Tyna stares at herself in the mirror. Her eyes sparkle with renewed emerald gleam. Her black hair is disheveled as always but it would be a quick fix. She wanted to look her best for the time of worship and she reveled in the prospect of becoming a better person through devotion to the Gods. She was already on that path. And now it would continue forever and ever.

Her mother’s brush rips through tangled chunks and its teeth take bites of strands of her black hair. It’s shoulder length now and someday it would be as long as her friend Valeri’s -- a proper length for women who worship Satarian.

By the time she’s fully dressed and looking her best she rushes down the stairs for breakfast and she revels in the looks she gets from her mother and father. Her mother, many say once looked as Tyna does at twenty-three. Her father she didn't feel she acquired any features or attributes from, but that was simply due to a lack of knowing him. After years of struggling with her inner demons she finally felt as though she was getting to know the man. She finally felt like she had a father.

For the first time in a long time it feels like they see her. Their eyes gleam with liveliness and attention.

The dinner table is set with wonderful fruit and vegetables from the garden. Tyna is at long last eager to eat at the table with and have conversations with her family. And it is all because of the Gods saving her – more specifically, her opening herself up to Satarian, the wonderful God of abundance.

“Tyna, your glow today is impeccable,” her mother says. Tyna can see a hint of tears in her eyes from the happiness. “I’m just so thrilled that you’ve found true friends in worship and you’re attending the Temple more frequently.”

Her father nods. “You’re growing into a wonderful young woman, Tyna. We couldn’t be more proud.”

None of this is right.

After morning service at the Temple, Tyna is running across the fields with Valeri. The sun is so warm upon her pale skin and her bare feet are caressed by the soft grass. She isn't very good at running, the sweat stinging her eyes, her heaving chest making her feel like she might pass out. But Valeri is in a hurry and they're having so much fun, so Tyna pushes herself trying to catch up.

The way Valeri makes her feel is unlike any happiness she’s ever felt before. And never before has Tyna ran through the flowers that surround her town of Gradrosa. Valeri spins around and shouts that they have to go over the next hill to see the butterflies. Her long hair flows and waves through the air as if it's a part of nature itself. This was a plan of theirs for a while – the evening butterflies of the Waving Green are large and gorgeous and only show themselves when the sun is about to touch the distant mountain peaks.

Tyna has never seen them despite living in the same place for so long and having them right outside her front door. A testament to the lack of life within her bones.

They reach the next hill and Valeri keeps pushing her back playfully. At first Tyna isn't used to it, thinking Valeri is actually upset with her. Until Valeri sticks out her tongue and taunts her more and soon the two of them are racing up the next hill, grabbing each other’s shirts to yank the other back or diving to try and trip one another. Tyna hasn’t laughed so hard in ages. Her stomach hurts from it. Her legs are sore from all the running and her knees sting with stains of green.

Soon enough they near the top and Valeri gets real serious, shushing her and gesturing for Tyna to get down low. They crawl forward together, slowly up to the top, peering over.

“Look,” Valeri whispers.

Tyna raises her head just a bit more and her eyes widen with excitement. The field has turned from green to blue far down below. The colors move and shift -- butterflies of all shades of blue, bright to dark, strong to faint. All of them gleaming with the brilliance of liveliness.

The sigh fills Tyna with the beauty of life. The beauty of life with the Gods.

The Gods have brought me nothing but agony. This isn't right.

As she watches the thousands of gorgeous creatures below, she feels Valeri draw closer. Now, thousands of butterflies are in her stomach. This is where Valeri takes her hand, something she does often when it's only the two of them. Tyna looks over and catches Valeri's embarrassment, even though she's the one who always makes the first move.

Tyna then notices the scar above Valeri's left eye. She always sees it but it's only certain times where she really notices it -- where the guilt and discomfort bubble up inside her.

