In Myriad Worlds, FATE was the name of the artificial intelligence event director. Its singular job was to make and keep the game interesting for everyone, to push strangers together if it thought they might make good friends... or throw wrenches into plans so that even the best laid wouldn't end boring... That was its raison d'etre. To accomplish this feat across the game's millions of players FATE was granted total authority over the world's backend processes, but it came with a web of restrictions that ultimately enforced one additional behaviour: It could take no action without plausible deniability. Which is to say, never could FATE leave behind evidence that it had been responsible for anything. Its existence had to trend towards rumour and urban legend. Never could players feel as though fate were not in their own hands. FATE was to set the stage and the stage alone, leaving the players to act the play. Weather. The whims of animals and monsters. Luck with treasure and the like... In this way -- it was made to be a part of the game, but never a part of the story. But... how is this relevant, you might ask? Why bring up such niche trivia? Ahaha... you see... There are just a few questionable things here... When did The Hero and Setsuna start working together?! How did they even find each other?! Where were they hiding?! You're telling us all this time they couldn't find us and we couldn't find them, but the moment Paris decides to jump into the canyon, they're after us in seconds?! At this most inconvenient time?! Of all the times we could have met instead... And how is Setsuna coming at us from above?! Didn't Paris say that she-?! 『『 You didn't... 』』 「 ...kill her? No. No, not directly. 「 But I still know... she won't be coming up. We -- have to go down. 」 Bleeegh... that's so gross. "But I didn't technically say that she fell into the canyon-" Then why say it like that in the first place?! To what end...?! Aaah... but... this whole situation... it's so... blunt and unsubtle... would FATE really arrange such an obviously suspicious thing? Maybe Paris set this all up instead? That doesn't make sense... why would she? Maybe this "Goddess" she seemed to loathe really is the cause... An overtuned version of FATE, she said... Can such an oppressive thing... really exist? ...We suddenly feel our cable bound bodies being thrust upward, to be raised as a meat-shield between Paris and The Hero's pointed sabre. Shock immediately floods the face of the latter. The Hero throws back his curved blade, gritting his teeth, whilst Setsuna flays her tentacles out as a mock parachute to slow their descent. Quickly they shrink away as the distance between us and them grow. At the same time, the wind warped crackle of glassy magics whip from below us, its volume and ferocity ramp up with each passing second. 『『 Wait-! 』』 「 For what. Your kraken friend to complete their twelve-part vengeance? 」 『『 ... 』』 Eldritch Serendipity [LV.6] Eldritch Serendipity [LV.11] Out of patience, Paris pulls us back to her side, replacing us with her heavy blade wreathed in magic circles. She draws it skyward, crimson embers erratically arcing to its tip. A star of violently drumming light accumulates at its apex. 『 That's... The Hero- 』 「 I know -- «Fireball». 」 All the light concentrates into a tiny glittering spark, which Paris then severs gently, leaving it to float up on its own. She turns away, pulling us and her translucent immolated wings in close, streamlining our descent, and accelerating our fall. Eldritch Serendipity [LV.13] Eldritch Serendipity [LV.12] Eldritch Serendipity [LV.7] Eldritch Serendipity [LV.5] We wince, as an explosive shockwave ripples through the air. Paris throws open her conjured wings and begins to pull up into a glide as it passes. Distancing us from the canyon's jagged wall, she flies us through one of the many tinted clouds rising from the canyon's depths. The sudden moistness of the fog... is chilling. A dozen or so seconds later, we reemerge. Although it's difficult to see past the bulk of Paris's armour, we can still manage to catch a glimpse of black spiralling smoke lingering from the now distant blast. The Hero and Setsuna... aren't there. 「 ...You can never ...be rid of problems in this world, Streya. 」 Our eyes grow wide, darting all over the canyon wall, finding monster after monster, before locking back onto the spiralling smoke. Paris speaks with her usual controlled and pronounced tone, each word echoing from within her armour. 「 To free yourself of problems -- is to put yourself at The Goddess's mercy. 「...The only escape is to choose your own problems; 「to create and embrace the ones you can handle, 「before the ones you cannot... are assigned to you- 」 That black spiralling smoke grows closer and closer until- CLANG! It critically crashes into the back of Paris's helmet. A silver spinning blade, a sabre... The Hero's sabre. Its iron audibly reverberates from the impact, and a dent remains where it hit. 『『 Ah. 』』 The lone blade ricochets and tumbles away. We dart our gaze back to where the blast occurred and scan the canyon wall once more for Setsuna and The Hero. Easily this time, we... we find them. Split apart, but otherwise, falling just as before, alive and well... against the odds. Faint black smoke trails sign their escape routes. 『 «Identify» 』 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

