The morning continued to pass, leaving the girls unoccupied in their growing boredom. Lunch was quickly approaching, something which would come with new challenges.

Sryine checked over their supplies, realizing that they would need to set up some sort of campfire in order to heat up their food. She really did not like this idea in the least, not only because the food they would be heating up was helpings of the classic hunter gruel. The simple concept of sitting by a campfire still bothered her, the burning fire inspiring thoughts of dread. They had some other rations to work with, even if such bars had a taste and texture about as interesting as tree bark. They might not even be nearly as filling either, but they were at least supposed to be nutritious, and wouldn’t involve any complicated preparation processes.

“Here you go, some food to get you by. Riyxia, I’ve got some for you too.” “What is this? I’ve worked with woodcrafts that look more edible.” “It’s supposed to still be food, good for the trails and everything.” “But, what about actual food? Even the usual stuff, I’ve at least gotten used to it.” “Oh that? Well, we have that too, but think about it. Getting such stuff ready is going to take a bit of work, stuff that might be kinda distracting, would have us let down our guard and everything. It might even attract some unwanted attention.” “So we get our food and something to do. How is that a problem again?” “Vwyx, stop being so irrational. You know that distractions are a huge deal. That’s how Riyxia got hurt last time.” Sryine might be leading with much of the other excuses to have Vwyx settle down, but they were still really good excuses. Vwyx was feeling like they were wasting their time, like they should consider finding another location and trying to get something done there. Mentioning food in the process only made her irritation worse, as the need for lunch loomed over them. Riyxia took her own offering without verbalizing any complaints, though she really didn’t like when Sryine brought up such unwanted reminders of her previous failures. Her spectre didn’t even stop it’s duty as she tried to herself both keep watch and eat at the same time, pushing herself to not mess things up.

Vwyx ate her bar in silence, finding that arguing her perspective was proving to be too challenging. The bar was especially dry too, making her parched even after drinking some of her supply of water. Overall, she was fairly unsatisfied with her circumstances. Sure, this was supposed to be some kind of training in patience and discipline, that made sense. She’d gone through plenty of such trials in the past, waiting for things to happen. A bunch of her woodworking projects had involved patience, in deliveries, discussions, even wood drying from tasks such as painting. Waiting for paint to dry was itself a very trying task, but it still felt like things were going somewhere. Here, they weren’t waiting on anything specific, it felt instead like they were avoiding getting work done. If she knew something would be coming eventually, she could at least feel a bit better about the circumstances, but as things stood there was all the possibility that they would simply be sitting here until it was time to pack up and go home, everything being completed. The distant sound of conflict she could faintly hear with her human ears did not help this point, places she could go to find people she could help. Suffering all this on an empty stomach probably didn’t help either, the bar being similarly unsatisfying as well.

Taking from Riyxia’s example, Vwyx looked for a better location to keep watch, the idea of at least keeping watch hopefully being at least more productive than simply waiting. She found a simple enough perch to reach and settled in observantly. To keep herself further occupied, she started also forming a nearby rock into a series of perfectly round spheres. Left to this pattern, a giant pile of throwing spheres developed beside her. As she picked up a new rock, she failed to notice the whirl of a figure fade back away underground as it’s hiding spot was revealed. A few more spheres later, and her pile shifted under its own rounded weight, a few spheres bouncing away and falling into a nearby hole. When one of the spheres connected with the eye of one of the underground beasts, it was startled and then irritated. Taking to its example, the pack of beasts swarmed to the surface, exposing their serpentine scales to the sun as they hissed at the girls.

Riyxia was up well before anyone else, though she avoided letting herself sink into a state of rage. These legless beasts were even shorter than the last, but were excessively long. One of them coiled up, propping it upright to a height that well exceeded her own, and it wasn’t even any larger than the rest. She unleashed a volley of kicks at it, using her gift to ensure the impact sent the beast flying. Even her kick had injured the beast, dislocating a series of scales and leaving it dazed. Another dashed at her from behind, but she slowed it down so that she could simply crush it by landing on it with a leap. This one also survived, but it didn’t look like it would live long. Her opponents being so short made it difficult for her to find any good openings for her hands, so she just lay into her foes with her feet.

Sryine also accounted for their rapid movements and slighter size, which mattered to her considering she was the tallest present. She called up a gigantic illusionary sword, something clearly intended to be carried with two hands, if it wasn’t so weightless in her own. She brought the sword down hard, cleaving one of the beasts in half, a blow that actually killed it instantly. Still, even though it was weightless, it was still massive, making it harder to move around with. A few more of the beasts charged at her, leaving her with no opportunity to dodge as she tried to bring her sword around for another cleave. Riyxia ended up rushing to Sryine’s aid in the end, trying to cover her more exaggerated movements with the massive weapon, keeping the beasts at bay until Sryine could cleave right through a couple more.

