Lord Nonan’s features sharpened. A hooked beak appeared over his nose, his eyes becoming cold and and sharp, tracking every minute item in the room. Feathers plastered over his face and sprouted from his arms. His body read as a raptor, some sort of bird of prey.

“I don’t know what he can do but be careful,” Mia cautioned, calling upon her own second tier attributes. The resemblance between the two became clearer, on seeing they both shared bird beast souls. Even in their movements there were echoes of the other’s form, a testament to the power of blood even when the ties were mostly severed.

She lunged towards her father, but he rebuffed her with a clean sweep of his wing, her body blown back onto the wall behind her. Her legs pushed off the surface and she landed gracefully upon the ground, staring at her father with concern. “That was forceful, father.”

He shrugged, emotions hard to read off of his avian face. “Spare the rod, spoil the child. At least, that’s what some of the other nobles say.

Perhaps I have been to lax with you. Maybe if I more actively forbid you from joining the guard, you wouldn’t have gained that injury in your trip to the Vessen Swamp.”

“Or maybe,” Mia said, gritting her teeth, “just maybe if you supported the city guard more, we would have additional help going into that mission.”

“Or maybe if you had the strength to defend your actions then you would be justified in saying them, Amelia. It would be for the best if you just gave up.” Not one to be deterred by an unknown source of authority, Vera charged forwards.

With a simple flick of his wing, he beat a path of air, redirecting Vera towards me, forcing me to summon my Swollen Fur to absorb her blow. I slammed into the wall not far next to Mia, Vera’s training having borne fruit. Not enough to overwhelm the setup of my defense, but enough to be considered a threat.

Lord Nonan hadn’t moved from his position, affixing us with a curious glance, seemingly more bored than concerned. “Is this the best that prey spirits can do? Do you understand yet, Amelia? You have no power here.”

“We aren’t trying to kill your father… right?” I asked. I didn’t see how we would be able to win at this rate if we didn’t escalate our violence.

“I would prefer if you didn’t,” Mia grunted, running ahead. I saw Lord Nonan tense up and threw an Electromute, hoping to disrupt his movement and allow Mia to get in. He stared at me, raising a feathered eyebrow, body unmoving but currents of wind redirecting Mia entirely, holding her aloft in the air.

“Maybe I can…” Vera muttered, gathering her own currents around her horns. She charged forwards, detonating her wind, but my Electromute had already worn off, Lord Nonan’s gales dispelling the effect entirely.

“This is all very amusing but it’s also quite the waste of time. Are you done throwing your temper tantrum, Amelia? I don’t think I’ve properly established the gap in our capabilities yet.”

His wings flapped and a wall of air pressed us against the wall, Mia carried over alongside us. She enabled her double-time technique, furiously beating her wings but even with twice as much activity she couldn’t push off from the wall, tethered there by her father’s pure force. The books and papers from around the room floated through the current, drawn in by the powerful flow, causing an irritating but altogether minimally harmful barrage of debris to work through, as if we needed another thing to hinder us.

I tried launching a Direct Current, but the swirling winds around Lord Nonan batted the electricity aside, only slightly singing his form. Even Vera’s detonation of gale winds couldn’t pierce through.

“Father, just stop this. They know where we went. They’re obligated to look. If you stop, we can get you out of whatever it is you trapped yourself in. You don’t have to go any further. You can stop now,” Mia pleaded, tears swarming down her face. If she couldn’t reach him with her fists, then she would have to do the next best thing and try to stop him with her words.

“Mia, when you declared you knew, there was no going back. It’s already too late. There’s a lot you don’t understand.”

“I would understood if you just told me. I still believe in you, even if you don’t believe in me? Why don’t you tell me? Why won’t you let me in your life?”

“Don’t you understand,” Lord Nonan replied. “This is for you. It’s all for you. It’s always been for you. I couldn’t tell you. Telling you would involve you. You were supposed to be safe.”

“I would have been safe if you told me. You could have been part of the city guard. You were certainly strong enough, even if you chose to abstain. I couldn’t let that duty lie derelict. I did what I had to do. I just wish you understood,” Mia cried.

“It just couldn’t be. It’s already too late now. I just hope you understand the error of your ways when I’m gone. I… I don’t think I’ll ever see you again,” Lord Nonan said. He choked out the words, genuine remorse seemingly coming from his lips.

