Masa groggily rubbed her eyes as she awoke.

How long has it been? A day? Two?

The wind whistled against her sensitive ears. Her tail stood on end, with her fur poofed. The darkness was all-encompassing and she was still falling.

She could reach her canteen and her rations. But no matter how she angled her body or how she tried to manipulate the way she fell, there was nothing around her.

The first few minutes of her fall had been the most nerve-wracking. Now, she merely felt numb.

Let this end! If she was destined to end up as meat paste on the ground then let it be so. Stop tormenting her with this endless fall!

Her mind wandered. It was the only way she could stay sane. Masa wanted to go back to sleep, but it was no use. She’d already slept too much. The darkness masked everything and it was only the wind that told her she was still falling.

Her half-Kutin heritage had inundated her against a fear of heights. As long as she had Animus, she would survive a fall. Well, the normal heights she’d fallen from were only from the tops of Vizugmon’s tree residences.

There, she’d fallen off several times in her childhood. Her father was completely human and was a sailor. And mostly a stranger. A passing dalliance with Masa’s delver mother. Mifa of the Kutin had been an adventurous lass with varied tastes and appetites. As soon as her mum knew that Masa could survive on her own, Mifa had flown off to have adventures galore. Probably away from Bella plane and its bigotted residents.

Race and lineage was paramount in Vizugmon City and in other parts of the plane. The Iona, the Tigris, and the Kutin were partners, connected by a shared ancestry of large hunting cats. The Ahas, the Buwak, and the L’tik, were their erstwhile rivals to the east. The reptilian humanoids were bandits and opportunists.

Their actions in the Labyrinth, a place that they shouldn’t be in, was but one of their latest crimes. That they joined the Reviled, the exiled clanners and criminal humans, only made them more repulsive in Masa’s eyes.

‘No, no, calming thoughts, calming thoughts!’

Anda. Her neighbour, elder brother, and dear friend. The handsome Tigris had always looked after her when she was young, and even now, he took her safety above his own. She only wished that he would return above ground safe.

As for her fate, that was the big question, wasn’t it?

How much longer? Maybe she should just cut an artery open and end everything. No, no. As long as there’s a chance, she won't give up. Was there a chance? How long has it been? How long must she endure?

End this now! Stop this now! Help me…

Masa felt her consciousness fade. The winds blew unceasingly against her ears.

_____

As soon as Yuriko’s foot touched the curtain, she was drawn in. The next moment, the sound of the wind and waves, the scent of salt, and the warmth of the sun, filled her senses.

“Huh?” She muttered. It was the Radiant Sun overhead, she could feel her reserves slowly fill up. The warmth was an amazing complement to the break she just had. For the next few minutes, she simply stood there, digging her toes in the hot sand, and absorbed the Radiant energy.

The feel of the air around her was different. The pressure of the ambient Chaos had changed. Where was she? Tidelands? Or had she been in one all along? She was at the border of two planes and what should connect them was either a Channel or a Tidelands.

A brief spike of panic ran down her back. She wasn’t allowed in the Tidelands! Oh, yeah, she was already a Journeyman. Golden flames surrounded her, pushing away the oppressive air, and replaced it with a strange sense of…control.

Yuriko was in the middle of a beach. In front of her, the coastline curved to the right, eventually disappearing into the water. Tall trees covered the land. The waves washed merrily against the pristine white sand. Behind her, the scenery was practically identical, as if someone held a mirror to one side or the other.

She had the feeling that it didn’t matter which direction she headed towards, only the Intent mattered. If she wanted to get back to the previous passage, she merely had to Will it. If she wanted to move on, she would have to cross the sands. Or maybe the water? She wasn’t quite sure.

She was at a Waypoint! she abruptly realized. One cannot travel directly across the Chaos if one didn’t have a vessel. If she was on foot, then she needed to cross Waypoints. The appearance and contents of these areas were dependent on her own Will and Intent, though if another intelligence was inside, then aspects of that Will would affect the Waypoint too.

Yuriko gazed in wonder. The water extended as far as she could see, even when she enhanced her senses. The trees were pretty and straight, with nice wide branches that made an amazing arboreal highway should she choose to travel that way.

The cove that she had initially found herself in was but a pale imitation of this one.

“This isn’t real,” she reminded herself, “not in the truest sense.”

With a shake of her head, she took a step and started on her way. She opted to travel down the beach, hoping, no, willing the other end to be the terminus point she needed to leave.

She was halfway through when…things...crawled out of the surf.

Crabs. Ones the size of a dog, a cat, and a cow, came up out of the seat. The smaller ones walked sideways towards the bushes. The bigger ones started rooting in the sand. The closest one to her was the cow-sized one. Its black, beady eyes tracked her movements.

“Are we going to fight?”

The crab raised its pincers and brandished them. Yuriko created her Animus blades. The weapons were still extruded from her fingertips as she hadn’t quite worked out how to separate them yet remain completely corporeal.

She took a step. The crab scooted off to a side, circling around her. Yuriko continued walking, and the crab stayed out of her way. Once she was past them, it scurried into the forest.

Yuriko glanced back, puzzled. Why come up to the shore at all?

Twump!