Vwyx in the meanwhile had prepared another maul, one much like the one before, but with a longer grip for a greater reach. She threw one of her prepared spheres at one of the beasts attacking Sryine, interrupting its assault. However, she wasn’t aware of the hole that still remained beside her, and the beast within that still had a score to settle. Without warning, the beast erupted from the hole and lashed out at Vwyx from behind, Vwyx still remaining unaware. The beast’s fangs sunk deep into her left arm, drawing blood in the process, but not itself being venomous. Having successfully latched onto Vwyx, the beast then proceeded to coil around her, crushing her in the process. Sryine and Riyxia turned to assist, but were uncertain what they could do that would not in turn cause even greater injury to Vwyx in the process. The menace of foes before them left no room for compromise either, adding even further obstacle to such a goal. Riyxia started putting some decided consideration into her rage, but even that would leave the situation uncertain. An enraged attack against the beast coiled around Vwyx would certainly cause Vwyx even greater harm, much like the time she had injured someone unintentionally in practice while enraged.

Vwyx struggled for air, agony washing over her as pain coursed through her entire body, her own blood coursing down her arm, her head feeling faint. Though the agony and anguish, she tried to hold on, to keep going forward, but it was challenging. This pain, it flooded through her, suffused all of her, overwhelming her. Her arm twitched as a drop of blood dripped from it, her own blood. It was her’s, being taken from her, flowing from her, being denied to her. Her agony saturated every part of her body, infused with her, became a part of her, her eyes going blank and emotionless. This blood was her own, blood she treasured, she thirsted for, she hungered for. Those who thought to deny her would find themselves denied in kind. With a sudden surge of strength, she tore straight through her binding, tossing it aside and bringing her maul down with thundering force, leaving absolutely no doubt that her foe had perished. But it wasn’t enough, she had lost blood to these foes, she would have her vengeance.

Several other beasts charged towards her, inviting her to bring her maul down upon them. They were crushed flat. Several others came at her from another angle, spread out in a wider formation. She turned to them and again struck down with her hammer, considerably early. The impact with her hammer shifted the very ground, shaking the stone they stood upon. However, it didn’t end there, in Vwyx’s motion she remelded the rock face itself, the stone coming up in a giant claw that crushed her foes. She swung through the air with rippling force, a conductor of destruction that the stone responded to in kind, as blades of stone rippled through the ground, tearing beasts appart. Sryine and Riyxia were stunned, Vwyx was using her gift to reform the ground itself, to meld the mountain into a force of her will. Something that massive would have exceeded her capacity for distance, would have consumed every last ounce of her stamina, would have been more than her concentration could possibly have handled. None of that mattered. Her face seemed expressionless, she didn’t even appear to be breathing, just moving as if in a trance.

The ground nearby erupted as an even larger variant of the beast appeared to confront them. This would be the pack leader, and it definitely wasn’t in a good mood. Vwyx didn’t care, there wasn’t much care for her at that point, only pain and hunger. She confronted the beast silently without remorse, it was simply the next target for her vengeance. She rotated her maul, setting it into the ground, only to pull it from the stone reshaped anew. This new block was a massive curved hammerhead, of a weight she couldn’t possibly hope to carry, and yet she wielded it like it was one of Sryine’s illusions. The gigantic maul came down hard on the beast leader, pinning it to the ground, but not stopping it. It lashed out despite its own pain, determined to strike for the kill even if it perished in consequence. Vwyx’s free hand reached out towards the nearby rock face, a pillar of stone surging outwards on her demand and spearing through the beasts head from the side with a roaring velocity, despite not having a pointed end at the end of the pillar. And yet, even in the thralls of death, the beast would not surrender. It lashed out again with the whole of its body, desperate to crush it’s victim in one final movement.

Vwyx’s weapon came down once again, crashing upon the open mountain, which began to split apart like an opening maw. Instead of tumbling forward into Vwyx with it’s momentum, the beast fell into the pit below it, descending into the abyss towards its final resting place.

The largest problem with this approach was the collateral effect, as Riyxia and Sryine started to lose their footing as well. Riyxia knew they were all going to fall in, even Vwyx stumbling uncaringly and sliding down her created chasm. However, even in her descent, she appeared to still be capable of manipulating her surroundings, making use of the wall to slow her fall even from a vertical drop. Riyxia knew what that kind of power was like, Vwyx would fall to the bottom without any real problem. However, Sryine only had her natural ability to keep her safe at present, which would in no way be enough to take care of her in this situation. Riyxia let her rage engulf her as she picked up Sryine effortlessly and glided from wall to wall in a controlled descent of her own.

The drop wasn’t considerably far, not from a mountain perspective at least. The distance was certainly enough to kill a normal person in normal circumstances, which was why all of the beasts were dead and the girls were fine. Riyxia put down the pale Sryine and went to approach Vwyx, to make sure she was back in control. Vwyx lashed out at her on approach, something Riyxia blocked. So Vwyx wasn’t fine yet. Sryine would be in danger in these circumstances too, if Vwyx lashed out at her with her current ability, it could easily be fatal. She needed to get this situation back under control.

