Though it had only been 20 minutes since his escape from the mercenary’s flame-walled enclosure, it felt like all of 6 hours to Luke. This was due to the debilitating effects of the spider’s bite, which presented themselves in the form of heat and a gradual loss of legs as he trudged on.

The heat raised his body temperature to what Luke mentally noted a boil, and the beads of sweat that had initially accompanied that rise started turning to steam. A parched throat and a spell of drowsiness accompanied these changes, and Luke surmised it was due to dehydration, but he resolved to keep moving forward until he finally couldn’t. This was in hopes he’d have put a sizable distance between the mercenary and himself by the time he had to stop.

He only managed to endure a few more minutes past this before hitting his breaking point, and he made to find a spot to literally chill and take stock at immediately. He found this spot next to a gently flowing stream from which he obtained some coolant for his over-heating body, but unfortunately, the external application of the water had no actual effect on the heat, and he had to make do with drinking it and letting nature run its course.

Nature was never to be rushed though, and it seemed to be taking its sweet time on the absorption, at the expense of an ever-shriveling Luke. By now, he could feel his insides shriveling as well, and he took a health potion to try remedy this, but that only managed to restore his shriveled form without addressing the reason for the desiccation, which continued to ravage him despite the potion’s effects. An appraisal of the affected areas failed to reveal anything, so Luke turned to another one of his potions to try address the issue. The stamina potion.

The one socketed to his utility glove was already expended, so he was free to either replace it, or to ingest the next one. Choosing the measured approach over an expedient one, he ingested a few drops from a single vial, stoppering it afterwards and waiting for the results. This way, he’d have to suffer the debilitating effects a bit longer before finding out if the stamina potion was a viable solution, but on the other hand, he would also limit the backlash should the potion trigger an adverse reaction.

The latter seemed to be in full effect as the heat kicked up a few notches, eliciting in him the urge to remove everything to allow the heat to escape faster. It started off with the hoodie, followed by his boots, his socks, his pants, the shirt and finally, his boxers. This left him buck naked, but unfortunately, it still wasn’t enough to provide the relief he was hoping for. Short of removing his own skin, there was nothing left to remove from his person.

Or is there? nagged a voice at the corners of his mind, before delivering the alternatives in a hushed tone. These suggestions were like a compulsion, and under its effects, Luke began ‘purging’ the contents of his inventory in hopes a lower load would allow the heat to escape faster. Eleven eventually managed to aid Luke in resisting the compulsion when it had gone deep enough to encroach on their meld, but by then, it was already too late. He’d already revealed a huge percentage of his hidden belongings, and from the sight of the thousand eyes in the nearby shadows, the mercenary had seen it all.

Having captured what he assumed they’d been there for, the eyes dissolved into the darkness, leaving Luke with no proof and only a suspicion he would continue to be surveilled. An appraisal of the nearby shadows turned up nothing, but this still wasn’t enough to assuage his suspicions. He dropped the issue of completely doing away with the surveillance and turned back to the effects at hand, which were now fast receding from the rest of his body and concentrating on a shoulder.

As the rest of his body found relief, a searing pain settled around his shoulder, and he screamed in response as the pain ramped up to a point it felt like the shoulder would disintegrate, leaving his arm to fall limb to the ground. This mental image prompted Luke to reach for the arm and he held it tight to the socket hoping to stop this from happening.

Fortunately for him, it was all just a mental image and his shoulder remained intact. Unfortunate in this though was that an intact shoulder entailed an attached arm, which now brought with it a pain that made him wish he could’ve done away with the appendage to escape the punishment.

It was sheer torture, and to escape it he retreated to the back of his mind. There, he found comfort in a haven his most recent experiences had helped shape. A fire crackled next to him and its lights projected dancing shadows on the walls as another corporeal shadow stood vigil over his prone form. This was undoubtedly his familiar, and it eased his panic knowing the meld would allow it to support him even here, in a mental dimension of his own construction.

