Jade and Cinder had been going though sensors in a rocky area between some mountaintops. The sensors were fist sized and hidden. The mecromancers used them to keep tabs on large movements of the anterra and other swarms. They needed to have awareness of the enemy to be able to move troops in time or even go in person.

The sunlight bothered her eyes, so Cinder gave her some tinted goggles. Luckily for Jade, remnants don’t tan or burn. Her pale skin would have been cooked in minutes, though the sun did make her a bit itchy.

They had been having trouble getting reliable data from this sector lately. One sensor looked like it had been chewed on by anterra. Another was destroyed in a rockslide. Another was hit by lightning. Another was out of calibration. Normal wear, but all of them happening so closely in time and location was a little odd.

It probably would have been boring work but Jade was looking at every cloud, tree, bird, bug, leaf, everything. It was amazing being on the surface.

They were finishing up replacing one sensor when infernal Cinder let out a long deep moan and fell to her knees.

“You ok?” Jade said.

“That. Pale. Bastard.” Cinder hissed.

The world turned orange. Jade was glad for her goggles as a tornado-earthquake knocked her off her feet. By time the glow had faded, Cinder was gone.

There was only one pale bastard that could make Cinder that angry.

Jade morphed and followed. There was a clear path of scattered stone marking Cinder’s launch trajectory. Jade used her mecromails mapping system to keep her moving in the same general direction.

She ran and jumped, through the rocky ground. She jumped over streams and up cliffs. She climbed a mountain, almost stumbling into a trio of murder hornets that were eating a bear in the process. Clever use of illusions got her away from them before they spotted the real her.

Something bad had happened and she needed to find out what.

When she reached the ridgeline she saw a thick forest covered this side of the mountain. Kilometers away there was a cleared plain line with a wall in it. In the middle of the plain was a death battle of orange and scarlet arcane.

“GESSIL!” Jade raced down the mountain.

She soon entered the dense canopy of the forest. There were strange smells all around. But she pressed on towards her goal. She sensed things watching her. Dangerous, hungry, things, but she only saw trees. Jade found a creek with a thin line of sunlight and followed it until it dropped off a ledge into more, thick, canopy. She growled at whatever was watching her then took the most direct route towards her goal.

As she was running through a bunch of small bushes her back paw got hung on a root. She snatched but it pulled tighter. The root pulled back, dragging her towards a line of thick branches. She bit the thing holding her and poured her corrosive arcane into it.

There was a howling scream and something rushed away into the forest. It got darker as all the trees seemed to lean in closer. There was a lethal intent coming from all around.

Jade growled.

Something moved. There were presences all around. They were intelligent and focused on her.

“I am the Goddess Jade Shadowbane. Let me pass or suffer my wrath.”

“We know of no such goddess.” A silky female voice came.

“I am going to battle Gessil the Undying. Do you of know her?”

The forest laughed then it abruptly cut off. A deep, penetrating, voice said. “We sense the battle. Go fight The Blighted One young goddess. If you win, we will sing your praises. If you lose, your bones will nourish the land.” The canopy split revealing a thin path of sunlight.

That’s a disturbing way to put it. Jade thought but said, “Thank you.” She nodded then sprinted down the path.

As Jade left the tree line, and entered the cleared plains, she saw a massive burst of orange energy go off, and then everything went silent. She spawned her armor, cloaked herself, and raced on.

She was panting heavily when she reached the ruins. Zaggy’s helmet lay smashed nearby. Much of the area was coated in arcane flames. There were random blood splatters on some of the stones. Zaggy or Cinder could be crushed. Rezu and Gwenyr should have been with Zaggy too. What the hell happened? Jade’s heart was pounding. This was too much. Most of the people she knew were missing in this bloody apocalypse. It took everything she had not to foolishly call out for them. Where are they?!

She tried sending to Zaggy but couldn’t feel him. This place felt so wrong. She couldn’t sense anyone at all.

There was a guttural scream then the sound of metal scraping on stone.

Jade’s paws and skills kept her movements quiet and unseen as she peeked around a large chunk of stone.

A mass of blood-meat was pulling Cinder’s lance out of its stomach.

The lance clattered to the ground. How is that thing still alive?!

“You almost had me!” It spat up a chunk of blood, or part of an organ. “But I win! And I will kill you all and take that male as my plaything!”

The blood-meat monster was talking to someone. Jade looked around the other edge of her hiding stone and saw Cinder. Battered, sparking, and not moving. I found one! She almost screamed. Jade focused. This place was practically vibrating with arcane so there was no need to be super subtle. She just had to keep it invisible. She used her finger to draw an arcane rune on the stone then sent a trace along the ground, putting a ward between blood-meat and Cinder.

A chunk of column lifted into the air.

Shit! Jade quickly made an illusion of Zagreus and had it attack.

Gessil stared blankly at the illusion as it stabbed through her repeatedly.

No! This place was dampening her abilities. She couldn’t even make the sword tip solid.

“Who is out there playing tricks? Is this the little cat-girl?”

SHIT!

“You messed up. His hair is all wrong. His nails were painted. He shouldn’t be wearing test subject clothes. He was wearing battered armor, no helmet. That sword should still be covered in my blood. His right leg had two bleeding wounds. He looked exhausted, almost dead. He probably is dead. I threw a lot of stone where he landed.”

She slapped a hand over her mouth. No! Don’t! She is just taunting you to give away your location.

“Come on out. I will treat you better than those old hags in the lab. We can have some real fun together. We don’t have to worry about that stupid mission. You have strong illusion powers. With training, you could make them do damage.”

