This should have been her worst nightmare, falling.

They troubled her sleep often enough, a thousand panoramas of a hundred different tragedies. She couldn’t say they scared her, not really — she’d long ago become numb to fear, anesthetized by the iron weight of guilt. When she woke up in the late hours of the night, drenched with sweat, it was shame that send her pacing into the dark, frustration at a fate that never seemed to change no matter how hard she tried.

Anger, cold and sharp. Frost so frigid that it’d turned scalding.

Falling represented shame, failures. It acted as a testament to her complete helplessness, but here…? She felt nothing besides the wind.

…Maybe she was simply so close to unconscious that she couldn’t feel anything at all.

It was like being a puppet, she thought, like being dragged down by strings attached to her elbows and knees. She found the idea quite pleasing, that mental image of surrendering control and simply letting her exhausted form be piloted by some other force. It appealed to the part of her that was so exhausted by the burden of choice. The part that didn’t want to even think anymore.

Because really, when had thinking ever changed anything for her? It always ended up being wasted effort. Maybe that was why [ Battle Frenzy ] had been so comforting. Being controlled, giving oneself over to the thrall, not having to be a person anymore…

It was fine to fall.

(Take me, not them. Because I have nothing of substance within me.)

It’s was then that the shadows embrace her, and in the square patch of light from the hole above, Sláine saw a streak of brilliant purple.

It had no temperature, no real feeling, form, or weight, but still those shadows existed, even if it was simply as a byproduct of the light. Fingers latched onto her, pulling her in, and mixing with the liberating music of the dark was a gravelly stream of words.

“Idiot, idiot, idiot, I cannot believe I trusted you not to be such an absolute, bone-headed IDIOT.”

With the same level of uncaring bitterness experienced by a person who wanted just five more minutes of sleep, Sláine processed the presence of Red and all its ramifications.

She’d jumped along after her. Red was in the exact same situation as her. Cloak whipping in the breeze and hair spilling out behind her, Red was falling along with Sláine too.

It was a silly thing to do, a meager, shallow hope, but Sláine grabbed onto Red, pulling her close and trying her best to place her own body in-between Red’s and the eventual impact of the ground. It wasn’t like having the Floribunda as padding would accomplish anything, but still. It seemed like the right thing to do.

…Even at the end, she at least wanted to say she tried.

It was a long fall, carrying them through multiple layers of the dungeon. The air, already dim, only grew darker, thick with a dank miasma. Mushrooms grew out of the walls, shelves of bio-luminescent fungus casting an eerie green glow on wart-ridden caps and bones jutting out of the earth. Very briefly, Sláine locked eyes with the hollow sockets of a skull.

The bright side to it all was that they were plummeting too quickly for anything to catch them. The earth shuddered as what Sláine had assumed to be inanimate bone wrenched itself forward, a pebble skipping down the wall as a half-rotted mouth tried to catch hold of her form. Teeth clicked about a foot from her hair, and soon, they were both out of reach.

“Dammit,” she heard Red whine again, and distantly Sláine began to wonder just how far the woman could teleport. Why wasn’t she doing so? Couldn’t she save herself?

Tendrils of shadow whipped out, or — no. More accurate was it to say they formed with a rapid snap, a presence consolidating in the dark and thick branches of void-like ink coming together from insubstantial nothing to catch against the compacted earth.

Sláine felt her entire body jerk. Bones clamored, echoed, snapped and fell. Chunks of earth broke free as the friction slowed them, and at some point Sláine noticed that the fungi coated biome shifted to something more like web. It hung thick and sticky from corner to corner and, not far beneath them, was strewn in a heavy mass below.

A spire lanced downward, cutting an opening for them to pass through. Stray strings of webbing caught against them as they broke through the barrier, but it wasn’t enough to stop them — blessedly so, as she couldn’t say she liked the idea of being trapped and cocooned for some giant spider’s meal.

From the bright clashes of noise she heard below — mixed in with Red’s eclectic swearing — she surmised they must be approaching the ground. It was just as she braced herself for impact that her stomach lurched, something slowing her with a jolt. Twisting her head, she saw — or thought she saw? More like felt somehow — those pillars of shadow embed themselves in the ground and, wrapping around them both, apply resistance to their backs to gradually bring them to a halt.

Just before the ground, the spires collapsed into a bubble that caught them with a bounce before popping with a long, tolling note that took a while to fade in the echoing chamber.

It was a surprisingly gentle landing, and for a moment Sláine simply lay there unmoving, her back against cold earth. As soon as she could though, Red pushed herself off her, palm smacking against her mask and head whipping around to take in their surroundings.

Sláine heard nothing moving — at least, beyond the shift of dirt and the clatter of stray bones striking the ground after them — though considering how much noise they’d made as they’d fallen, that was certainly not likely to be true for long. Unfortunately, Sláine quickly found that she couldn’t move, and her feeble attempt to sit up as well ended with a soft grunt.

“Stay still,” Red whispered. Sláine could only vaguely make out her form in the dark, and slowly she watched her stand, a deeper sort of blackness roiling at her feet.

She moved without a sound, stalking around the room they’d found themselves in. From what little Sláine could determine, it was wider than the hallway which they’d left, and much, much taller. It was hard to move her head though, and she realized that something was… strange about the way she breathed.