Before the panic settles in, a wild force charges up the hill from behind them. Tyna jolts and Valeri spins around to see who it is. But they both already know once they hear the whoop of excitement. Stendan rushes past them, cheering, charging down the steep hill. Valeri is shouting for him to stop but Tyna is laughing, rising up to see the show. As their foolish, hyperactive friend charges down the hill, the butterflies are startled and a sea of blue rises into the air. It's like a tornado of wonderful little spirits, swirling and racing about.

Stendan laughs and raises his arms, now a speck far down the hill, twirling and shouting with glee.

"You idiot!" Valeri shouts, getting to her feet and stomping down the decline. "Why did you have to do that?!"

Stendan visibly shrugs. "It was funny, I dunno," His voice distant and tiny.

Tyna stands and the shame from earlier returns. The thought of Valeri's scar.

She didn't deserve them as friends. She was disgusting. She should just make an excuse to go off into the woods and find more of those plants and... and...

Valeri looks back and they catch each other's eyes. Her look is all-knowing. The scar beneath Valeri's eye both increases the power of the pain within her and fills Tyna with gratitude all at once.

────────────────────────

After evening worship, Tyna has her usual meeting with the Mystic of their temple. The entire place is enormous, the smallest sound hurtling echoes high up into the ceiling with its gorgeous paintings of the Gods, mainly Satarian and His servants bringing prosperity and abundance to the land.

The Temple Mystic, Sephie, knows of Tyna's past and that's what they speak of after each day of worship.

"How are you today?" She crosses her legs and interlaces her fingers, bringing her full attention to Tyna. "How have the symptoms been?"

Tyna tightens her fists and struggles with the question as always. The shame of her life is heavy. Her actions of the past are a blight upon her. The scar upon Valeri's face. The markings upon her own body. The shame in her parents' eyes and of those in the entire town.

"It's mostly the same as the other days," Tyna said. "The fog in my head persists. Mostly at night." She thinks of all the other things that she doesn't feel like speaking aloud. The self harm. The thoughts of vanishing. The itch and the desire to use again and again and again. "But," she smiles, refusing those thoughts for only a moment as one of light and life interrupts them. "Today was a little better than others. I had a great day with my friends."

Sephie nods and smiles with her eyes. "That's so good, Tyna. Satarian creates abundance in all ways. Including the abundance of love and community." She looks down for a moment and takes a deep breath. "Woundwort is such a blight of nature."

Tyna takes smaller breaths at its mention.

Sephie continues. "Though the Gods have created all wonders of nature, darkness bleeds through the beauty. And the Gods keep those dark parts here to test us." She stands and walks away, placing her hands behind her back, looking up at the artwork upon the walls of the Temple. "The addiction you have suffered is not unheard of, of course. The actions it has caused you to commit... you are not alone in them." She turns and smiles. "Your progress is truly seen. In your face. In your smile. In your posture, even... the way you stand just a bit taller, taking on the world."

Tyna does in fact feel those things. She feels a bit stronger each day.

The memory of one of the bad days enters her mind. When she was so high off the plant, woundwort, going mad from feeling so good. So angry from not having enough. So far away from home.

Valeri was the one who found her and tried to help her. A tackle and a slice from Tyna's nails gave Valeri some rough bruises and cuts. The stumble and cracking of Valeri's skull against a rock gave her a wound for the rest of her life.

Valeri was now forever scarred because of Tyna's addiction... because of her insatiable need for pleasure from the plant. Valeri was forever a reminder of Tyna's past... behaviors that Tyna could never forgive herself for.

She shakes the thoughts away. All that matters is the present. Getting better with the help of Satarian, her God, her savior.

At the end of her meeting with Sephie, the two of them pray and Tyna stays just a bit longer to have private time, praying and speaking with the great God of abundance.

────────────────────────

I am drowning. I am not here. I am drowning.

The days pass and life is so wonderful. So pure.

Tyna thinks less of the marks on her body from the plant's influence. She thinks less of Valeri's marks as well, thinking more of taking her hand.

