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Part of the old story, make sure to check out the remade Alteration here.

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Lore piece data loaded. Projection starting up.

Rose's surroundings slowly started to load up the stored information and a new place started to appear all around her.

Now let's...

*KSHH*

-''WAHHH!''

Rose threw herself at the ground and barely managed to dodge a bright, violent light that was heading towards her. She looked around herself alarmedly, but it seemed like the loading process hadn't finished.

What was that?!

She crawled on what seemed to be moist dirt and wet leaves and tried to figure out what was happening.

Is this really loading? It might just be a night without a moon.

A few moments passed, but not much changed except for the air. Rose didn't notice at first but the air turned strange... somehow... heavy. It turned harder and harder to breathe and she just laid on the ground trying to get air, but she barely managed to get enough oxygene in herself.

What is this?

She slowly crawled trying to make some kind of progress. Every now and then she tried to stand up, but her legs gave in and her consciousness was at every moment a second away from fading. As she fell after the unsuccessful try she stumbled upon some ground that was very different from the rest. It had a huge hole in it and Rose could feel the heat that came from it. Her thoughts were very heavy because of the lack of oxygene but she slowly examined it.

Did that beam do this..? I guess it was then some sort of magic missile, but who casted it?

She slowly traced with her fingers along the outer line of the crater and tried to guess its size. She couldn't see anything, but she had no problems because the heat gave her a good idea where she needed to go along.

Is this for real..? It has at least a diameter of 1.5 meters! That's huge! Did the beam release some kind of poison cloud once it landed..? I see no reason why I breathe so hard..!

She tried to cough up a few words, but her pained voice was like the faintest echo of a whisper, which was thankfully enough to trigger her ability.

-''...En... Environme...nt... sta...tus...''

Environment status:

Quality: Low

Your skill level isn't high enough to thoroughly analyze the air.

Basic info:

-Forest

-Overcharged air

Rose's cloudy thoughts tried to make sense of the message that appeared in front of her.

Overcharged air?! With what?

-''Haaaaa...''

Something akin to a kind of sudden wind hit Rose and the air around her cleared in an instant. She took a deep breath and her eyes widened with surprise.

What? Why?

She breathed very fast trying to pull herself together so she only noticed after a few moments just what accompanied the sudden clear air. She looked around herself and touched first her chest, then the dirt under her.

I don't understand why is the earth trembling... why am I trembling?!

Her thoughts came to a sudden halt as she noticed a new sound.

What in the world is happening?!

Slow and deep humming noises came from everywhere. Their intensity was so high that it seemed like they came from everywhere. As if the earth and air, alongside with the trees started to sing, slowly gaining on volume and power. Ah but the song that nature itself was humming was not a tranquil one, nor a cheerful one.

No, what earth and air collaborated for was a symphony to cold, pure wrath. Everything in the path of the humming was affected and started shaking alongside it becoming a part of this arcane wave and everything turned into a new miniature source of the power that was starting to build up and shake the foundations of the forest. Willing or unwilling everything was engulfed and played its part in aiding the buildup of the melody that sounded like it predated any and every civilization.

Icy cold fear had Rose in its grasp and she could only lay on the floor terrifiedly as the humm shook the floor she was standing on and even she herself could feel how the tunes shook and built up inside of her.

Stop! What? Why?!

She said something, but only her lips moved. The words were caught in nature's arcane ode and taken with it adding to the earthshaking spectacle. After a second from Rose's words a window appeared in front of her.

Do you wish to stop the Lore piece projection?

Her fingers howerd above the Yes button, but she hesitated. She bit her lip and pressed No .

Her thoughts were a mess and it seemed like her mind and body were shaking alike from the humming, but she noticed one thing amidst this breathtaking chaos.

It is building up, why?!

Curiosity won her over. Even though her body was currently numb and as unresponsive as a rock because of her overwhelmed senses, she felt it. Her body wasn't just being shaken anymore she also turned into a power source of the wave just as everything else. The tremors and humming were as elusive and mysterious as before, but Rose could feel one thing of the force that made her its unwilling tool. Everything that was happening and everything that she felt was only building up for something bigger, something incomparably more potent.