There was a whistling noise from the area of her throat, and if she concentrated, she could feel the sensation of something sticking out of it. The mystery was solved once Red returned to her side, properly looking down at her and promptly saying, “Oh holy fuck.”

She dropped to a crouch quickly, the form of a vial materializing in one hand and the other reaching out to Sláine’s neck. The light lingered in Red’s palm, giving off just enough of a glow for Sláine to see.

It’s difficult to properly define the point at which a splinter of wood could accurately be called a piece, but the fragment jutting out of Sláine’s neck certainly qualified for the latter. Thicker than Red’s thumb by at least a half, it’d been lodged in her since the explosion on the upper level, and that odd sound had been air whooshing past the petals nestled around it to close the wound. That explained the wetness around the area, she absently thought, her complete ease a marked contrast with Red’s mounting panic.

“Fuck, fuck, oh fuck…!”

To be fair to her, Sláine couldn’t imagine that she looked particularly good right now. Patches of blossoms concealed raw, seared skin, and her body was slick with blood and vile monster secretions. As used to it as she was, she could only imagine that to an outside observer, she looked like total hell.

“It’s fine,” Sláine wheezed, trying to offer Red a confident smile. “I’ll recover shortly.”

“Shut up,” Red growled. Sláine felt a twinge of pain as Red removed the wooden shard with a sharp tug, followed by a splash of potion soon after.

After snorting, she obeyed for at least a minute, though eventually she couldn’t help but respond to Red’s frenetic muttering of, “Fuck me sideways in a hell-begotten chop shop, are you people bleedin’ immortal?”

“Heh, not quite. The weaker your soul, the stronger your body. ‘S how it works for us.” Sláine’s laugh was soft, mirthless. Red paused.

“…What?”

“It’s a… spectrum,” Sláine managed to reply. Her voice sounded strange to her ears, the hole not completely plugged yet with a new blossom. “Those with strong souls, they can commune with the Tree, but because it wants its essence back… their bodies are more frail. Our power to regenerate…” She trailed off, wincing slightly as Red rubbed ointment into a bit of her leg where the skin had bubbled. “To grant it, it uses up our souls.”

She closed her eyes. Not that it made particularly much difference, but she didn’t like seeing how tense Red’s shoulders had gotten. It felt wrong. Maybe that’s why she kept talking — to distract herself. “‘S why my people hold legends in such high regard. Emboldening one’s spirit through stories of one’s deeds allows those born with weak souls to become part of the tapestry of the Root upon death. Otherwise… you simply cease to exist.”

“Wow,” Red finally said, an attempt at her normal brash levity. “That seems like a raw fuckin’ deal.”

“Mm… isn’t it only fair? Those with stronger bodies need to pursue danger, while those with weaker bodies can serve society in more mundane ways.”

Red pushed the rest of the vial towards Sláine to drink. Clumsily, she managed to lift her arm and take hold of it, then pushed herself up on her elbows just enough to properly swallow. Red had to help tip the thing up though, and immediately after, Sláine’s strength left her and she collapsed onto the floor.

“Don’t try to move,” Red said. “You need to recover your [ AP ].”

“Is that… like my stamina?” Sláine asked, and Red dipped her head in a nod.

“Yeah.”

Red sat up straight and crossed her legs, slowly turning her head and keeping watch over the surroundings. While she wasn’t certain, Sláine had a vague feeling that the darkness didn’t bother Red any. While she seemed the exact opposite of comfortable, body coiled and ready to spring up at any moment, she also had a composure to her, a lack of uncertainty about what might be lurking beyond their vision.

Besides, it just seemed like the sort of thing she’d be able to do.

Finally, Red broke the uneasy silence. “I’m pretty pissed at you,” she said levelly. “That was really damn stupid.”

“Well, we’re not dead,” was Sláine’s neutral reply, and Red instinctively bristled.

“But you could be.”

“Does that really matter? I made my choices, and none of them were your fault.” A beat. “You didn’t have to follow me.”

“Of course it matters!” Red snapped back, the volume of it shutting Sláine up. Realizing how loudly she’d spoken, Red tensed again and listened deeply to the darkness.

Nothing. The echo of her voice faded.

“…Of course it matters,” she repeated, lower but somehow sounding more harsh. “What are you, some kind of suicidal maniac? Do you think if you get killed in here it’ll affect only you?”

“Why do you… ah,” Sláine cut herself off, suddenly realizing. “My apologies. It’d reflect terribly on you if you had to report my death on our very first trip together.”

“What the fuck kind of cynical — “ Red threw her hands up in the air, the light cupped in her left palm casting a faint blue tinge over her mask. That reaction wasn’t what Sláine expected. “Shit, it doesn’t matter right now, but I’m not dragging home your corpse, okay? After we’re out of this bullshit though, we are having a talk.”

“…Fine,” Sláine said. “How far can you teleport? If you weren’t weighed down by me, could you get out of here on your own?”

“I can at least climb up the walls, yeah, but there’s absolutely no way I’m ditching you in this condition.”

A pause. “Very well. But it is good to know that you, at least, have a way out.”

Refusing to dignify that with a reply, Red turned away and snuffed out the light with a clench of her fist. “…I’m going to fill Aria in. Just… don’t move.”

That, at least, Sláine could do.

>> Consider life choices