His haven shrunk as the walls drew closer to the fire and the flames faltered in response, beginning a series of sputters that plunged the area in darkness at their tail-end. A voice called to him in the dark and he ignored it, focusing all of his attention to the interior instead. The cave began shaking as the walls continued to close in, but he remained in his safe space, hoping to hold on until the shakes subsided. He’d assumed the shakes to be the roughest end of the thermal assault, and he’d use the eventual calm as a clue to the assault having run its course.

As he lay there motionless, the familiar voice called to him again, but this time, it was even more insistent, managing to grab his attention for a second. It had come from the direction of the cave’s entrance, so Luke turned to face it, noting Eleven’s shadowy figure in front of the door.

A circular block had stoppered the mouth of the cave, effectively entombing Luke, but now it slid an inch to the side, letting in glimmers of light that shot through the gaps to assault his eyes and skin. He recoiled, back-pedaling to avoid the rays but the walls behind him closed off his path of retreat. The voice addressed him again and again as he tried scrambling backwards, becoming clearer with each call until Luke could place a face to it. Gertie’s.

“Gertie!?” he whispered, reaching out towards the source of those rays. The cave faded away from being and spat him out into consciousness the moment his fingers grazed the block, and this effectively ended his reprieve from the physical torture. He tumbled straight into the pits of hell as the ordeal resumed, and he was immediately flooded with warnings and notifications that revealed the metaphorical meaning of the shrinking cave and fading flames. He took a health potion to address the almost diminished bar of health and thanked his lucky stars for that voice of reason, for he would’ve of likely perished within the fake comforts of his mental solace had it not called out to him.

The compression of the pain eventually ceased, and the burning sensation was now concentrated at a central point of his exposed sleeve. A flicker of flame garnered his attention and he watched as the flame fizzled out of existence as fast as it had appeared, leaving a black mark that soon came to represent the epicenter of changes his arm underwent.

Two black dots appeared at equidistant positions from the focus, and they each began drawing a pair of faux-arcs counter to the clock-direction of the other. The dots settled on the other’s original position, defining an eye-like ovoid that had the initial black dot as the focus of that shape. A streak of flames briefly flared up around that shape before subsiding, and the ovoid beneath them soon followed suit, blending into his skin to match its tone instead. Next, knotted streaks of flame shot out from the center to points on the now-invisible demarcation, and the knots in turn produced curving streaks that spanned the distance between a pair. As the flames faded, they revealed a web-like tattoo that did not fade as the ovoid had. Instead, it remained emblazoned on his sleeve, marking Luke for Westfall.

As the burning sensation subsided, Luke thought he’d finally reached the end of the changes, but another occurred, stopping him short of appraising the new markings. He watched on instead as a circular patch of the webs was melted away, only to be replaced by a uniform patch of blackness. A thin, white film appeared around the black circle’s edge, followed by a single point of glare that gave the new structure the resemblance of an astral body during its eclipse. A few minutes’ wait revealed this as the final change, and Luke appraised the intricate tattoo with haste soon after.

Tempering recognized! WARNING: You have been fate-marked. has been registered. Uses: Unknown. has been registered. Uses: Unknown. Nourish Fate Marks to reveal more information.

Although Luke didn’t know what a fate mark entailed, the wording did not bode well for him. He had never fancied being a prisoner of fate, and as such he’d been more than overjoyed at the ‘damaged’ modifier that had accompanied Westfall’s fate mark. This meant it would likely be hampered in carrying out its intended functions, which likely entailed an extra layer of surveillance and some degree of control as to how Luke would conduct his business within the domain.

Likely linked to this damage was the second fate mark that appeared in the imagery of an eclipse. It had burnt through some of the strings of fate the web had represented, emblazoning itself on his sleeve and damaging the Westfallen mark in the process. This was quite the boon to him, and thanks to the sense of familiarity he felt from the mark, he didn’t mind his fate being intertwined with its source. As to what exactly it was, and how he could benefit more from it, he’d only find out after nourishing it to an unknown requisite extent.