I slip through the halls of a castle as Celest surfs on my body. Jory kicks off walls and flies down hallways, shattering windows as he bursts through them and Celest phases her and I through different rooms, barely managing to keep up with Jory!

He even tosses people in front of us, trying everything he can to slow us down, as he narrowly avoids my grasp every time, Collocorro barking orders and obscenities at him at every turn, while I spread water around the walls! “Jory, LEFT, you gangrenous bastard!”

Instead he turned right, surprising me since he had been following orders pretty well up until this point- I accidentally turned the wrong way, and he gained distance on us… “Demi! What are you doing?! Okay, THIS way!” Celest shouts as she points at an overly gothic wall, and we phase through it!

Celest closes her eyes and presses her fingers to her temple. “Okay, they think we can’t see them, they just shot through the window- Oh.” She’s hit with a dumbfounded expression as I realize what’s happening and I quickly follow right behind them!

As we exit and fly outside of the Island’s gravitational field, I shoot strings around the area, attaching to every island in sight with super dense threads thanks to Celest’s mana. I was beginning to run low, so she’s been sharing her more dense magic. “Just give up, Collocorro, you’re done!”

“Fuck you, I’LL be the ruler of the underworld! And I WON’T suck at it!” The threads grow denser, and I suddenly feel empowered- My mass shoots between them, gripping them, allowing me to pull myself around in the gravityless void outside of the islands…

As my body morphs and attaches to as many threads as possible, I begin surrounding the two, surprising them as they start to realize they’re running out of room to escape!

I instantly catch Jory, and Celest is surprised! “Damn, good job, Demi. I’m applying some anti-warp magic as we speak. How come you didn’t do this before?” She asks, as I look at the mess… “I just came up with it. Isn’t it pretty cool? I’ve kind of impressed MYSELF this time.” I tell her, as she leans against one of the threads.

Collocorro speaks up- “Anyone could have come up with THIS, dumbass.” I consider shushing him. “What I don't get is why THIS worked over everything else.” Jory sits there, holding his legs with his wings as I realize it DID kind of just give me the win, this sudden burst of inspiration.

He sits there and glares at Celest and I, while I find myself lost for an answer… “Well, either way it worked! HELL YEAH~ Celest and Demitallis ALWAYS WINS~” I start cheering, making Celest grin wider as Jory falls on his side, inside of the small bubble in my much larger body.

Celest points at Collocorro and speaks. “Heh, yeah. I bet that’s got YOU rattled.” She says, making him frown. “Come on, that one was a real rib tickler!” She continues. “Oh well~ I guess your funny bone is just broken.” And with that, we begin moving quickly, heading for the nearest gate, Celest annoying everyone with more and more terrible puns as we go…

“Celest, PLEASE… No more…” I tell her, as she rides on top of my body, while I climb with my threads. “But I’m just so humerus! I guess you could say it’s pretty HIP-” She giggles to herself, as Collocorro groans in response and we arrive at the gate, to meet the attendant.

“Hey!” I call out to them, shocking them as they jerk backwards in response- “Wh-What are you?!” His voice was full of fear. I dropped in front of him after pulling in my mass. “I’ve caught Collocorro. Do you know of anything like a police station around here?”

That calms him down pretty quick, and he just stares at Collocorro and Jory inside of me, before nodding in response. “Well, Helvetica usually just deals with it. Hey, Vulkus! Do we deal with these things?” He asks, calling up to the Cerberus, who shakes his head.

“Thanks anyways, I’ll just head down, then.” Before he can even say something, I shoot downwards, Celest and Collocorro in tow. Jory too, of course. “You should try this out, Celest, I’m having way more fun just moving around like THIS.” Celest simply folds her arms and stares at me…

Collocorro of course speaks up in place of Celest… “What’s so fun about swinging around like THIS?” He asks, as I continue to do so. “It’s kind of empowering. Right? It makes me feel like I could kill ANYTHING.” I answer anyway, as I make sure to keep him and Celest close together, in case he might have some sort of ability to phase through walls.

“Weird way of putting it, but okay.” We finally arrive at the Chateau, and find that a huge chunk of it has been annihilated… “What the hell?” I ask, as all of us question what possible force of nature could have descended upon the Chateau to do THIS…

I arrive at the bottom, and find one of Helvetica’s bodies staring at it… “It was Sol. I hadn’t realized he was here until it was too late. After that, he disappeared.” She tells me, as we all just stare at the miles of fire and destruction…

“I got Collocorro.” I tell her, as I push him and his buddy to the front, and she just glares at them. “Hey.” She says, taking a knee to take a closer look down at him. “What?” He sneers. “Give up. You’re not CAPABLE of controlling the Underworld.” She tells him, and he bangs against his glass container-

“And how would YOU know?!” Jory tries to silently calm him down, but it’s useless… “Collocorro. If you had the potential of being a threat to me, you wouldn’t even be here. I don’t like crushing dreams like this, but I also don’t need you giving anyone any ideas.” She tells him, as he stands back.