She goes for long walks alone to speak with Satarian. She collects flowers and explores forests that she had never set foot in during her fifteen years of life in the world. She carries her dagger and is careful of the wild creatures that wander the distant trees away from civilization. But most are wary of people, and Tyna is free to wander as she pleases.

She finds some of Valeri's favorite flowers, collecting them in her basket.

And as she picks through fallen leaves her fingers touch it.

Woundwort.

──────────√v^─v^────────

Within the temple of Gargantuanatia, nothing had changed in the physical place of the room Tyna had entered. The book remained upon its pedestal. Tyna was drowning in her sea of memories. There she would stay for as long as Gargantuanatia kept His magic upon her.

The God can feel she is lost. And He can feel power grow inside of himself. Gods get their strength from worship, mainly, but with worship comes attention. And the level of focus He had received from this woman, from her bloodlust toward the Divine, Gargantuanatia could feel the barrier between the Divine Realm and the Mortal Realm blur.

The woman is reliant upon Him, even if it's simply to fuel her purpose in life. And that was what the Gods truly craved, truly took from the people of the world, whether they knew it or not. They took their agency for their own power.

And so, the God Gargantuanatia stepped into the woman's world.

He took a deep breath of the Mortal Realm's air, tasting its stench but reveling in the difference of experience. The God adjusted His physical form to the room but was still massive -- a hulking form of a man with swirling dark and red flesh made of light, shadow, smoke and water.

"Perhaps I shall reform my religion," He sneered, looking down at the slumbering woman. "And you shall become my first servant." He reached down, hovering his palm, a palm nearly the size of Tyna herself, above her body, pushing more magic into her mind. He pushed her deeper into her subconscious mind, looking to create a new person within her. If He can manipulate her mind into believing she's the person of her past then that will create the blank slate for the purest control over her mind.

And with this woman's vigor and strength of focus under His command, He would be able to return to full strength as a God. After all... He was able to create a physical form of Himself from just her desire to kill Him. He could only imagine how much stronger He could become with her utmost devotion.

──────────√v^───────────

What was woundwort doing out here? The woundwort she had in her past was in a completely different area and it should have been cleared out by now after the people of Grandrosa heard about it.

And it was a single plant, growing on its own. Usually they grew in clusters.

Tyna's eyes couldn't look away. The purple hues. The deep blues. The way the leaves fold in on itself. Such a strange and beautiful plant.

The highs were so terribly awful. It makes her feel things she truly misses. It makes her want to be violent and feel amazing and just cuddle up into the high it would bring her. All of a sudden everything she thought had vanished from her life comes to the forefront.

Tyna punches the ground. Her knuckles strike twigs and small stones. She punches again and again until the pain is unbearable. Then, she tears herself away, rushing off to grip onto a nearby tree, dropping her basket and letting all the flowers spill out.

Her breath is heavy and fast. Difficult to take in

That's right. The shadow cannot hide this from me.

Her entire body shakes as she imagines the plant. Tears come to her eyes at its presence in her life once more.

"No..." she says aloud. "Satarian, protect me. Satarian please take this from me. Have it vanish. Use your power and replace this evil thing with something beautiful... replace it with a flower for me to pick for Valeri..."

Tyna takes in rapid breaths and counts to ten before turning back around.

The woundwort plant is still there.

And the only thing that vanishes is all of her progress.

√v^──v^───────√v^─v^──────

She falls to her knees, slowly crawling over to it. The desire is too powerful.

"I won't... be seen out here. I know I won't. Even if I hurt myself... it's alright."

It's not alright.

"Just a little."

Please don't.

"Just one more time."

Please, not again, please, please, not again.

Before she knows it, she's licking the woundwort. Rubbing it into her skin. Into her eyes. Anywhere the oils from the plant can get into her system.

Impossible to tear awayThis can't be who I amNot againNOT AGAIN

And then Tyna is feeling that high that she is so ashamed of, that she loves so very much. Gods it had been so long. She strips herself, shaming herself further, doing things she didn't know why. Moments of clarity come to her among the trees but the high overpowers her again and again.