I wasn’t sure what was happening, but I couldn’t let it end like this. We had trained so much. Studied so much. Even fought live humans, and yet we just failed to compare against someone with such raw power. If we had ambushed Lord Nonan in the heart of night, we certainly could have quickly overwhelmed him, but not while he was resplendent in his power. Not with the disparity that our untrained forms couldn’t make up. We needed more. We needed the fruit of our labors now. We needed to be stronger.

Administrative Rights Requested: Sufficient Authority Held. Launching Display

Before my eyes those boxes appeared, reflecting the general status of Mia, Vera and myself. I could see that for all of our training, the furthest along was Mia, and she was still around 30% of the way off, with myself all the way at 40% progressed towards the next tier. This was hopeless. If it was going to take this long, it felt like our training was for nothing. We needed to be stronger now.

Request Acknowledged: Completion of Progression Requested. Approve Usage of Administrative Rights to Facilitate Premature Unlocking of the Next Tier?

I didn’t know what I was being asked but I would take anything that was given, if it meant we had the strength to take down Lord Nonan and make things right for Mia.

Permission Granted

I could see the box’s progression fill until there was nowhere further to go, our three boxes reflecting we had developed our third tiers. The others gasped in shock, feeling the new energy invigorate them, if not seeing their own boxes in front of their faces.

My box suggested I was the same, but I couldn’t feel it. Perhaps a difference in our relative scale of experience. Nonetheless, if it meant the others could break out of Lord Nonan’s attack, then I could swallow my fears and ignore the dark thoughts swirling in the back of my head about the potential repercussions I had invited with my brazen act.

Mia’s beak glowed upon her face, and she stared with deep intent at her father. He looked back at us, feathery eyebrows raised in confusion. “Are you trying to do something, Mia?”

“I wouldn’t call it trying. I would call it succeeding.” The wall of wind died down just enough to break free from its grasp, letting us continue forward once more, Lord Nonan’s cold eyes growing wider and wider.

Ever the opportunist, Vera jumped off of the wall, but her continued trajectory was not down, but up. Her hooves latched onto the vertical surface and she continued walking up until she was at the ceiling, slowly continuing towards Lord Nonan’s position.

“You do know that the ceiling won’t meaningfully help you, little girl. My range is certainly more than this room,” he said, flinging a gust of wind towards Vera. It was like a sheet of glass, although it wouldn’t shatter the same way on contact.

Her horns ate the impact, breaking the wind to her sides, the pure carried force breaking through the ceiling. He had upped his game. Something was rattling. This was no longer defensive fighting, but aiming to maim, perhaps even kill.

“I don’t know if we can afford to hold back, Mia,” I said, launching another Direct Current at Lord Nonan. It circled around his body in an errant orbit, his cloak of wind redirecting it to Vera. She had already learned her lesson from before, her horns eating the attack and grounding it into the ceiling. She was no worse for the wear from this secondary assault.

“Don’t you mind that, Perry. Just endure the last dregs of his attacks, or continue to draw his attention. This fight is already settled. My father will go down, and then we’ll have all the answers we need.”

Incensed at his daughter’s words, Lord Nonan strode forward, currents picking up around his form. I stepped to intercept the path, confident I could absorb his blows even if I couldn’t meaningfully harm him.

“Why won’t you all just stop?” He shouted, swiping at me with his wings. I reinforced my Swollen Fur, but the impact was much less than it had been before, something evocative of the first spike feeder I had ever fought in magnitude. Was I that much stronger?

“I’m almost done here,” Mia said, her beak still glowing. Lord Nonan’s next steps staggered, eyes growing wide.

“You… I don’t know how you did this but you’ve got to stop, Mia. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I know perfectly well what I’m doing, Father. I’m sucking the strength right out of you, and from what I can tell, you’re on your last reserves. Don’t worry, I’ll put in a good word with the city guard, even if I am no longer part of them. You deserve to be fairly tried for your actions.”

Vera jumped down from the ceilling, the summoned breezes protecting Lord Nonan no longer present to mitigate the impact. She landed with a mighty elbow into his gut, his body struggling as the beast soul features faded from his face. “Stop, please,” he pleaded, voice having lost all of the edge it carried, flecks of blood coating his lips.

