Varnon opens his eyes to darkness.

There is little in the gloom of the Whispering Woods to help the village leader discern day from night, but the soreness in his back tells him at least a few hours have gone by since he laid down. He shakes off the remains of his feverish dreams, packs up his things, and then, after checking to make sure he has not been followed, relights his torch and continues into the forest, following the worn markings carved into the tree trunks.

Every step he takes towards his destination, Varnon can feel the chains of the past bind tighter, and tighter, around his neck, until he worries that he will suffocate before reaching the clearing. He forces his legs to keep going. He must see this matter to the end. He must make sure the monster stays in the ground this time. He owes his village this much, at least.

The woods break at last, into a sheer cliff face, dark under the starless sky. The wind is silent, and the clearing, covered with a thin blanket of frost, is still, and waiting.

Varnon marches straight to the base of the cliff, his shoes squeaking as they crush over the damp grass. A large piece of tree bark is wedged between a jagged cut in the cliff-face, and Varnon pulls it loose, sets it aside. Then with one last glance behind him, the leader of Oakroot slips into the cave.

The echoes of his ragged breathing make Varnon question if he hasn’t really been followed. But every time he glances back, the darkness offers him no glimpses into the secrets it hides. The torch in his hand flickers, casting wicked shadows along the wet walls.

Something snaps under his foot, and he lashes out a hand against the wall for balance, cutting his palm against the black stone. He curses under his breath and fights the urge to look down, because he knows his resolve will not hold against such tests. He tears off a corner of his shirt to use as a bandage and pushes deeper into the cavern. Soon, every step is punctuated with crunching and snapping, but Varnon does not stop to think about them. He focuses on the throbbing pain in his hand, and the feeling of cold sweat trailing down his armpits.

The chill in the smothering air signals Varnon’s arrival into the bowels of the mountain.

If darkness has a scent, it is one he wishes none may ever experience. The cavern is more spacious than any house he has visited, but layers of the putrid stench of rotting death, both fresh, and months-old, fight over each other to assault his nose.

Holding his bandaged hand over his face, Varnon makes his way to the far wall, where a pile of neatly stacked stones is hidden between two crumbling stalagmites. The leader sets his pack and torch down, and drops to his knees.

Protruding from the middle of the stack of stones is a wooden cross, swollen from moisture and age.

Varnon takes out a string of prayer beads from his shirt pocket, closes his eyes, and reaches out to touch the soft wood.

“Melodia,” he whispers, “please, my dear, I beg of you. Rest in peace. Your child is gone, and you will not find him in the village. If you keep holding to this grudge, you will only bring calamity onto everyone, not just me. Please, I am begging you. By the grace of the goddesses, forgive us. Forgive me.”

The temperature plummets as the clock of time grinds to a standstill.

Varnon feels the hairs on his body stand. He opens his eyes, sees the wraith’s melted face inches away from his own. He wants to scream, but his lungs freeze over.

“Melo-”

Before he can finish ushering her name, the wraith is crushing him to the ground, claws tight around his throat. Varnon struggles futilely against the horror above him. He feels his breaches soiling from his own feebleness, but has no time to be embarrassed as the wraith’s jaws begin to unhinge like a snake’s, and a thin, black tongue dangles out, a hair’s breadth from Varnon’s eye.

“Forg-ive. You?”

The wraith’s voice is raspy, like a distant scream, as it spits out each word.

“I will not rest, until all in th-at cursed village, s-uffers the same. Agony. I had.”

Varnon swallows, but can’t. He tries to speak. “M-melodia… You’re not going… to bring him back.”

The wraith squeezes, presses Varnon deeper into the rocks, watching his face turn crimson and his eyes bulge outwards.

“This is what our ch-ild felt, Varnon, as he la-y on the bot-tom of the river. FEEL it as he did! The TORMENT! The FEAR!”

The wraith holds onto Varnon for a few seconds longer, until the man turns purple and his eyes begin to roll into his skull.

Then it lets go.

Varnon heaves and convulses, struggling to get air through his crushed throat. He scrambles away from the wraith, slipping and tripping on the piles of human bones strewed on the ground. The wraith floats towards him, its wicked black claws raised and gleaming in the wavering torchlight.

Varnon’s back hits the wall. He shakes his head, holds his arms up uselessly.

“No, no, please,” he sputters and chokes, “I’m sorry, Spare me. I’m sorry.”

The wraith stops and turns its head towards the cave entrance, as if listening to something.

“No. Not. Now.”

With a hiss, the wraith rockets out of the cave, leaving behind the quivering man cowering on the ground.

The temperature gradually comes back, and with it, Varnon’s senses.

His breathing calms, and so does his mind. He gets up, using the wall to support his jellified legs.

“Nranhana and Sharn be damned,” he wheezes, shaking his wet breaches from his legs. “There are no goddesses in this world.”

A bone snaps, even though Varnon has not taken a step. He scrambles for the torch, brings it up defensively towards the source of the sound. “Who goes there?”

“A goddess.”

In the flickering light stands a girl; her hair a creamy gold, her eyes the color of the seven seas. Varnon feels his pulse quickening.

“Y-you’re not…” he tries to speak up, but the pain makes it near impossible.

The girl shakes her head, her soft hair fluttering above her shoulders. “I’m not. Sorry, this probably isn’t a good time for jokes.”

She takes a step forward. “But I believe a man should have a chance to laugh before he dies.”

“What are you talking about?” Varnon shuffles back into one of the stalagmites, keeping his torch out in front and his voice as light as possible, to mask the waves of fears crashing over him. “Are… are you from the elf’s party? You’re here for that monster, right?”