She feels things. Stares at wonderful, terrible things. Laughs so hard she feels she might die. Tears from agonizing bliss, blood from her fingertips rubbing against tree trunks far too harshly because she is obsessed with the way it feels. Even the pain is wonderful.

And then she is eye to eye with Valeri. At first she can't tell if she's real or not. Perhaps she's just a hallucination. Tyna laughs and runs toward her.

The horror in Valeri's eyes, the disgust, brings Tyna another moment of clarity, realizing that she's being seen by someone who had believed in her, someone who loved her -- seen in the worst light possible.

"Tyna..." Valeri says. "I thought... I thought you stopped all this."

Tyna feels hot tears come to her cheeks but she couldn't stop smiling. She shouldn't have been smiling. "V-Valeri... J-just... I just took a bit. Just... a bit..."

Valeri spins about and hurries off. Panic fires through Tyna's heart like a thousand arrows. It nearly makes her feel like she's dead, simply a walking corpse. But then she stumbles for her clothing and throws it on herself messily, feeling her heart race up into her throat as she tries to catch up with Valeri.

Don't abandon me, she begs inside her mind. Please, Gods, Satarian, don't let her abandon me...

Her way isn't clear as she hurries off into the darkness, trying to push past the high. It keeps creeping back up, bringing colors and light where they weren't before, drawing her eye. Her sense of effort vanishes soon enough and she collapses to the side of the trail, slipping on the incline, tumbling down, down, down into the shadows of a thicket of trees and shrubs. The ground here is wet and cold but refreshing with her rising temperature. Her panic and shame were beaten down by a battering, spontaneous laughter that comes to her suddenly.

The woundwort just feels so good...

Nothing else mattered...

√v^──v^────√v^───√v^─v^─√v^

Gargantuanatia held His palms above Tyna's body, feeling the despair within her dreams. This was perfect. Breaking her down entirely would bring her around to the strength of the Gods if He could keep her there. If He could successfully convince her that He was the only one who could help her recover from her ailments... He would uncover strengths as a God He never knew before.

Of course He considered simply killing her right here and now. But He couldn't get over the strength He had built from the simple act of her bloodlust. He had to try and turn this woman's heart over to Him. If He passed this up He had no idea when He'd have another opportunity to become a powerful God among mortals once again. More days of remaining dormant in the Divine Realm, watching over this temple... it was nearly maddening. No, as much as He hated this woman, He had to keep her. Even if it was just to keep her suffering and feeling hatred for the Gods. Because that alone was enough fuel to strengthen His magic.

He grinned and caressed the side of Tyna's face.

"Keep having your nightmares, mortal. Stay there and feel your hatred and despair. Or feel my presence and return to me for Divine guidance. Either way... I win."

─√v^─v^─√v^──v^──√v^──√v^─√v^─v^─√v^──

I can hear you.

I can hear you, you piece of shit.

And yet... I do need help.

This all happened because I was an awful devotee.

Right?

This is all because I am a blasphemer.

Because I am disgusting.

v^──√v^──√v^─√v^─v^─√v^──

Because I did not fully accept the Gods.

Right?

√v^──v^────√v^─

...right?

...r... i g... h t... ?

──v^──√v^──

──v^─

──

─

"NO."

─v^─√v^

The voice came from Tyna's mind and her own mouth. Something aligned both within her dreams and within her reality.

√v^─v^─√v^

Gargantuanatia shuddered, flinching away from Tyna's body as a force of energy seemed to fire from her body. She was still unconscious... she was still within her dreams... what was this?

√v^─v^─√v^─√v^√v^─v^─√v^─√v^

Tyna arose from her high, feeling as if she was existing in two places at once. Within memory and within a reality that felt so far away.