LV.8 ▬ Ælfweard 'Otto'

Leporidae Demihuman

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_____HP ▐ 623/775

_____MP ▐ 106/136

_____SP ▐ 248/259

__P.ATK ▐ 184

__P.DEF ▐ 95

t_M.ATK ▐ 64

__M.DEF ▐ 0

Effects ▐ ◈ Goddess's Blessing

Effects ▐ ◈ Heroic Determination

_Titles ▐ 「 The Hero 」「 Merrymaker 」

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Otto... he... really followed us here then... His... fist is pumped in the air... He seems proud of himself... ... We start to feel our weight shifting, our heads slowly angling downward, Paris's grasp loosening- Eh? Wait- Did that one hail mary throw actually do something? Did Paris get stunned by that?! Really?! Through her helmet?! 『『 Paris? ...Paris?! 』』 Eldritch Serendipity [LV.7] Eldritch Serendipity [LV.8] Wh- Are you serious? No way. He actually knocked her out. That was actually enough to... Unbelievable... actually insane. Eldritch Serendipity [LV.9] Eldritch Serendipity [LV.10] 「 ... 」 She's moving, already recovering from the blow... but... she's not... fully present, just not completely out cold either... That's... that's um... is that... actually good news...? She didn't seem... to have any qualms with... killing... ...Shadows suddenly pass over us. We glance up to find a swarm of small winged creatures flying overhead. Chromatic and feathered dragonfly-like monsters with sleek reflective eyes... They dart away just as quickly as they arrive... a synchronized mass of wings, just before a painful looming dread manages to work its way down our spines. Eldritch Serendipity [LV.13] Eldritch Serendipity [LV.15] Eldritch Serendipity [LV.16] Our eyes sink to our left where they gaze into the nearest cloud. We catch the faint shadow of a multi-winged silhouette permeating its mist. It's giant, comparable in size to Agehatate... and it appears... to have fins? We can't... «Identify» it without a clear line of sight... Ah... you know... this dive is already going about as well as we expected... Would be really nice right about now if we could use our arms and legs... She just really had to tangle our whole bodies in this cable though... Really just -- our whole bodies... our torsos weren't enough... Haaa... mega sigh... Eldritch Serendipity [LV.17] Eldritch Serendipity [LV.19] Eldritch Serendipity [LV.20] The shadow mass swiftly steers down, rapidly falling into a dive. It descends to the fog's lowest point -- before breaching with a roar. 『 «Identify» 』 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

LV.48 ▬ Unnamed Species Wyvern Demon

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_____HP ▐ 7538/7544 _____MP ▐ 2153/2380 _____SP ▐ 2765/3788