An orange tentacle thicker than her thigh shot out of the surf and curled around one of the smaller crabs. Bubbles formed from its gills and its claws waved futilely around as it was yanked into the water.

Crack!

A sickening crunch.

Whoosh!

More tentacles darted out of the water, catching crabs even as the crustaceans scurried ashore.

Scrunch!

The sand under Yuriko’s foot crunched. A tentacle darted out of the water and went straight at her!

Yuriko’s Animus moved in the sword dance even as she sidestepped and avoided the initial grab. A quick twist of her wrist and the edge of the Animus blade dug into the tentacle. Smoke and a burnt smell wafted from the wound.

The tentacles trembled. The one attacking her retreated while the ones grabbing the crabs hurriedly dragged its bounty to the water. Yuriko didn’t bother to wait.

This was a fight she didn’t need to finish. Even as she ran, more tentacles darted out of the sea, aimed at her. She ducked, dodged and slashed. Her blows didn’t sever the limbs at all. In fact, they barely broke past the skin. The flesh was tougher than she expected.

She started dodging towards the trees but she instinctively knew that if she entered into the tree line, the place she’d come out to would be different from the one she wanted to go to.

A few minutes later, all of the tentacles disappeared back into the sea.

How long were those things? She must have been fifteen paces from the surf yet she couldn’t even see the creature’s main body.

She continued down the beach while keeping a wary eye to the water. But nothing else came up to attack her by the time she found herself next to a shimmering curtain. She stepped through and found herself in a different place.

Hot air pushed against her in treacherous waves. Yuriko blinked at the darkness. The only source of light was below. She was on a precipice. Beneath her was an orange river of molten rock.

Behind her was a wall of black stone. Before her was a narrow pathway, barely wider than her foot, that stretched out above the abyss. Beneath were rivers of lava.

“I have to cross this?”

It didn’t look like there was another path she could take. The obvious one was in front but there was a narrow strip to the side, too. She glanced down the cliff face. She could also scale down the cliff if she wanted to.

Where was the path that would lead her out of the spire? Ahead? To the side? Or below?

Maybe above? The ceiling was covered in darkness but the rock face was porous enough that she’d find easy handholds if she wanted to. She distrusted the path ahead for being the easy and obvious one.

“Heading up, it is.”

Her Anima was still flared and it provided sufficient protection for her fingers and toes against the boiling hot rock. The pressure of the ambient Chaos outside had long ceased to be helpful in straining her Anima. At least not without other efforts. The ambient Chaos here was much higher, but it was less…dense.

Either way, in these conditions she could flare her Anima all day and not feel a thing.

She dug her fingers into the rock and started climbing. The hot air grew into winds and lashed her hair. She clung easily to the rock. Her strength was much higher compared to her weight so it was easy enough to support herself.

A few paces above, the rock started to protrude. She was climbing at an angle now, which made it a tad bit more difficult, but easy enough to handle. Then she made the mistake of looking down.

She was much higher than the few paces she climbed. No, there was at least a longstride from where she clung to the rock and the narrow bridge. A wave of vertigo threatened to soften her limbs.

“Oh, Ancestors!” she gasped, her fingers clenched and shards of rock fell from her grip.

Her Anima clung to the rock face, providing her with much-needed stability. With a shake of her head, she focused on the rock and continued to climb.

Winds pummeled her, but she persevered. Her face dripped with sweat, but as soon as a drop fell from her cheek it sizzled and turned to steam. She climbed for what seemed like hours, and at that point, she was practically hanging under the rock.

Her fingers easily dug into the rock, though that didn’t mean it was brittle. It still provided secure hand- and footholds. Finally, the rock face turned vertical again and she found herself climbing on top of an overhang. She rested on the ledge for a few minutes while she shook her arms and legs to ease the tension off them. Though the climb was long and somewhat difficult, her physique was enough to make it through.

The path beneath was still visible, and from her vantage point, she could see that it eventually dwindled down to a point, in the middle of nowhere. So it had been a false path after all. Or, she amended herself when she saw a shimmering curtain at that point, that had been the passage out.

As for her chosen path, there was no sign of passage out. Maybe she should have taken the path instead of haring off somewhere else? Well, no, she was committed now. Besides, it was easy enough to get back to that path should this one prove futile. She could just jump and glide all the way down.

Once she caught her breath, she continued her climb. Her Anima provided all the light she needed. One moment she was climbing, and the next, she had touched a curtain of rainbow light.

She emerged in deeper darkness and even her Anima didn’t shed enough light to illuminate more than its boundaries.

“Where am I now?”

The darkness muffled everything, though she felt that she was standing on something solid. But she still couldn’t see what she was standing on.

The air was still. Yuriko got the sense that she needed to move, though. Else, she’d remain here for the rest of her natural life.

She took a careful step forwards, relieved that her feet were on solid ground. She took step after careful step, gaining more confidence as she moved. Soon enough, she was walking at her normal speed. She couldn’t see anything, but that also meant that nothing could see her. And she came across nothing anyway. She could feel herself coming towards the border of something. She was close to the end.

Whoooosh!

Something struck her Anima and pushed her down. Whorls of multi-hued light covered her eyes, and the next thing she knew, she was back in the spiralling paths. And she wasn’t alone.