured for the piece of fat winged-lizard meat we had hanging above a fire on a stick and chewed with furrowed brows, obviously thinking through the problems. It took a few minutes, while we attacked the conundrum from every angle.

Water. Fire. Steam. Rises. She drew a little arrow. Suicide.

„I was thinking along those lines. A being of fire shackled to burn the river into steam that rises up to get back to the surface somehow? Does that make sense to you?“ I asked to which she nodded.

Can you judge the distance? She finally wrote.

“To the shackled being? A couple of hundred feet, I guess. It's difficult. It is just a mote of light.“

[Ghost Step]? Otherworld?

“You can bring us that far? That would be...oh damn, we could be finished with the quest tomorrow!“

1. Otherworld dangerous. 2. Fire and steam. She wrote while I was busy imagining my glorious claiming of the forces of the Wyld for myself.

“Oh.“ I said, dejection rising like bile in my throat with the realization that we would burn to ash the moment we exited the otherworld near a being hot enough to turn two waterfalls worth of water into steam. “I had not thought about that.“