__P.ATK ▐ 866

__P.DEF ▐ 1437

__M.ATK ▐ 865

__M.DEF ▐ 1435

Effects ▐ ◈ Demonic Miasma[LV.48] ________▐ Mana Sensitivity [LV.3]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Okay. Yeah. This is fine. A wyvern is fine... Definitely manageable while tied to a steel anchor... Grey fur, six prodigious purple eyes, a sharp maw, and magenta tinted stingers. It has talons affixed to two main wings with four smaller wings across its body. Many of what we thought were fins were stingers, and its few actual fins look like bone. It's pulling up to face us, carrying its momentum to intercept our fall. ...Now would be a great time for Paris to finish waking up. Eldritch Serendipity [LV.21] Eldritch Serendipity [LV.23] Eldritch Serendipity [LV.25] Any... second now... Eldritch Serendipity [LV.27] Eldritch Serendipity [LV.29] Eldritch Serendipity [LV.31] Stuns don't... normally last this long? 『 ...Paris? 』 Eldritch Serendipity [LV.34] Eldritch Serendipity [LV.37] Eldritch Serendipity [LV.44] The wyvern's jaws crank open, jittering like a machine. 『 Fae'larias! 』 「 ... 」 Wordlessly... she springs to life. Her ember shedding wings shoot open and her gauntlet grips immediately tighten, but just as we start to drift from our course, the wyvern's wings reflexively tilt to match. There's no more time. We sail past the monster's rows of teeth. 「 Hmph! 」 Paris's heavy blade arcs with red lightning which she immediately stabs into the monster's flesh as we fall through its mouth. Black putrid blood spills as an electrified incision is carved down the creature's throat. A quaking howl bellows from the wyvern's pitch-black depths. The thick walls of its throat start to bend and close around us. 「 «Brimsto- 」 Pain spike. Searing, twisting, sinister frostbite. The way her voice cuts out is all too familiar. Her death sense... stopped her. 「 ... 」 She can't cast it -- we'd get hit. Improvising with her blade as leverage, she lifts herself and digs her metal heel into the opposite wall of the wyvern's throat, becoming a steel bar propping it open whilst further slowing our descent. Pained grunts leak through her helmet trying to accomplish this. ...We can't just keep watching. 『 ...«Ice Tomb»? 』 We whisper quickly as the walls quake, attempting to dislodge her. 「 ... 」 『 It's the cube barrier spell... 』 『 ...Glasstøberi? Remember? 』 There were too many skills in Myriad Worlds for most to bother to remember... Equipment typically only empowered you to specialize in themes and limited skillsets, so bothering to memorize every skill you had was... often inferior to mastering a few. That said... however inefficient they may have been... always having answers... ...was one way we used to be helpful to The Demon King. 「 ...«Ice Tomb» 」 She breathes back. The air grows cold. Ice crystals begin to form. They hover off the tip of her blade and the heels of her onyx greaves. A faint blue glow accompanies them, lighting up the encroaching dark. The mixed ringing and crinkling of glass grow louder as her cast completes. Slowly, those separated and wandering ice crystals drift closer together, until... they snap -- into an instant opaque diamond box of blue ice, encasing us. It drives back the wyvern's flesh making way for itself whilst simultaneously stabbing in its pointed corners, locking in place. With the only surfaces in sight now elaborately patterned and glowing ice, Paris's heel and blade are freed, allowing us to slide down to the bottom of the barrier. She holds us close to her, keeping us away from the walls of the freezing box as her breath heaves. It's muted now, but through the ice, we can hear the wyvern's retching. The box shakes from its desperate thrashing, its throat clotted fully. Paris extends her limbs to the box's edges to keep us from tumbling whilst inside. Despite the glow of the ice, we can't see her face under the shade of her helmet. 「 Wouldn't... you agree... that this... is a much better problem? 」 『 ...Huh? 』 Her folded wings fade away -- starved of the wind that kept them summoned. Her breaths slow to take in deeper lungfuls of air, as she mutters. 「 I could be fighting The Hero... and that kraken right now... 「 but here we are -- trapped inside a dying wyvern... instead... 」 What is... she talking about? It... it is... a better problem, we think... but... what is she getting at? She definitely would have cast «Brimstone» if our death senses didn't stop her... So... why is she talking as if... she planned for this? 「 ... 」 We stare at her, expecting her to explain further but... she keeps quiet, keeping herself braced against the wyvern's sudden movements. 『 What are you plotting now? 』 Her helmet tilts down towards us. It's... a lot less intimidating to look at than her face but... 「 ...If you are earnestly asking me again ...despite everything I've said- 「 then it was a mistake ...for me to tell you any of it to begin with. 」 Ah... That... that kind of stings... To say something so cruel right after we tried to help her... What the heck... why? She was so open to answering our questions before... 『『 Sorry... we asked then. 』』 The icebox quakes. Deep cracking noises make their way through to us, but no fissures appear on any of its surfaces. Eldritch Serendipity [LV.35] Eldritch Serendipity [LV.36] ...Ugh. ... "You can never be rid of problems..." and... you have to choose your own problems or else The Goddess will assign them to you... That's what she was lecturing us about earlier, right? So... what? Is she saying that she orchestrated this situation that we're in?

