It had been two days of starvation before Gabriel made the decision.

Gabriel cried as he finally took the decision to eat his own arm, which at this point had passed the state of rigor mortis.

At that moment, Lizzy hit him in the chest, sending the weakened man to the ground. She shook her head at him, getting on two feet and pointing at herself.

After the display and with much confusion from Gabriel, she turned around and started chomping on the arm voraciously.

Gabriel tried to stop her, but he was too weak for that, she ran away with the arm in her mouth. At some point, after much struggle, he simply stopped, his vision swaying for the effort.

The young man sat on the ground, too deprived to do much else. Then abruptly, he burped.

With wide eyes, he slowly rose, looking for Lizzy.

She stood far away from him. Her mouth was wet from what little blood had not dried up from the arm.

Gabriel realized what had happened a moment later.

They were connected, fully connected, two parts of the same entity.

Moved by her action, which had undoubtedly changed her profoundly, he went to hug her.

It was much later in the afternoon, or what they thought was the afternoon, because at some point, they had lost the count of the time, when they decided to meet with the Tyrant once again.

Before that, he had allowed the lizard to drink his blood. His Recovery, paired with his impossible magic sustenance, allowed him to really sustain their Life on simply themselves.

The Tyrant was standing, immobile, at what could have been the center of the chambers. He looked like a statue, a statue made of pure terror.

"What was the deal?" A downcast Gabriel asked.

"Oh, you decided to live in the end. Wise choice, my young friend."

"Let's not kid ourselves. What is it that you really want?" Gabriel's legs were shaking, but he couldn't help but show his fury for the monster that had cut his arm off and most probably intended to manipulate him in some other ways.

The Tyrant chuckled. "So you do have some guts after all. Good, because you will undoubtedly need them. What I need you to do is learn Lost Magic as your next Skill. And that, Herald, will require a great struggle. Greater than anything you've ever done, greater than anything you've ever witnessed." The Tyrant paused, allowing the man to take in what he had just said.

Gabriel took a deep breath.

"Are you ready to suffer?"

"Go on. The sooner we've dealt with this, the better."

The Tyrant exploded in roaring laughter.

"Let's start then!"

As the Tyrant widened his arm, Gabriel's world was bathed in darkness.

***

When next they woke up, Gabriel and Liz were sleeping on the floor, Liz curled like a cat, was there, by his stomach.

Where are we?

The place was a desolate wasteland with high peaks in the distance and a sky whose dark red light bated the land in a grim atmosphere.

The ground where they had woken was a mix of dry dirt and rust-colored sand. But it was in no way the Dungeon Challenge's chambers.

All around them, the whispers of the wind blowing through the jagged cliffs was the only sound they could hear.

Not fat in the distance, a shack, in the typical style which he now knew belonged to the Feldurs, lay alone in the valley, if not for an elbow grease-powered well in front of it.

The house was really the only thing in the wastelands. Jagged crests of broken land were the only things separating them from its form.

Gabriel and Liz stood up. There was something weird about their body, but they could not interpret what, and apart from that, now that they thought about it… they thought to themselves as we, they saw the same things, they felt the same things and thought the same things.

What happened to us? They asked themselves.

Maybe in the house, they would find someone who could answer their questions.

Moving toward it was not hard, thanks to their new power, but the ground shattered in big plaques was separated by scars quite a few yards wide, and who knew how deep.

It took them just a couple of minutes of Skill-powered jumps to reach the place. It revealed quite bigger than it looked. Adapt for a Giant's size.

The entrance was categorized by a sliding door, but the walls were made in thick green bricks, typical of what he had learned was Feldur's architectural style. At the door's right and left sides, french windows looked out on the barren wasteland.

The sliding door was open, so they simply had to get in. Asking for permission, a voice invited them in. It was a voice that they had never heard, and yet its lonely tone was strangely familiar.

The house's inside were shiny and somehow much, much bigger than they expected.

Even if the entrance room was bare, its walls were tall, incredibly so, in fact, they thought that there was some ridiculous magic fuckery cast on its space.

A big smooth desk of red-looking wood, they doubted it was sequoia, and one single chair made of the same material stood in the center of the hall. There were only a green teapot and two cups of the same color on top of the desk.

Plastering the walls was a giant library, shelves upon shelves, each with hundreds of tomes adorning them.

"Woah…" they exclaimed.

The only other structure in the hall was one medium size and cozy-looking chimney.

Why did we consider it cozy? That's your weird influence, isn't it? Gabriel asked himself, referring to Liz. The lizard looked at him, then at the chimney, then back at him again, and whipped her tongue out once.

They smiled.

It was so weird. Gabriel could feel his own tongue whipping out as if he had done it himself. He thought about trying to control his lizard body, raising an arm, and smacking himself, but something else took their interest. The first one noticing was his lizard self.