It was becoming morning now and her head was ringing and aching with pain. Her body was sore with dehydration. She struggled to her feet and stumbled down a path that was now clear to her... back to her town.

Memories of her relapse only hours ago weighed upon her, making her move slower. Her lower lip quivered and hot tears stained her cheeks. Within her heart she begged for forgiveness from everyone she knew. She prayed wildly for the mercy of the Gods. She hoped she would be able to forgive herself.

It's okay. It's okay. You will be okay.

You have already survived this.

Tyna's heart was pounding with fear.

√v^─v^√√v^─√v^─√v^─√v^√v^─v^─√√v^─√v^v^─v^√√v^─√v^─√v^

With adrenaline. So much adrenaline. Her skin tingled and her breath was pathetic whirlwind.

When she arrived at the entrance to the town there was crowd of people gathered. Tyna did her best to pull her dress around her, bundling it up into her fists so it stayed firm upon her body. She didn't have time to tighten the laces and knots.

Valeri was there, her eyes red with anger, her face scrunched up with disgust. Stendan too. Her parents. Sephie and so many others she knew and loved.

Valeri pointed.

"Well here she is. Not a thing has changed." Valeri sniffed, resisting tears. "Your apologies are all lies, aren't they?" Then the next word. "Blasphemer."

"N-no," Tyna started, but her own tears stifled her protests.

"You hurt me -- You hurt others -- you apologize and apologize and say you'll change. And yet I find you using that demon plant again! You disgust me!"

Nobody defended Tyna. Nobody came to her to comfort her. Even her own parents looked at her like a stranger.

"You are not a woman of abundance," her own mother said. "You are not a daughter of the Gods."

Tyna felt her knees grow weak. "M...Mom... Mom please... I..."

Sephie stepped forward and took a deep sigh.

"Well, Tyna, you have failed. Truly failed," she said.

"Wh-what?"

Sephie looked up at her and there was glint of mischief within her eyes. "Tyna, we did remove most of the woundwort plants from the surrounding area. But... to test your resolve, to test your true devotion to Satarian, we left a few out there. I figured you would find some of it someday... and, look at you. You certainly did."

Tyna dropped to her knees. Her sobs were too powerful. She couldn't protest at all. They betrayed her? How many people knew about this? How many people anticipated the day Tyna would stumble upon the woundwort and... and... be "tested"?

So... were the Gods really against her? Did the way with the Gods have any care for her as a person at all...? Or... or did it only want her devotion, only her reliance upon them?

"I'm sure you're rationalizing this by blaming others," Sephie scolded. "But you have no one to blame but yourself. You are hereby excommunicated from the Temple of Satarian."

"And you are forbidden from staying here," her father added, with a booming, aggressive voice. "If we have a daughter who cannot control herself, who cannot commit to a life with the Gods and a life without degeneracy... then we have no daughter at all."

Tyna... couldn't say anything. The eyes burned into her. The shame boiled within her.

This was the truth.

This is the truth.

The truth of my life with the Gods.

The truth of why I fight.

The clarity came to her like a blazing fire in the strongest wind, burning every inch of her soul.

"I fight against myself."

"I fight against the world."

"I fight against pain and isolation and the forces of shame upon humanity."

"I will fight to free all people from the suffering of being chained."

{ { √v^─v^√√v^─√v^─√v^─√v^√v^─v^√√v^─√v^─√v^─√v^ } }

And so the dark dream ended. Tyna came back to the darkness that kept her trapped within memory. And she pushed.

From the whites of Tyna’s eyes came blood and determination. Never in her life had she been driven to such lows. Never before had she tasted the stinging bitterness of death. It bordered on cold numbness that was infuriatingly inviting. A lie.

The weight of Gargantuanatia's darkness that was crushing her within his temple was so daunting, so terrifyingly strong.

It didn’t matter.

The agony of memory, of shame, of her failures drowned her.

It wouldn’t stop her.

Gargantuanatia had already won. He overpowered her. Was stronger than her.