Implying... of the problems she had to pick between... she chose the better one for us, right? Is that it? Is... that what she's saying... without actually saying it? ...Even assuming that's right on the nose, why is she suddenly being so... vague about it? Is she mad? She doesn't seem mad or anything... There's no hint of it in her voice... 「 If I'd told you... exactly what I was going to do, 「 then instead of The Goddess throwing a curveball, I could predict... 「 a dragon would fly in and attack us, or a murder would occur and we'd take blame. 「 If not a twist right then and there, then a twist immediately after... 「 The very reason you're alive -- is because of her meddling. 」 Maybe that's it...? This goddess... she keeps talking about... Is she... trying to hide her intentions from her again? 「 I have tried... to kill you and keep you dead for almost two years... Streya. 」 「 I know... The Goddess intimately now. 」 We press our lips together. The air feels... awkward... Another quake. More ominous cracking sounds... but the barrier seems to be holding steady... 「 ... 」 Paris... tilts her head, then slowly rolls her neck. We can faintly hear pops and cracks from her collar. It's hard to... say anything in this situation... Is she doing this on purpose too...? 「 Stop staring at me. 」 Oh... We quickly turn away. Paris... lets out a long, drawn-out sigh. 「 ...I see now. 」 A third quake. Visible cracks appear in the ice. Bits of frost are loosened from the tomb's walls. Paris releases her blade to grab something from behind her back. We hear a button pop, as well as the clinking of containers... 「 You're inhibiting yourself. 」 She pulls out a glowstick-like tube, gleaming a faint rich blue, and lifts her segmented helmet to hold it to her lips. 「 ...I will not apologize. 」 She clamps her teeth onto it and bites down until it crumples. It hisses and begins spewing glittering blue smoke, filling the chamber. Immediately, we lose sight of her as the haze fills our lungs with burning. We cough and hack, but still catch the ascending din of Paris's magic casting. She doesn't say its name. Our vision flashes red with lightning. Instantly, we feel ourselves being lifted by our bindings. The blue smoke surges out to open sky as Paris blows open a hole in the wyvern's body. Electricity arcs over the blackened wound as her strike's momentum carries us out. There is no cry or bellow as the winged creature went limp some time ago. Instead -- the first thing we see beyond the glittering electric fog, is Setsuna, and Otto with a now gloveless hand outstretched, smoking as if he'd just recently fired off a spell. A withered grey ring is equipped on his middle finger. Paris wastes no time lunging at them, immediately crashing her heavy blade into The Hero's iron chest plates. They easily fold under the force and steel starts to drive into his body, but without resistance, it isn't able to pierce far. He's instead carried with us into our consequent free-fall along with Setsuna whose tendrils remain entangled around him. All this happens before Otto can let out his first consigned shout of pain and surprise. Setsuna's perpetually neutral stare... twists to anger. 「⭘◔◑◕⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤ ! 」 She lets rip an ascending shriek out of the beak in her chest. The same deafening cry that defended us from a wyvern when we'd first arrived. It fires point-blank between all five of us, and we feel our eardrums rupture. Our vision blurs, and what little sense of spatial awareness we had crumbles. Ringing. All we can hear now is ringing. Setsuna doesn't waste a second and slips a dagger off of Otto's body, slamming it through the gap in Paris's helmet with all her weight behind it. It's jammed into her shadowed face. Its handle is left jutting out as proof. At the same time, Otto grips his gloved hand on Paris's blade, pointing his other at Paris's heavily armoured chest, telegraphing his intent to fire off another spell. Despite being stabbed in the face and deafened -- Paris isn't incapacitated. She immediately stomps The Hero in the chest. There's easily enough force to dislodge both him and Setsuna, as well as send them hurtling far below us. Further beyond them is a rolling cyan cloud sea that veils the canyon's lowest depths. The light here is faint, and walls of the canyon dim... but it's no less monster-infested. In fact -- here, it appears to be even more so. Ominous creatures of disconcertingly strange design make no effort to hide themselves. Paris promptly extends her heavy blade, aiming down at the distant duo. Cerulean smoke continues to flood from that glowstick tube clamped between her teeth. The misty haze floats up to us, obscuring our view and searing our throats, but in doing so, it's purpose becomes clear. ____MP ▐ 23 44 It's mana she's inhaling -- in the form of nebulous smoke... Although we're bleeding it about as quickly as we're inhaling it, it's enough for us to fluctuate between zero and forty MP. An unimpressive but functional amount... Eldritch Serendipity [LV.35] Ahead of Otto and Setsuna, another monster slowly emerges from behind cloud cover. Gigantic -- many times larger than the wyvern was, as large or larger than a freighter. Its long segmented body appears to be almost entirely made of cracking bone-like structures whose fissures glow with magic. Its armoured skeletal frame and fin-like protrusions surround what appears to be mossy oblong air-bladder cores. 『 «Identify» 』 Unnamed Species