In front of the chimney stood a figure, a figure which was definitely not there the moment prior, and being the sliding door the only entrance, they asked themselves how the person had entered and how it got over there without them noticing.

"Do you feel it?"

"Do we feel what?"

"The overwhelming emptiness."

Gabriel looked around, taking a few seconds to close his eyes and listen to the house. He did not know why he did it.

It was just for a few seconds, but as their breath stilled, a violent absence, a terrible loneliness assaulted them from all sides.

Their eyes shot open, and they found themselves on the ground, hyperventilating.

"What was that?" They asked after they regained composure.

"The emptiness, what else?" The figure answered.

As long seconds passed, Gabriel and Liz started slowly recognizing the creature's features.

It was indeed a Feldur.

"Where are we?"

"You are inside of me," he said and turned.

The Tyrant. The Boss. It was the mayor in its Feldur form.

Gabriel took in the sight in front of him before answering, "Did it hurt?"

The mayor exploded in laughter.

"You have some mental strength to you, good, good. I hope what is to come will not shatter that side of you."

"Yeah… But, really, how are we inside of you? What is this place?" They asked.

"This place is my soul, and this house in my mind, my fortress."

"Is this ability learnable?"

"Well, you might learn this ability one day, but this is not what we are aiming at for now."

"And what it is that we are really aiming for, then?" They asked.

"We," said the mayor letting the pronoun hang in the air, as he extended a hand to his side and a book slowly flew out of one of the shelves to float in front of him, its pages leafing by themselves until they suddenly stopped, "are aiming to make you reach a state of mind which will make you accept my knowledge, a knowledge which even the Anchor doesn't offer, even to a Herald. We are aiming for you to learn the widest and purest form of Dark magic."

"Why? We can choose whichever Skill we want. Why wouldn't the Anchor offer us the magic which you want to teach us?"

"What I need you to unlock is Lost Magic, otherwise called Primordial Magic."

"We can learn Legendary level Magic if we wish to. Why would what you are offering us be better than that?" Gabriel said.

"There is nothing higher than Legendary Magic, but Primordial Magic is at its same level, but... better."

"We're sorry, but we need more than vague answers if we have to go through with this. What difference is there?"

The mayor chuckled, "You are right, listen. The Anchor can only offer you what is tied to the current knowledge of the inhabitants of Alter. It has access to the knowledge of everything that lives, everything that currently lives. What if something was lost, what if knowledge disappeared? That lost knowledge would be something that the Anchor would not be able to offer anymore. It doesn't have the means to. It simply wasn't built for it." The mayor was about to continue, but Gabriel blocked him.

"What do you mean with: it wasn't built for it?"

"Oh, so you are a curious one. But explaining that to you would take too much time, and anyway, mine are only theories. Theories I've tried and tested in my fifteen years as a living relic. But I have no means to prove them. So I will not bother us with it. Now, let me finish my explanation. Sit."

A chair appeared under Gabriel's and Lizzy's butts, and they found themselves sitting.

They were surprised but nodded for him to continue.

"As I was saying, the Anchor can only offer you knowledge floating inside of Alter, floating inside of its residents and all the True souls residing in it. I am not a True soul anymore. I, like all those bound to live in the Dungeon." The mayor let that sink in, "Which means that I currently have knowledge of a long lost Magic, a Magic on par with the current Legendary Tiered Magic Skills, but a Magic which no one, except you would have access to. Effectively making you not only unpredictable but bringing back something lost ages ago. Our God. The Old God."

A long pause followed; the mayor was waiting for them to answer.

"So, what do you get out of this deal?"

"What do I get? Simple, you break the seal, which makes me an exiled entity. I get my Dungeon back, my God back, and you get freedom and power over a long lost, and probably one of the most powerful Magic Skills that were ever created. Nobody loses."

"All right. Assuming that everything you are telling us is true. Assuming that our role as a Herald, for whatever that is, doesn't fit in the whole weird picture." Gabriel shot up, "How do we know that accepting this magic won't make us, who knows… the vessel of your Old God, or something!?"

"The vessel of my…!" The mayor spat from laughter. Hugging his belly, he bent over to laugh, "That was good! Gabriel, oh, Gabriel! I haven't laughed like this since… I have no idea since when! What kind of stories did they read you as a child!?" He joked.

"That's not funny! How can we know you aren't gonna fuck us in the ass once we accept or once we learn your damn magic!?" They asked.

"Please, do not curse or berate the Old God Magic. It isn't wise. Not even in here," the mayor said, calmly but sternly.

Gabriel snorted, Liz pouted.

