The entire section of river where Argent had been thrown was covered in debris, the water running thick with mud and muck dislodged by the chaos. With the myconid enraged as it was there was no chance of getting close, and Gauge stood in horrified silence as he watched the many appendages of the creature slither and thrash. Something in the back of his mind sparked from the movements, filling the pit of his stomach with suppressed dread. A memory pulled at him, tearing away at the walls he had built so high for so long. It moved within him as the tendrils did, sinking into the deepest pit of his mind.

~~~~~

Cold sweat clung to his skin as he shot upright in bed, surging adrenaline causing his body to shake as the sudden cacophony of tortured noise shook him from the slumber his tired body had easily given in to. The ground beneath him seemed as though it was shaking, and he couldn't see, as the glowstones socketed into the walls had somehow been smothered. It was as though a thick, tangible darkness was covering everything around him as he fumbled for his weapon, gripping the slim bladed tomahawk tighter than ever before as blood curdling screams echoed into the night outside. The chaotic ambiance was everywhere, noises from beyond the windows, noises from what had to be downstairs, noises from the square outside.. Most of it was unintelligible, unbearable screams; But a single word was all he needed to pick out of the mess for his spine to go rigid. Horrors. Creatures from beyond the rift. The word rang in his ears as his skin began to crawl, fears which he had long since forgotten boiling away somewhere in his skull. How had he become an orphan in the first place? Nobody had ever really told him.. And he couldn't remember... But some part of his essence knew the truth, and it manifested now as utter terror.

His hand remained frozen in time where it had finally found the latch to his door. They were all going to die. There wasn't anything he could do about it, was there? Was it even worth it to try? For what could have been an eternity, his mind tried to rationalize the possibility of retreating to the deepest darkest corner of the room and praying he survived somehow, but then..

"Gauge!!!"

A desperate cry in a voice he could never forget shook him from his stupor, bringing him back to himself. A steeled gaze replaced the fear in his eyes as he threw the door open and rushed for the stairs, her name on his lips.

"I'm coming, Hannah!"

He called back, fighting to gain his bearings. Outside the room it became a little more possible to see, due to portions of burning structure and other flaming pieces of the landscape, though the quickly gathering smoke would soon become an issue. With conditions as they were, it was impossible to tell that the majority of the staircase had been demolished, and after hitting the first wave of steps Gauge found himself falling face-first into the rubble beneath. Cursing in pain and hissing between grit teeth, he rolled to the side and felt blindly around himself for some type of support to help pull himself up. Calling out into the chaos as the smoke and embers burnt his eyes, he dragged himself onto his feet.

"Hannah! Hannah, WHERE ARE YOU?!"

"Gauge! Gauge please!"

Hannah called out for him again, her voice providing the answer of location. She was outside the inn, somewhere just beyond the fallen walls. Sounds of struggle and death were in the air now, as brave members of the village began to mount a counter-initiative. Having settled the edge of the riftlands in the first place, many of the inhabitants were strong in body and mind, they had survived disasters before. They had grown accustomed to dispatching the odd pack of Horrors lurking in the Neverwoods, within their shifting trees and grotesque landscapes.

Outside, the town was lit with a burning orb of light, sent high into the sky by an older man dressed in a carpenter's clothes. The Elder of the village. His manifestation of Kai soared upwards and illuminated the daunting scene before them. A Horror of massive size, a writhing, fleshy mutation akin to an amalgamation of bear and octopus, was wreaking havoc in the middle of town. Snatching villagers with it's elongating tentacles as they slithered along the ground in search of prey, whipping people into the air only to lurch forward and rip them in two, bringing portions of their lingering gore back to stuff into the beak-like maw which rested in the center of its head.

"Gauge, what do I do?!"

Hannah screamed in terror, cornered by a mass of hunting tendrils which slid their way through the open mouth of the blacksmith's forge where she was hiding. She was huddled down atop a cargo net suspended from the ceiling. Mind racing, Gauge tried to find a solution, knowing full well that any wrong move here was suicide. He had to wait, wait for some kind of opening, some option had to show itself... The men of the village were mustering for an attack, overcoming the initial panic which had struck them after seeing the sheer size and nature of the beast that was destroying their way of life. Soon they'd have to make a move, right?

The Horror's predatory tendrils whispered across the ground and climbed onto the walls, seeking hungrily for anything living that it might destroy and consume. It seemed yet unaware of Hannah's sobbing form hanging from the netting above it, though at the rate things were moving, Gauge knew that the expanding mass of flesh would soon find the pulley system where it attached to the ceiling and follow the ropes downward...

"Don't move, Hannah! No matter what! Do not come down!"

He shouted as firmly as possible, to which the thin female rapidly nodded her head in response, so overwhelmed with panic that it was all she could do not to faint. In the center of the village, the small force assembled, and the elder spread a glowing white aura to two of their weapons. He appeared to be waiting to charge more, clearly limited by his own fortitude as the strains of the task visibly labored him. Deep creases in his forehead dripped with sweat as he struggled to muster the energies for another casting.

The two middle-aged settlers with their empowered implements of war made a daring advance rather than wait for their brothers, valuing time and the possibility of saving a few homes and lives over playing it safe. A valiant effort, but a poor idea. Upon drawing near, tentacles from the beast launched upwards from where they coiled in shadows along the ground, targeting the detected movements and gripping the first man like a vice. The Horror swung him around with such force that his upper body ruptured like an overripe melon upon contact with the ground, his mulched internals spraying across the landscape as his tattered corpse was reeled in and stuffed into the Horror’s beak. The second man, knocked from his feet but not effectively grabbed, scrambled backwards and rose to a standing position before hefting his spear and leveling it for a solid throw.

The weapon spanned the distance and connected with the center mass of the creature, puncturing deep and causing a festering, grotesque bubbling sensation beneath the skin as the Horror almost appeared to melt at the point of impact. Ooze dribbled everywhere as the creature shrieked in outrage or pain, perhaps both, its tentacles retracting several feet as a spasm rippled through its body and caused it to draw inward on itself.

Gauge took his chance then, trusting his instincts to navigate the terrain lit only by the artificial star above as it danced with elongated shadows from the creatures wriggling extremities. A step here, a step there, bounding and leaping as much as he was running, in the same way he might have navigated the rooftops back home-- running up an overturned cart like a ramp in order to make a leap for the forge. It was looking good, a glimmer of hope beginning to shine in his mind as he imagined that the task was in fact something he could accomplish...

Then, in mid leap, he was whipped out of the air with such force that he could no longer breathe. His thoughts and his vision flashed black as his body was flung like a ragdoll and sent reeling into the side of a nearby house. The impact came as the Horror rapidly threw its many tendrils back into the space around itself after recoiling, shooting back like an angry spring. His vision dimmed, his lungs refused to inflate, he could not even object to Hannah's screams as she witnessed him being struck. He could not tell her not to jump, not to try and run. He could only watch, watch as she leapt from the cargo netting and was immediately detected. The last thing he saw of her face would be the visibly glinting tears upon her cheeks, reflecting the light source above, her face wild with panic as she was gripped by several of the Horror's elastic limbs and torn asunder. Her body pulled apart like a toy, blood spraying in a pressurized fountain as her legs flung one way and her arms another, intestines spilling in tangled waves as her torso split at the stomach. The tentacle holding her upper half curled inwards and shoved its portion headfirst into its mouth, blood seeping from her discolored lips as her lifeless eyes rolled dully in her head.