LV.71 | Wyrm Golem

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HP 128,455 / 130,000 A boss monster. 「 ... 」 Paris slowly drifts her aimed blade away from the duo, most likely... not wanting to risk missing and drawing its aggression... Instead, she reverses her grip on the blade and raises it high above her head. Gold-hued winds begin to blow around her -- she's re-casting «Dragon Dive», but our death senses suddenly spike before she can reach even half of its cast time. There's almost no time to react to the pain surge. A shadowy spear-like mass thunders down, striking her exposed side. Another crashes into her shoulder plates, its splash grazes us. Some of her armour plates are chipped off. Some of the cable length binding us is burnt. Two more spears rain down without break, but Paris manages to glance them off of her blade, sharing in their momentum rather than taking direct impact. 『 «Identify»... 』 All we can hear from Crier's voice is buzzing -- our eardrums haven't regenerated yet. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

LV.53 ▬ Hanging Arpeggio Lucent Wisp

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_____HP ▐ 5300/5300 _____MP ▐ 12355/15900 _____SP ▐ 1340/1340

__P.ATK ▐ 275

__P.DEF ▐ 0

__M.ATK ▐ 1110

__M.DEF ▐ 1570

Effects ▐ Mana Barrier [LV.10] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ A grand cosmic mass that dangles as if its body were made of tattered cloth. It has a deer-like head whose antlers branch out several orders of magnitude larger whilst hanging tree-branch like protrusions extend far from its vacant underside. An unsettling jellyfish-like creature whose face is marked by a bright four-pointed star. Sections of its body are obscured by winding clouds, dwarfed by its presence. Looking closely, however... it doesn't even seem to be facing us... Some of its branches just happen to be bent in our direction after being wrapped around the wyvern's slack body. We glance down at Paris. It seems as though there's less mana smoke leaking from her helmet, and... that dagger remains lodged in her face still... A wave of celestial branches snap off of the drifting monstrosity. They grow in size as they fall, burning black as their speed picks up. Accelerating -- dozens of shadowy comets. Paris draws her weapon up towards them. Swinging it, she throws out a hurried, weakened «Fireball» before turning away, leaning back until we're falling straight down. Our eardrums have regenerated just enough to catch the «Fireball»'s shockwave detonating above us. Tinted cloud masses swirl around its contained inferno. Waves of black spears promptly pierce those disturbed mists, but most of the projectiles that were directly above us are also shattered in the blast. The rest remain on course to fall around us, soon to restrict us to a vertical safe zone. ...The gap between us, Otto and Setsuna, and the boss monster is closing rapidly. Otto is in an x-formation with his face to the boss monster below, but Setsuna remains attached to his back, glaring up at us. Seeing this, Paris... lets go of us, leaving us to dangle by the tether heavily wrapped around her arm. She uses her freed hand to pull out the dagger stuck in her face, ejecting a splatter of red along with it. ... The burnt cables... feel a bit looser, we might be able to cut ourselves free now... but... should we? Otto and Setsuna might stop fighting Paris if they see that we've freed ourselves, but it's only a maybe... and doesn't say anything about Paris herself. It would... be preferable if they'd stop trying to kill each other though... Maybe, if our death senses allow it, it's a risk worth taking-? 「 ...You can never ...be rid of problems in this world, Streya. 」 ... If we... assume The Goddess is an entity that actually exists though... cutting ourselves free with the intent to stop the fighting... is just inviting a new problem to show itself, isn't it? That, or outright failure... Aah... as if this situation weren't complex enough... But what else are we supposed to do here? It's not as if we can just talk things out... and we've certainly seen... the absurdity this Goddess is capable of... Is it... is it even worth trying to do anything? If we happen to resolve the situation too well... that also will prompt The Goddess to introduce a new situation... right? But maybe... that situation would be better than the one we're in...? In the first place, is this situation really bad enough that... 