"Even if it was something of the like, what could you do about it? Your knowledge can't even be defined as pitiful. It is just nonexistent. The only thing you can really do is take this opportunity as a chance, hope for the best and be grateful for having learned Lost Magic." There was no mockery in his tone, maybe a hint of pity.

Gabriel's mouth opened in answer, only to close right away. They had no way of talking back; the mayor was right.

"Here," said the mayor, heading for the desk, "drink this; it will help you. It was my wife's family personal recipe." He poured a muck yellow liquid into the cup and handed it to him.

"Not only you offer me something which I am in no position to refuse, you even have me drink pee now? Not cool."

The mayor chuckled. "Drink it fast; it will help you adapt to what has to come."

Gabriel sighed, "Alright…" he drank the tea almost unwillingly, but to his stupor, it was really good.

"Now, come with me. I will show you what you will learn."

As the mayor said that, the house folded on itself, and Gabriel and Liz found themselves in a big clearing.

Weird trees decorated its boundaries, and a few big rocks had been strategically placed in the middle of it. Gabriel, Liz, and the mayor stood now at its center, on top of the tallest and biggest of the rocks.

They had to fight off a strong sense of disorientation.

"I'm sorry about it," said the Tyrant, noticing their state, "It takes a while to adapt to this. It is my soulscape, after all. And believe me, I'm trying to contain it as much as possible, or the sheer power of it would squash you."

"What a joyful thought," Gabriel answered.

"Yes. It is, isn't it?"

"What is really happening? Are we physically inside of your soul?" They asked.

"Oh, no, that is something much more advanced than the Lost Magic I have access to. Our bodies are outside, look."

The mayor waved his hand; the movement produced a window in space. And the window showed Gabriel and Liz. Gabriel was sitting on the ground, in a meditation pose, Liz was curled in his lap. Gabriel guessed that they saw themselves from the mayor's perspective, or in this case from his Tyrant shaped self; they recognized it by the sheer volume of its body. He stood in front of them, immobile.

"Alright, but, much more advanced?"

"Of course, what did you think? I was just the mayor of a small city. The only thing I had access to was Hard Magic to protect my citizens, it was my wife, the one well versed in Soft Magic. Without her rituals, I wouldn't have become that," he said, pointing at his Tyrant form standing outside of the window. The window soon disappeared with a gesture of his hand.

"So, you meant that you have no access to Higher Magic?" They asked.

"Exactly, I cannot brag about having knowledge about Higher Magic Power Magic, or Divine Magic for what matters, but at this point, I doubt that many have access to it in any form of Divine Magic. It was probably lost with the knowledge about the Original Gods, like mine."

So there are other tiers above Higher Magic…

"Enough with that. There will be time for chitchat," he said, gesturing for Gabriel to sit on the ground.

Gabriel did so automatically.

"First, know this. Here, time flies by at almost three times the original speed. That is something I can maneuver freely while inside of my soul. It isn't easy, nor is it hard. But since there are no outside interferences, I could theoretically maintain this indefinitely," the mayor sat in front of them, facing straight in front, looking in their eyes.

Gabriel had no way to place a standard over Feldurs looks or age for what mattered, but they thought that the Feldur in front of them was easy on the eyes. He emitted an air of calmness about him. Wonder if it's just a trick of the mind.

"Why not faster then? What's stopping you?"

"To increase it, more would be to shatter your psyche. This is the maximum amount of time acceleration that your mind can withstand. Your Alacrity doesn't allow me to increase it any further if I don't want to kill you."

"Oh. Well, thank you then."

"You are welcome. Now. We shall take breaks for you to sustain your body with your daily needs and settle your… affairs." That last word he added with unrestrained disdain.

"Why? Don't you poop?" They asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Matter of factly, I don't. I'm made of Mana and Spirit. No stomach, no food, no poop. And my senses are rather strong, in fact, I'd ask you to do your needs as far away as possible. On that note, we need to find a way to wash your… clothes; they are rather strong on the nose."

"Well… that last part is true." Knowingly, Gabriel and Liz wrinkled their noses, barely possible for the lizard, but the idea was that.

"I'll think of something. But let's put aside smelly arguments. And focus on what you are going to be doing." The mayor manifested a tome in mid-air. It looked like the one he had summoned earlier.

"Thanks to the Anchor translation protocol and my will to let you understand. You will study from this book. Read it all, no matter what you don't understand. Read it. Once you are done, we shall take a break, and after that, I hope you'll be able to handle what comes next."

Gabriel and Liz didn't know how to answer that, so they simply took the book they were offered and started browsing it.

"Aren't there… I don’t know images or something? This thing looks really thi-" they said, raising their eyes, but there was no one there anymore, they were alone in the illuminated clearing, not even the sound of wind could be heard, not a cloud covered the sky, "-ck…"

"Alright… the torture has already begun," Gabriel sighed.