Quiet won’t work. Then let’s go loud. Jade shook as she drew another, more complicated, set of runes on the stone. This one should work, but she could feel the strangeness of this place distorting it. She finished it and sent the trace. An invisible, ring-shaped, ward formed around the Gessil. The trap was set.

Now Jade just needed to get the monster to move. She bombarded Gessil with a cloud of as many flashing lights and sounds as she could.

The floating stone fell as Jade felt the ward activate. She sent as much energy through the connection as possible to bind and hurt Gessil. Then Jade arcane jumped at her target.

A cyclone of small stones and half broken arrow bits swirled up around Gessil, mixed in there with several head sized stones.

Jade’s right side took a pounding her armor helped but it was made to be silent and flexible. The sound of breaking bones did nothing to stop Jade’s rage. “You hurt my family!” She landed on Gessil back and dug in with every claw and tooth. That was only to hold on. She poured all of her corrosive arcane into Gessil thorough everywhere they touched.

Gessil screamed and howled. Flesh melted and boiled. Gessil smelled and tasted worse than six-day old knarklaw corpse, the corrosive arcane was not helping the flavor either.

Jade had a firm hold and would not let go.

The monster flailed and fought.

Jade felt something hit her side and her body went limp. She fell hard on her right side. The pain overwhelmed everything for a long moment. When her eyes focused again, Gessil looked like a half rotten corpse on the ground in front of her.

Gessil moved.

Jade growled but her body wasn’t cooperating.

Gessil spoke-gargled, “Good work, new one. You have my attention. You will die, slowly.” A head sized golem appeared above what use to be her hand. “Extraction five.”

The golem replied loudly, “Affirmative.” and wrapped her body in blue tendrils of arcane, lifting her off the ground and out of sight.

“NO! This cannot be happening! She hurt Zaggy and my family! She killed my mom! She can’t get away!”

There was searing light and deafening roar.

Gessil screamed to match the sound.

There was the smell of cooked, rotten, flesh.

Silence.

Footsteps.

Someone was talking.

She felt Cinder’s energy surge then fly away.

Someone walked up and squatted in front of her. “Hello Jade.”

Jade looked up at a yellow haired mirror. “Mom?”

“I have wanted to meet you for so long. Zagreus was a good father, like I thought he would be.”

“He is not my father.”

“You still upset about the kiss?”

“I… No… How do you know about that?”

“That is not important right now. I need you to listen. I need you to know things. Zagreus is not for you. And there will come a time when you feel desperate and lonely and everything will seem impossible.”

“I never expected you to be this depressing.”

“You will suffer, but you will escape the dark times and find real happiness. You are the key to saving this world. You will find the First and the two of you will set this world free.”

“How am I supposed to find someone? I am trapped in that lab. The first time I really leave it and I damn near got myself killed. My dead mom had to rescue me.”

“You will travel to lands you could never imagine. You must always be prepared to go. Don’t worry, you will find him. You will know. He will need your strength and your protection.”

“Can you tell the future or something?”

“I have a friend who can. Sort of. She told me to come to this Altar. And she told me I would meet you. I did not know those events were connected. I killed Gessil because she deserved it, but it could be that she needed to die for the right future to happen.”

“That sounds crazy.”

“We only get fragments. Sometimes the things I have to do make no sense, but I do them. Before I got here, visiting this Altar seemed pointless. But now Gessil the Undying will not escape to torment you. And Zagreus should live. We have changed the path.”

“Are you coming back to the lab?”

“No I have to stay dead for now.”

“But I don’t want you to be dead.”

“I’m sorry. It has to be this way. Or things will not happen right.”

“I will tell everyone.”

“Next time you wake, you won’t remember anything past getting stabbed. But deep down you will still know what I told you to remember.”

“You are going to mess me up like you did Zaggy?”

“Blocking a few minutes of time is nothing like half-erasing someone you loved and shared years of your life with. You will be safe. And you were there to help him through it.”

“Did you know that I would do that?”

“No. Just like I did not know, that the daughter I left so many years ago would end up so strong and beautiful. You saved Cinder and Zagreus. You will save us all.” She leaned down and kissed her furry forehead. “Rest now. You fought well and you deserve rest. You will become a great Mecromancer.”

She stood and spawned a cluster of meter-long mecrotech posts. She placed the four of them, on end, in a square, on open ground.

Lilithana appeared inside the cluster. “Report.” Firm. Demanding.

“Gessil is that smoking pile of char. Jade was stabbed with Gessil’s immobilizer. Cinder and Zagreus are south of here, past the mountain. I don’t know their condition. I know nothing of Rezu or the Queen either.”

“Rezu and the Queen teleported to the lab. They are safe.” Lilithana said. Eye-golems of various shapes and sizes spawned from her arms and took off southward. Lilithana crouched and examined Jade’s wounds then said, “Don’t morph back. I will treat you in this form.”

“Ok.” Jade said. She was physically, mentally, emotionally drained. Her body was pain. But she had to ask. “Mom?”

“Yes?” Sarya said.

“Will we meet again? Will you be part of my life?”

“It is not certain. But I think it is likely. If it is possible, I want it to be true.” She leaned down and rubbed her head. “I am glad we met today.” Sarya collected the four posts, recalled them into her mecromail then walked away.

“You knew?” Jade said to Lilithana.

“I have always known.” Lilithana stated flatly, “Gessil almost killed her, but she was able to make Gessil think she was dead. Sarya tricked everyone. Her powers don’t work on me. But I agreed to help her.”

“Why?”

“We can play at saving Endrala all we want, but we are guessing and probing in the dark. Sarya’s friend lets us cheat. Besides, I have done far worse things than fake a death.”