「 «Dragon Dive» 」 In a burst of sparkling flame, we're shot downwards, far beyond our terminal velocity. Burning draconic wings reform out of Paris's back as she angles her blade. Vapour trails quickly form behind the tips of her wings and weapon as she slices across the surface of a sprawling cloud mass. Setsuna's ringed pupils shrink. She immediately twists her body, along with Otto's to avoid the guillotine strike, but Paris's wings quickly adjust as the wyvern's did, correcting course. ...We soar past them. The chill of our death sense shrivels away, as crimson, electrified chunks are blown off of both Otto and Setsuna. Our pupils shrink as Paris turns up to face the damage. Our lips part, seeing their... pained expressions... What are... what are we doing? We grit our teeth. Sing squirms her arm and bends her wrist, until the dirk she was tied up with presses against the burnt cable. With some effort, she manages to swiftly cut her arm free. That chill in our spines... rises just a few levels in turn. 「 «Magus's Mandible» 」 An iridescent gold chain suddenly erupts from the palm of Paris's gauntlet. It wraps around us, binding us again, and squeezes painfully at her gesture. We can feel Crier's bones cracking under its pressure. It immediately becomes hard to breathe. 「 Fake anger. 」 『『 ... 』』 She pulls us back in, grabbing hold of us, as Otto's strained voice abruptly calls out from above. 「 «Vulcan»! 」 「 «Afflexus Alibi» 」 Paris bangs her weapon against her shoulder plates, triggering her spell condition, coating its length with a bright chromatic shimmer. Then, with ease, she swats away three spinning elliptical projectiles falling from above. The Hero is left with his smoking palm pointed down, disbelief on his bloodied face. Paris lets out a quick exasperated breath. Her armour rattles and whistles in the wind. 「 You've known this for a while now... haven't you? 「 These two... no longer contribute to your survival. 」 The phantom grip on our spines ...loosens as she says this. 「 And in truth, you felt nothing just now, seeing them hurt. 「 You only felt as though... you should have. You only acted... 「 on what you thought any other person would have done... 」 She throws open her wings as air brakes and flaunts her blood wicked blade as we fall up, drawing near again. Otto clutches his wounds, wincing as he meets her gaze head-on. Those shadowy burning spears from earlier finally catch up and begin to rain down around us. 「 ...Am I wrong? 」 Setsuna's limp body suddenly springs to life. She kicks off of Otto's chest to lunge at Paris's head, but the latter's blade is already extended, and now it pierces into her shoulder. 「 What are you... afraid of? 」 We open our mouths to speak, but then feel our spines twist, locking in our breath. Our death sense... won't... allow a response here...? Paris draws back her blade to swing at Setsuna's head, but Otto pulls her wounded body back in time to escape with grazes. We fly up past them. Paris calmly resets her wing posture, steadying our falling speed with theirs at a distance, before she whips the blood off her blade, sending it off into the abyss. 「 ...I know what it is like ...to have Eldritch Fear numb your heart. 」 She turns over her blade to gaze at its other side. Colour stains its steel. 「 You tell yourself again and again... that you care... 「 Assign all manner of promises, and reasons... remind yourself what to think... 「 but it ends up becoming a Sisyphean effort... as brainwashing can only go so far. 「 They are of no use to you... and above all else, you cannot afford to die... 」 Otto's mouth is moving, he's speaking something to Setsuna, but we can't hear them... Still, a grisly look is painted on their faces... 「 The memory... never dies... 」 Paris points her blade at them. Magic circles begin to form. 