~~~~~

Gauge screamed. He screamed at the top of his lungs. In the voice he wished he had managed to find in that moment of abject terror, in the voice that might have saved her, he screamed. He screamed as he re-lived the scene a thousand times in the seconds that passed, as though there were some way it ended differently. Some way he could fix it. Some way to bring her back. In the clearing before him, the tendrils of the myconid moved in all the ways that scarred him. Wriggling, writhing, slithering and squirming in his vision as his head felt like it was about to burst. His cries were not the terrified kind. It was not panic, nor desperation. It was the anguished wailing of a tortured soul. It was the vocalization of deep, internalized suffering.

The burning creature screeched back into the night as though it were attempting to match him, squirming beneath its wreath of flames. The sounds overlayed one another in Gauge’s ears, tears streaking down his face as he jammed his eyes shut. Trying to block it all out, but trapped inside his own memories. Again, he re-lived that night. Again, he watched her die. Over and over, and over again, time dilating into an endless stream. The world around him barely shifting by fractions of a second for each time his memories burned through his skull.

You couldn’t save her.

“Stop it.”

And you can’t save him.

“Please, stop.”

You’re worthless. A death token. Baiting others to their ends with your pointless dreams.

“No.. No, it’s not..”

They would be alive if it wasn’t for you.

“That’s not true!”

It is. You could have stopped them. You should have. They would be alive if you had kept them safe.

Gauge sobbed beneath the mental assault of his own, darker self. As though his repressed feelings took upon themselves a life all their own, and wielded it against him like a white hot blade.