Thoughts of what could possibly be the exposition after such an introduction of natures wrath symphony filled her mind. Fear gripped her heart tightly... but so did curiosity. And with such conflicting feelings she sat and waited for what the symphony promised to unfold.

What is this?

Suddenly light tremors joined the previous shaking and added their rhythm to the master piece. Rose looked wildly around herself because she felt that those tremors were not coming from the original source.

Maybe trees are starting to fall over? But that would be too many at once...

*kshh* *kshhh* *kshhh*

Rose threw herself again to the ground and covered as beams and pulses of light suddenly appeared and filled the air. The mighty beams were as terrifying as before, but only a whisper of their former explosive sounds accompanied them, the rest being drowned in the infernal humm. Another thing was different this time though, she wasn't their goal. Dark silhouettes appeared for a second after each beam exploded and revealed in its interrupted flashes how they were starting to appear from the floor.

The beams often crashed into the colossal beings, but Rose couldn't get any details on how they looked. Their bodies must have also been black and she only knew that what she already saw right at the start. They were huge colossal beings.

She had to squint because the flashes were straining her eyes and she had trouble to keep up with scenes that were unfolding before her in a picture per picture style.

The colossal beings were now storming in every direction accompanied by a rain of light beams from all directions. Rose looked in horror as the beings were blasted off by the light flashes, but new colossuses just appeared from the darkness that was still covering the forest like a thick fog. For every being that fell three more appeared. They were seemingly dancing and rushing ahead accompanied with the earth trembling arcane humm. They stormed forward just like their predecessor with no regard for their surroundings knocking trees to the side like they are pesky obstacles between them and their still unseeable enemy.

The lights suddenly started shifting and small beings were now appearing next to the colossuses and tried to storm past them. They continued to blast their beams around, but most were successfully fought off by the elusive giants of the night. Only a few managed to charge past the giants and it seemed like they were all running to the same direction. The amount of beams also lowered a lot, the giants must have eradicated quite a lot of their attackers.

Rose stood up and tried to get a better look at what was happening. She walked slowly in the direction of the flashes, but she only managed to make small progress because it wasn't easy to walk in the dark.

As she was trying to go on, she realised something.

The small beings are all going to the same place!

She checked, but it turned out that her suspicion was right. The beings were trying to charge through the colossuses from every direction and their goal seemed to be somewhere further ahead. Not many managed to even pierce the rows of the giants and even those which did were soon mowed down by the relentless titanic forces. Only a handful managed to still stay alive and it looked like they were making a circle. Rose noticed that because of the way the beams spread.

It looked like they were managing to somehow keep the oncoming forces in check, but she could see that it was only a matter of time when they would fall prey to the onslaught.

They are done... Wait what was that?

A being from the circle seemed to take some object that radiated brown light in its hand and crushing it, which illuminated the small area more than the previous bolts did. The beings were all covered in weirdly looking robes and just as she wanted to examine them closer Rose noticed that their formation wasn't a purely defensive one. A colossus was in the middle of their circle.

Impossible...

A colossus was kneeling on the dirt in the middle of the formation the strange mages formed. He was incomparable to any other illusive titan Rose saw a glimpse of. He made them all look like puny dwarves. She was very far away from him but Rose could feel the power coming off from him. The humming also seemed to get stronger and stronger causing all the titanic attackers to go berserk and rush towards the circle.

The biggest colossus remained however perfectly still. He was leaning forward on his knees and his hands were spread wide apart and touched the earth. His eyes were closed.

Can it be?

The humming was coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Shaking and tearing everything with its primeval, spectacular tune but Rose felt it. Even though she couldn’t hear where it was coming from, she was part of the tune and she sensed what took her and everything else and made them instruments for the arcane symphony.

That colossus is the cause of everything... the master conductor of this symphony. The force that caused all this.

Suddenly streams of light appeared from every member of the circle and a pattern formed in the air that connected them all. The colossus was right in the middle.

Suddenly all lights went out and darkness gushed into forest. No titans could be seen anymore and Rose had no idea what happened to the circle.

*-------*

And most important of all... Silence reclaimed the forest once more.

Ending projection

Afterword:

Thanks for reading!

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