“It all could have stopped if you let it, but there was no other way then the one you chose, Father. It wasn’t right, and there are consequences to your actions,” Mia said, walking up his side.

“Let me say this then,” he said, grabbing at her leg. “I love you. I did this for you. I want you to remember that.”

“I’ll remember that well enough when you’re in prison,” Mia replied, pulling away from his hand. Lord Nonan’s body slumped back, no longer resisting Vera’s efforts, knocked out cold.

“I don’t know what happened there, nor how we broke through, but praise the doctrine. It truly was a miracle,” Vera said, hands clasped in prayer.

She rose from Lord Nonan’s body, her own body looking only slightly battered from the experience.

A miracle was an apt way to describe it, although it seemingly came from me, a thought I decided was for the best if I didn’t share, at least in this point in time.

“Well, I guess the next thing to do is to secure my father… let’s make sure we do it better than we did for those bandits. We want to safely escort him to the guard, not have him flee when we turn around for a second.”

We turned our backs on the body, scouring the room for a material to use, when Vera cried out, trembling at what she had seen. A series of black vines covered in inky thorns crawled up around Lord Nonan’s skin, expanding with each second. Their movements were steady, uncomfortably undulating under his flesh. They were the invasive species claiming new land, unable to be deterred.

Mia ran over to her father’s still form, trying to grasp at the vines. She was unable to touch them, their form bound to her father’s skin, indistinguishable from touching the body in itself. I walked over and pulled her back, her outstretched arm reaching for her father. “It’s not safe,” I whispered, Vera taking Mia away from me, clasping Mia in a tight hug, as though the comfort could stifle the hyperventilation escaping from Mia’s mouth.

The vines multiplied, covering more and more of Lord Nonan’s flesh until there was no skin left unmarred by the foul growth, his body choked in their extreme expansion. That would have been enough to be worried about, but that wasn’t the end.

Lord Nonan’s body rose into the air, the accumulated vines peeling off of his skin until they formed a ball around him, constantly writhing and twisting. It was an undulating form that condensed slowly in its extra-dimensional nature, drawing closer and closer to the skin that once housed it.

Not a sound arose from their flight, only Mia’s panicked noises lingering in the room.

As the first of the countless thorns made contact with the flesh once again, a pinprick of blood spouted out from the wound, Mia lurching to go and rip away the vines. It took all of Vera’s might to restrain her dear friend, Mia sobbing as the implication of what was happening came to fruition.

“No no no, this wasn’t supposed to happen, this can’t be happening, no no no,” she cried, twisting against Vera’s mighty grip, but our friend’s natural strength was more than enough to ensure whatever it was that ailed her father could not spill over to the daughter.

The ball of inky vines closed tighter and tighter, more and more surface area piercing the skin. It continued to writhe about and travel the circumference of his body, carrying the wounded flesh snagged onto its errant thorns with it.

I desperately tried to see if I could summon a second miracle, but no boxes appeared for this second act. Whatever it was I had dominion over, this was outside of the scope, an ill I could no more explain than I could explain Culling Night.

Not content to just drag away Lord Nonan’s flesh, the vine ball continued to compress, wringing his body dry of its precious fluids, bones cracking under the force of the unrelenting progression, until they folded back into the remnants of his bloody skin, dissipating from sight. There was nothing to reflect the awful experience Lord Nonan had gone through barring his mangled body, which didn’t need any extra attention to determine whether he survived or not. It was without question that he was totally and utterly dead.

Mia collapsed onto the ground, Vera no longer holding her back, her hands clasping for her father’s bloody palm, tears soaking his mangled form. “I’m so sorry,” she cried. “If only I listened. If only I had listened to what you said. You knew best, after all.”

Her sobs were heavy, a return to the force we had met in Malagost, her grief a draining force. We were in stasis, an eternity of her suffering lavished upon us, our horror subsumed by the suffering she was buried underneath. Vera tried to reach out, but her arm faltered, falling back to her side, unsure of how to act in a situation like this where the doctrine would fall flat. We could do nothing else but let Mia direct the moment, as the sole survivor of her line.

It was the end, and there was nothing good about it. For all that we had set out to do here, in our hopes of stopping her father, we had stumbled into something far worse. I just hoped Mia would be able to recover from it.

For now we would wait, counting the seconds in-between her heaving sobs, wondering if grief was a quantifiable thing. Could it ever end?