But you didn’t. You didn’t stop them because inside, you want to play the hero just as much as they do. You want to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong… But no one else has to die, if you stop putting up the act. Stop chasing things you’re too weak to catch. Stop dragging others into your selfish, unattainable goals, only to abandon them to their deaths when you fall short.

“I didn’t! I never abandoned–”

Liar. You ran. You survived after watching her scream. You didn’t die to save her, or to avenge her, you simply left her mangled flesh to be devoured and rot. And now Argent will die, here in this festering hellhole… And you, unable to stop it, will abandon him too.

“No!”

“That's enough.”

His eyes shot open as a voice not mimicking his own silenced the argument inside his head. He found himself in a world of pure white. There was no visible way to determine any semblance of size, space, or distance. He simply stood in this incomprehensible space, a gentle ripple effect present beneath his boots as though he rested atop the surface of a perfectly still lake.

“Hannah?”

There was nothing in the space besides him, but from the void, her voice responded.

“You’ve had a hard time of things, haven’t you.”

The rogue bit down on his lip, choking back a sob. He didn’t know how to respond, or what responding even meant in this context. Was this real? A spiritual manifestation? Had he died, killed by the Myconid during his breakdown? Or had he finally lost it and found himself buried inside some massive hallucination.

“Hannah, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry..”

“Why?”

The voice asked softly, sounding genuinely puzzled.

“For all of this, for everything.. Back then, it.. It should have been me.”

“...”

“It should have! I should have died there, not you. You never even should have come.”

“Who are you to tell me where I can go? I chose to go with you. I wanted to.”

“It doesn’t matter, I should have saved you. I should have done something!”

“Like what? You tried as hard as you could. What else could you have done?”

“I.. I don’t..”

“Jaroth.”

He looked up, the use of his first name pulling his heartstrings like the fibers of a loom. Hovering just infront of him was Hannah, the way she had always looked. Soft brown hair cut short at the back, but long on the sides, the gentle violet of her eyes shining from beneath her bangs. She was dressed in her adventuring clothes, the only ones they had been able to afford during their journey to the riftlands. The ones she had been thrilled that he had bought for her. Rugged white and tan leggings under a garment that was half shorts, half skirt; And a frilled red blouse strapped underneath supple leather padding. She reached out and touched his face, shaking her head in a gentle motion.

“I came with you because I wanted to.. Because it was my dream, too.. And even now, I know, that if either of us had to be the one to see it through.. It’s you.”

Gauge reached up for her, his hands clasping around her arm and wrist as he leaned into the sensation of her palm. His shoulders shook with every unstable breath, as in the distance, the world of white began to take on the appearance of thousands, if not millions of branching arts nodes. As though the aether plane were being drawn out along the expanse.

“But why..? Why me?”

“I can’t answer that for you, Jaroth.. But I trust you. I know you can reach out and touch your dream.. Our dream.”

“Hannah, I–”

But she was gone. Her smile was the last thing to fade as a flash of light overtook her, and Gauge’s consciousness was swept into the aether. Around him the paths of the plane swathed like neurons and synapses, spreading into the infinite, but among them a single node shone like the sun. He reached for it, and found that it was suddenly right within his grasp. It swirled with power, aether filling it to its peak. [Awakening].

[“Look now beyond the veil, and see only the purest of truths.”]

His eyes opened, glowing from within with a sheer white light, and he found himself back in the world of fungi and fires. His vision settled on the creature before him, and inside of it he saw the flow of energy move. He followed its source, pinpointing it, and drew back on his bow. [Soul Weapon]. An art which had become available to him on path beyond [Awakening], he filled it with the aether he had collected from the battles leading up to the encounter.

Streams of Kai came into being, tracing the frame of his bow, settling on its string as an arrow of pure energy formed. It coalesced quietly upon the air, like the shimmer of an oil slick suspended in space. Gauge breathed deeply, closing his eyes but finding that somehow, he could still see his target. In fact he swore he could see it better. Releasing both his breath and his shot, he watched from the eye of awakening as the soul arrow split the center of his foe. Striking perfectly the lifeforce inside of it– which Gauge supposed might be Argonite– the arrow pierced through the myconid with a veritable nova effect. The creature erupted behind the projectile's entry and exit as though a small vortex had occurred within its flesh.

Gauge’s vision returned to normal as exhaustion took over him, leaving him panting and sweating as he fell to one knee. The strain of [Awakening] had completely drained his arts capacity, leaving him disoriented and weak… But there was no time.

“Argent..!”