“Vwyx, wake up already. You took care of the beasts, and we’re going to be fine, so long as you stop lashing out like this.” Riyxia tried to carefully hold back Vwyx, pinning her down with her arms while decreasing Vwyx’s strength but increasing her durability. Riyxia made contact with Vwyx’s injured arm, causing Vwyx to lash out with increased intensity. The injury! Was it the pain that kept her entranced like this? Riyxia blocked Vwyx’s next strike, the descent of the massive hammer coming down upon her this time, then took to the opening and located Vwyx’s source of pain. Making use of her enraged potential, she surged Vwyx with healing, to soothe any and all pain Vwyx might be suffering. Her injuries gone, Vwyx finally started to settle down.

Vwyx perked up with a start, only suddenly aware of what she had been doing. She had really honestly found her own destructive impulse, a vengeance fueled by a retribution for her agony, and with it had lost control in much the same way as in her nightmares. They were even currently stuck underground, due to the giant hole she created. The worst part was vividly recalling lashing out at Riyxia, striking down upon her in her thirst for vengeance. Riyxia didn't even come out of that unscathed, she was actually herself bleeding slightly from the injuries her arms sustained in the process. Vwyx rushed over to provide some repairs, grief stricken in the process. Riyxia might have weathered the blows fairly well, and with some basic repairs was quickly back into her healthy state, but that was only because Riyxia had been so efficient with her own augmented abilities. Vwyx completed her work still shaking, worried about what she might have done had Riyxia not been able to stop her. There was nothing saying this wouldn’t happen again either, she really had to figure out a way to control this, or she would simply repeat the same thing, possibly with greater loss.

Sryine herself was also concerned, well aware that Vwyx had almost killed her, Riyxia had saved her life, and that both had done so with the destructive impulse they had predicted would come to bear. It was a pure contrast between such impulses with and without control, exactly what such was capable of. She was behind the others in this, unable to keep up with any of this, but wasn’t even sure if that was good news or bad. This was the Astral Flame, that had been proven by this point, so that means she would also be included in the same thing. She actually had the potential to do something much like the others, but instead of having an awareness of it like Riyxia, she was as ignorant of it as Vwyx. When her turn came, the odds stood that she would lose herself in much the same way as Vwyx, and would cause injuries in much the same capacity.

She took the opportunity to calculate her own capacity. Given the similarities between Vwyx and Riyxia when augmented by destructive impulse, they ended up with a physical capability far exceeding normal. She would end up with hands that would make a rapier dance as fangs of death, shoot arrows with a speed, precision, and force that would sunder stone. Her movements and motions would be blurs too, she might even be capable of enduring staggering, crushing force while just shrugging it off. Her gift would too be augmented, her illusions invariably more complicated, her range boundaries surpassed as she called forth illusions with ease that should have instantly drained her. Like the gigantic illusion she had called forth over the span of only moments, back when they had faced their first beast. The likelihood of that was actually immense, considering that such was her normal impulse of that moment. If her destructive impulse sets in, she would be capable of calling forth magnificent illusions to devastating effect.

It was this moment where she found regret with all of the progress she had achieved with her illusions. Her illusions were actually mental assaults, delivering apparent force with what it appeared capable of, and having the resolution of that appearance instilled in the individual. A slash wound of an illusionary sword remained until she stopped projecting illusions, and the individual with the wound would be limited to what they would be capable of if they had really endured such a wound. It did imply that harm like that was only temporary, and that she wasn’t actually capable of destroying things without a mind of its own, but the damage left to the mind was itself permanent. Her illusions killed when the person’s mind, influenced by such an illusionary injury, knew it should be fatal.. it didn’t even matter if the person knew that it was only an illusion or not.

There was then one extremely subtle exception, her illusions could not kill someone unaware of their own injury. This didn’t even then apply to a sleeping person, her illusions applied a nerve response that would cause the same nerve-based reactions, as if they had really been hit like that. Quite simply, the person would wake up, be aware of their injuries, then die. The only way then to protect an individual would be to ensure the person received no stimuli to their mind from any of their senses. This is the depth of her own illusions, the extent of threat she could bring to her friends if she herself lost control. She wasn’t even certain how she could prepare them for this. From the perspective of preparation, it was obvious she would have to depend on Riyxia at this point. Vwyx would not be able to keep up without entrancing herself again, which would only double the problem if she still had no sense of control. Worse, it was obvious her trigger was pain, something Sryine would be very capable of causing with illusions. Meanwhile, it was obvious that augmentation allowed Vwyx to resist Riyxia’s gift, so just being sent to dreamland or something wouldn’t be an option either. Still, at least being aware that Sryine would need to depend on Riyxia gave her a slight advantage. If Sryine could focus on that intent, instill it into the depth of her very being, she could set it like an alarm clock, waiting for the moment Riyxia came to stir her from her own loss. Her illusions had taught her such a lesson, that focusing on a single aspect was far easier on the mind than embracing all possibilities. She would simply have to take account of that intent as they tried to figure out a way out of this mess.

The three girls all took account of the hole they had fallen into, searching for a solution that would allow them to escape. With all of their current circumstances, there were plenty of good reasons to worry about their safety if nothing was done soon.