「 And that is... well... very tragic, Streya... 「 however... we have a serious... dilemma on our hands... 」 Embers arc to its tip, bringing forth electric current with them. She's building up... another «Fireball». 「 You are suppressing yourself... to act... "normal". 」 『『 ...W̶̩͝h̵̥̀- 』』 The ice in our spines spike and fall, spike and fall, churn and release, over and over... flooding agony and relief in moments too brief. Our death senses... are... jamming again... 『『 ...W-What's wrong ...w̵͍̘͆̋́i̸͙͔̍th- 』』 「 What's wrong? Look at them... all this suffering... 「 Do you think... they care... about your righteous idea of "normal"? 」 It's hard to focus on her words. The fireworks going off through our spines is crashing our trains of thought. 「 Your "normal" ...is dead weight, Streya. Aimless. Parasitic. 「 Do earnestly believe... you are helping anyone, being useful to anyone, as you are? 「 What meaningful thing... have you granted to those who have aided you? 」 『『 ... 』』 「 You have degenerated ...You have willingly torn out your own fangs. 「Fate has swept you away ...and now dances you on its strings. 「 Where you once held your heads high as The Devil Twins... 「 you now live in fear... of yourself... and for what? 」 For a split second, our death senses set and lock. A harrowing dread flashes behind us, before jamming again. Paris immediately whips around with her spell brought to full charge and fires it at an approaching pack of white feather-winged monsters. A tiny shimmering star flies from the tip of her blade, which soars to their dead centre, blinking along the way. 「 ...Fun? Go on... dare to say it again... 「 It would be the ultimate poetry... 「 and a step-up... from this pathetic display. 」 『『 ... 』』 The shockwave goes off in the distance. The largest burning star we've seen her cast since. Radiant heat, winds, and bellows reach us from where we are, cut short as we collectively fall into a thick, foggy cloud. 「 You are suffering for nothing... let go, Streya. 「Did you truly... hate your time as demons? 」 Setsuna suddenly emerges from the mist, upside down. She reaches down her bloodied tendrils and latches onto Paris's head. A haunting glow radiates from her ringed pupils. Immediately, she tries to twist her head off. Paris releases us and dismisses the magic chains leaving us to dangle once more by her cable. Her freed steel-clawed gauntlet reaches up to grab hold of Setsuna. Otto seizes the opportunity to dive in to catch us. Knife in hand, he severs the cable in one go. Paris blindly whirls her blade at him... but we've already fallen away. Fading into the tinted fog... we leave Setsuna and Paris behind. The eldritch pain cycles in our spines slowly stabilize as they vanish... and after just a few fleeting moments go by... we fully lose sight of them. We continue falling through that cloud... for what feels like... minutes... Otto's ragged breath and the air rushing past our ears are nearly all we can hear. Even the canyon's distant monsters have fallen faint... when we can hear them at all. It truly... doesn't make any sense to us. We have no idea where we are now. We were not far from crashing into that boss monster. The fact that we haven't hit it implies... more foul luck of some kind. An unnatural wind current... The monster moving out of the way... The Goddess must be feeling merciful... or something... ... The moist air... kind of burns to the touch. 「 …▯▯▯ ▯▯▯ ▯▯▯▯？」 We don't respond to him. 「 … 」 Eventually, after falling further, the fog around us starts to glow cyan. It feels painfully hot now, almost scorching, but -- Otto doesn't seem to react to it at all. At least, he doesn't appear to be in any more agony than he already was... Is it just... us? The burning is nothing compared to Eldritch Serendipity but... ...We endure it without further thought. More scalding minutes go by. Otto's face has started to take on a paler hue. He seems drowsy. He might be... bleeding out. ...No sooner do we acknowledge that, than we finally fall out from the sweltering cyan fog; at last, overcoming that distant veil enshrouding the city lying dormant at the bottom of the canyon.