He tried to yell, but really it came out as more of a wheeze as he forced himself forward. Stumbling over his boots for the first few steps as he only half-managed to stand, scrambling up from his knees and pushing himself towards the riverbank. There were no bubbles in the water, no signs of blood, no ripples that indicated movement or struggle. Deciding to risk it, the rogue reached into the depths of his mind and activated [Find Aura]; searching for the unique signature of his companion. He located him quickly, in a section all but buried in fallen trees. Deactivating the art and sloshing through the shallow edge of the water, Gauge peered into the river and cursed. Argent’s body was pinned beneath two sections of splintered log, limp and motionless. The lack of colour in the water suggested he had, at the very least, not been impaled by anything.. But he had been down there for at least five minutes.

“...Gods.. Damnit.. Move, move!”

Gauge began pushing at the upper section of a log, slamming his shoulder against it with all his might. He grunted beneath the strain, breath exiting his lungs in an involuntary hiss as he poured everything he had into the effort. Somewhere beneath the surface, the submerged portion began to shift, likely in part due to the assistance of buoyancy. Pressing one foot down into the depths, he tried to create space by ‘sinking’ the log underneath while shifting the log overtop, his muscles cramping as the icy cold waters covered him up to the neck.

And then Argent’s eyes opened. A stream of bubbles released from the alchemist’s mouth as he shifted himself, leveraging against the space Gauge had created. With what was clearly the last of his strength, he slid himself free, and tried to kick off the bottom of the riverbed. His boots sank into the silt, barely rising a few feet off the bottom, but before he could begin to sink Gauge’s hands wrapped around his outstretched forearm. The rogue pulled Argent from the water and onto the shore, immediately patting him down for injuries whilst staring at him as though he were a ghost.

“Are you alright..? HOW are you alright?!”

Argent spat up a portion of water, choking for a moment as his companion stared at him in disbelief. Once he had finished coughing on his own lungs, the alchemist managed a small smile.

“Waterbreathing.”

He said simply, now profoundly grateful for his aquatic episode during the entrance exam. Nearly drowning was an experience you only needed to have once. After that, Argent had filled the node for [Waterbreathing] as soon as he reached it along his elemental tree, it having been one of the arts which pushed him to level six. His stillness within the water had stemmed from being two steps short of death, not daring to risk even the minimal amount of kai necessary to keep the art fully engaged. Rather, Argent had pulled himself into a deep meditation, shutting himself down and using the art only in small intervals to take single breaths when necessary, holding them for as long as possible.

“You scared the hell out of me! I thought.. I thought you were..”

Argent reached up and clasped the rogue’s shoulder, surprised by the amount of concern that Gauge was openly expressing. It was a far cry from the nonchalant, bordering on sarcastic manner in which he had handled the first time the alchemist had been trapped beneath a body of water. Before he could say anything or offer any comfort, however, a dreadful smell of rot and decay filled the air around them. It was almost enough to trigger an involuntary gag reflex, causing both boys to grimace in disgust.

There was a sickly, grotesque slurping noise from somewhere behind their position. Argent forced himself to lift his head as Gauge turned to look, but neither of them were quick enough to react to what was coming. From beneath the spot where the corrupted Myconid had rooted, the ground lurched and bent, giving way to an opening from which an unseen horror emerged.

The creature was vaguely feminine, in the same way an eel was vaguely a fish. Twisted and gnarled, with a violently hunched back and elongated claws, her graying skin was wrapped in tattered hides and rags. Bones and chimes, trinkets and sigils hung from her frame by woven vines of ivy. In that moment, the pieces began to fall together.

“Skogr’raithe..”

Argent breathed in petrified disbelief, naming the Faewitch by its native tongue. This haggard, cursed creature was the source of everything. The royal myconid, likely a decades old fixture of the forest, was the source of the annual jellycaps– and its corruption had been the turning point in their unrelenting surge. It was the reason they were more plentiful, more violent, and more difficult to kill. It explained the mutated aberrant that he and Gauge had fought, and the unnatural behaviors such as gathering up the corpses of other monsters or capturing them alive. It was all to bring materials to the Faewitch. To make potions, thralls, or Gods knew what else. It was her magic and influence which had commanded the infected fae creatures while causing other monsters to keep away from the territory. Everything made sense to Argent… Except one thing.

But he was given no time to dwell upon it, as the witch’s misshapen hand extended towards them in a gesture of signs, unleashing a globby torrent of acid that was sure to be lethal. In a split moment, both Argent and Gauge instinctively and simultaneously attempted to push one another out of the way, causing neither to succeed. The seconds slowed to a crawl as Argent watched the wave of deadly acid, shifting his gaze to Gauge in an apologetic look before tightly closing his eyes, and praying that the pain would be quick.