And that despite the logic of that, it didn't didn’t mean she lost.

For a moment, the God flinched. Gargantuanatia reeled and nearly pulled away from her out of fear of her body's sudden movement.

And for the first time in thousands of years... Gargantuanatia felt... fear. He stared into eyes that now looked into his. Unconscious, still under the spell of his darkness, but still seeing him. Mortal eyes that dared to stare back at his otherworldly power. She was... just a mortal... right? Her eyes were blood red, filled with veins. Just a mortal... Her hands were tightening into fists. And her grin was a rebellious, violent confidence in the face of impossible odds.

The God couldn’t express the rage and frustration deep within. The overpowering sensations were confusion and, most importantly... that fear within him. Fear of a mortal. Even weak, abandoned and orderless, a God was impossible to resist for a mortal. Mortal humans could not fight them. So how? How was she… Who was she…

For a moment... he considered... perhaps this woman was not human at all. But something else. Something unknown and dangerous to all of existence.

An explosion of magic from Tyna's body filled the room. She should have been emptied. She should have been left with nothing. But power swirled her and she came to stand, freed from the God's control.

"Y...you think..." she spoke. "You think... you really think I'll let this stop me...? You really think you can throw my own past at me and expect it to keep me down?" She heaved in breath, standing tall, her muscles tensing, the magic a wild storm of colors and electricity. Only for a moment. And then with a flash, with a grinding of sound and a snap of something unexplainable all of that power emanating from her turned black. It took all the color from the room. Everything was gone. Except for her and the God.

"You fucking fool..." she continued, "Even if my bones break... Even if my muscles are torn apart... Even if my lungs are crushed... Even if my blood is drained, if my heart bursts, if my brain is burned to ashes, and I'm irrevocably and irreversibly dead... Nothing will stop me." She laughed and stared into Gargantuanatia's soul. "I am a Transmutionist. I change the nature of things. I will transform the impossible into the possible."

She walked toward him. Purposefully. Slowly. That dark, unexplainable power surging forth. It was as if something had been awakened that had been just waiting for a crack in her skin. Something beyond humanity and beyond divinity slumbered within this woman's soul. And now it stared directly into his eyes.

Gargantuanatia did not have a heart and could not feel the racing heart of any living creature from adrenaline. He could not feel the rush of blood or the panic of a bodily reaction to terror. The fear he felt was beyond all of that. It cursed his soul, it dampened his very existence, it made him feel like nothing. Nothing but fear filled him.

"She's..." he whispered to himself, unable to resist speaking the fear aloud, as if Tyna Janar's soul simply couldn't be denied. "She's...

"She's a Monster..."

Unknown power bursts forth from every inch of her. A power she didn't even know she had. An ancient reserve of rage and agony that not even Tyna knew she had saved up. Perhaps it was an unconscious storing of power throughout the years in case she ever needed it.

All she knew was that she would kill them. She would kill them. Every God. Every force of control over any human being. Every single chain upon every single heart, every powerful grip upon people's actions, each and every parasitic urge to act that people cannot control.

Every single mountain will burst into rubble, every blade of grass would burn, every inch of this world would vanish into the void before Tyna Janar died, before she fell to her own darkness, before she lost, before she sacrificed her ambition and succeeded in her goals.

Gargantuanatia was no more. She heard his screams. She felt his pain. And then the God was gone in a blaze of sound of light, as well as the temple he resided in.

Silence overtook her.

A cool breeze.

Her body was resting within the grass, away from the crater that she had created. Now, Tyna knew she had used everything. She didn't know what this darkness held for her. Perhaps nothing. But this battle was over and she knew she had won. She had slayed a God. And she had slayed her own inner demons.

The last thing Tyna saw was a swirling stream of red soaring towards her. It caressed and lifted her and she could feel the pain of its touch upon her body, her entire being singed and burned, bruised and broken.

The Redsmoke Dangerbear lifted her into the air and took her far away from that place.