SING CRIER CH.38 The Weight of a Sea Immediately... it strikes us... just how different it is from our memories. There was destruction in Myriad World's Black Star Brook, but not to this degree. Falling... grants us time to take in the pre-industrial city. A high cyan flood consumes its streets, and a ghostly glow radiates from them. While ornate twisting spires, overlapping high bridges, and arches, remain plentiful, its dark stony alleys and elaborate street plazas have been consumed by endless cyan. The baroque dams at the city's edges no longer stream with endless waterfalls, and much of the city's abundant glass has been cracked or shattered outright. Few monuments and landmarks remain standing as they were. Of the structures not destroyed or submerged, a third are tilted in some way. The grand clocktower standing tall as the city's centrepiece... appears to have been spared but it's difficult to know for certain. A blanket of darkness obscures how much of the city we can see. We can still manage to catch sight of... one of the former boss fight locations from here... ... We hear Otto take in a deep breath of air, before he promptly wraps his arms defensively around us. He doesn't seem to have any real plan for... dealing with fall damage. We brace ourselves as well, as the tops of buildings start to rise above us. The drizzling sky... comes into our view again. It consists wholly of dark, stormy, rolling, cyan clouds, very much reminiscent of the enormous waves of an ocean's surface. It brings a shimmering fragmenting effect to the light that paints the city... It is... mesmerizing in a way. Haunting... as well. The Hero manages to touch his feet down against the steep wall of a tilted building. We can hear his boots burning up with friction as we begin to slide down its length. Its tiled rooftops expand outwards as we approach the building's base, converting away more of our vertical speed until we reach its end. With his teeth grit, eyes narrow, and no choices left to make, Otto sails off the rooftops, setting our course directly into the luminescent liquid flooding a dark, cramped, alley. Decorative structural elements line and jut out from its close-together walls, and we're still careening at a speed that will cause fall damage. 「 ...«Vul...can»!」 He points his bare palm at the cyan waters ahead and fires forward three wildly spinning oblong spheres of light. The grey ring on his hand glows bright and fractures in the process. There's... accuracy to be desired in his volley. One crashes into a wall of the alley, throwing up dust and rubble with its impact. The other two land roughly where we're en route to land, but not in the same place. Still, the glowing waters erupt and loosen with each sphere burst. If The Goddess wills it... this will probably be enough. The Hero shields us as we promptly fly through the smoke and debris... as well as bears the brunt of the landing as we crash into the illuminated water. In that final instant, we blackout. The water feels... boiling to the touch. [END]