“I was.” The girl takes another bone-snapping step. Her eyes hold the lights of a constellation, but there is something chilling behind them that makes Varnon’s blood run cold. He casually moves his right hand behind his back, like he’s supporting himself against the rock formation, and tries to chuckle.

“Was? You can’t be here… for me, then? How did you know I was here?”

The girl stops, just more than an arm’s length away. A commotion begins outside the cave, but the noises are too dull for Varnon to make out. The girl looks in the direction of the cavern entrance, clearly troubled. But she turns back to Varnon.

“It used to be human.” Her voice is like the cries of a small animal, but as with her eyes, there is an edge to it that hints at something different, something alien. “She was someone you knew.”

Varnon’s smile fades. He hesitates, then shakes his head. “It’s just a wraith now. And it needs to be stopped. You’re an adventurer, aren’t you? I’m from the village close by. I can pay you a handsome-”

“You killed her, didn’t you?”

Sweat gathers on Varnon’s forehead. “W-what ever are you talking about, stranger?” He forces a laugh as he fingers the shaft at his belt. “I’m here to put that monster to rest, and you’re accusing me of creating it?”

“You asked her to forgive you. I heard you.”

Varnon forces his legs to stand, leaning his body forward away from the stalagmite. He judges by the girl’s size that she is likely not yet of age, not yet a woman. Not yet that strong. “I only said those things to distract her, in the same way I am doing right now!”

With a grunt, Varnon throws his torch at the girl and launches himself forwards, pulling out the hidden dagger and aiming straight for the girl’s chest.

There is a flash of metal and blood, too quick for Varnon’s eyes. He feels a sudden weightlessness to his arm, and somewhere in the cave, hears the clanking of steel hitting the ground.

He glances down at his wrist, where his hand is supposed to be. He screams; a roaring wail that bursts his already broken throat. He falls onto the ground, clutching his bloody stump.

The girl closes the gap, the short sword in her hand flashing crimson in the flames. “Tell me I’m wrong,” she says, her voice gentle, yet so inhumanly cold. “Tell me I’m wrong, so I can save you.”

“To… hell… with you,” Varnon spits through blood and saliva. “To hell with all of you girls, with your pretty faces and alluring gazes, your lies and your deceit! Luring honest men like me into your embraces, only to stab us in our backs!”

Every word feels like glass shards slitting his throat, but Varnon does not care anymore. He ravages like a deluded madman, waving his stump around, splashing his blood across the walls.

“I did what I had to, you understand?! Do you have any idea what would’ve happened if I let that wench live? She was going to tell everyone that cursed child was mine, and she’ll be hanged for it. And then after her body gets picked clean by the crows, they’ll cast me out, to live amongst her bones!”

Varnon points his stump at the girl accusingly. “But not just me! My wife, my son, will also be banished, forced to feed themselves on scraps, and spend every night amongst the animals! Do you understand why I had to do it? I saved my family. I saved them! Are you going to tell me that was wrong? Are you going to tell me saving my family was wrong?”

He stops, as quickly as he starts. He looks searchingly into the girl’s royal blue eyes, cold and hot all at the same time. And then he lowers his head to the ground.

“Please,” he begs, “kill me if that’s what you’re here to do. But please, kill that monster too.”

The village leader starts sobbing into the ground; an ugly heaving and coughing spilling out of his trembling body. “She won’t stop until she gets every single child in Oakroot.” His anguish echoes through the cavern. “You can’t let that happen. Please.”

11 watches the man cry, his severed stump drenching the ground beneath him. She sheathes her short sword, and crouches down in front of him.

“I promise,” she says softly, placing a hand on Varnon’s head. “Your family, and your village, will be safe.” Then with a sharp downwards push, she crushes his skull into the rocky floor.

The cavern falls silent.

11 stands, staring at the blood dripping from her hand. Outside, the sounds of battle have died down, but the Demonic Entity is still showing up on her radar. She wants to race out and see what has happened, but walks over to the pile of rocks stacked at the base of the wall, and places her bloody hand against the small cross. There is a faint wisp of coldness, and a flutter of movement through the air.

The wraith, burnt and with an arm missing, floats above the cross. It looks at 11 calmly.

“Your murderer is dead,” 11 tells the wraith. “The village has suffered enough for the sins of one man. Don’t rob them of the privilege of being alive, as it was robbed from you. It’s time to let go.”

11 gazes into the wraith’s glassy eyes, seeing nothing but tumbling darkness within. The world outside is dreadfully silent, and 11’s insides clench at the thought that Aralyn and her team may all be dead.

Am I too late?

The warmth of a hand startles 11. She looks up, and sees the faint reflection of a young woman where the wraith was. The God Gier holds in a sharp breath.

The woman’s eyes glisten with sadness as she smiles. It is the kind of smile 11 knows well, one meaning to show the world that all is fine when nothing is. 11 stares into those shiny eyes, seeing all the grief and madness, and a phrase she does not realize she wants to say leaves from her lips.

“I hope, one day, you will reunite with the ones you cherish.”

The woman bows her head at 11’s words, and fades away in a flash of embers.

An oppressive weight lifts from the air, and the frost clinging to the ceiling and walls melts away. A trail of smoke rises up from the wooden cross like a vine reaching for the heavens, dissipating into nothingness.

11 looks down, and sees a little silver marble lying on the rocks. She picks it up, puts it in her mouth, and swallows.

Demonic Entity Core obtained.

Transmutating into bio-fuel...

Energy levels at 105%

11 rises from the grave, wipes her bloody hand on the nearby wall, and heads for the exit. She hears the Synapse-Mother-System’s voice, ever calm, informing her of her inevitable punishment.

Your purpose is to protect human lives, not take it, Gier 11.

How did you even know that D.E. was capable of being exterminated in such a way?

“I didn’t,” 11 admits. “But I’ve watched a lot of movies.”