“Lost Child, give him to me.” She tells me, and so I back him away- “You’re not going to hurt him… Are you?” I ask, and she shakes her head as her answer. “Do you really think I would just kill him?” She asks, and I separate him from Jory, who starts trying to tear at my body, before I close it around him.

“‘Nuff’a’dat.” I say, as I break the mechanical limbs on Collocorro’s exosuit, and give it to Helvetica. “You’re not like most people, Collocorro. ANYONE could honestly overthrow me, if they had the drive. I mean, look what SOL did, I hadn’t even realized until it was too late.” She points him at the destruction, and he just sits there and takes it in…

She looks at Celest and I, then points at him- “You guys want to know how he DIED? It’s almost as funny as it is pathetic.” Collocorro then proceeds to ram his face against the glass screaming and grasping in her direction, until she suddenly covers it in a dark cloud.

“That’s enough out of you. Let Jory out too, by the way. He’s useless without Collocorro.” She says as I release the dark birdman, and he lunges at her, reaching for Collocorro. “Nope. He brought this on himself, Jorylock.” She then drops the bot, and it just goes limp…

I pick him up, the cloud permeating around the glass dome as I shake the toy-like body… “You said you wouldn’t hurt him!” I scream at her, and she rolls her eyes. “I didn’t. He’s fine.” She tells me, as I look at it… “But he- I know I broke the Exosuit- But I can’t feel him at all moving in there.”

Jory takes it from me, and stares deeply into it. “I simply broke him. Okay? He’s accepted the truth, and given up.” She tells me, but I look at Jory, who desperately looks for a way to get some sort of response out of Collocorro. “Can we see him?” I already tried removing the cloud. She’s HIDING him from us.

“It’s his punishment for defying me.” I decided to simply accept it… Helvetica’s house, Helvetica’s rules, as it were. Jory sits down with it, having given up and simply pressing his head against it, before finally flying away with it. “Jory wanted to be an actor, you know.” I watch him fly off with Collocorro’s motionless body, and finally disappear into the distance…

“You said he was harmless. Did you HAVE to-” I begin to ask, but she interrupts me. “Yes. Now, I’ve got more stuff for you two to do.” Celest hasn’t said a word this whole time. It’s partially why I’m so nervous, she’s NEVER this silent...

“Celest, you okay?” I decide to ask, breaking her from her stupor- “Sorry, I’m okay. I was just thinking about something.” She slides down from the side of my body, ‘cause I haven’t shrunk it since I got here. “Hey, Helvetica. Since Demitallis is going to be doing all this stuff for you…”

Helvetica folds her arms and simply listens. “I was thinking you should set up wires all around the underworld, Demitallis is really good at climbing on them.” She finishes, confusing Helvetica. “Sure. People might even appreciate them as a helpful way to get around. I’ll have someone figure that out.” She continues as we’re guided into the Chateau through a window, falling to the large hallway floor.

“So what’s our next mission?” She simply leans against the wall. “Right. Now that I know you can deal with someone as horrendously incompetant as Collocorro… I suppose…” She thinks to herself for a moment, making Celest and I wait…

“Alright, got one. I want you to simply investigate.” She says. “Investigate?” Celest and I ask, confused. “Yeah. I want information. I can’t see EVERYTHING, I need someone to be my eyes.” She tells us, and we look at each other. “I guess I’M pretty good at that. So we’re just acting as another set of eyes, for you?”

Helvetica nods in response, and begins walking away. “Yeah, get to work whenever. Oh, and pick up a Recall-Box this time! So you can get back when you feel you’re ready to report!” She calls out to us, before rounding a corner and going silent…

“Do YOU know what that is?” I ask Celest, who simply shrugs. And so we spent an hour getting that together, then learning that it predictably just teleports us back to the Chateau. After that, we leave for the rest of our throw-away task, since Helvetica couldn’t be asked to come up with anything substantial.

Celest carries me around again, since I decided to once more be tiny. “I wonder what the others are doing.” She softly spoke. “They’re all probably on some weird adventures of their own. Or sleeping in. It’s usually one or the other.” I answered, as a bolt of lightning crashed in the distance.

This place is kind of themed as a dark rain-forest. Buildings tightly packed into deep jungle that stretches between multiple islands, with huge vines to signify their connection. Trees are of course attached to buildings, and there seems to be a timed artificial water cycle to feed them.

Houses on the ground find foliage densely packed anywhere it’ll fit without reaching into the sidewalks. Speaking of which, there’s stone pavements with plenty of drains and roads that stretch around the island, cutting between and sectioning out parts of the forest, where buildings connect to them.

And so we moved on, greeting people as we went, asking around, looking for something to do. “Would you mind helping me find my cat?” An old lady asked, and we quickly agreed, as we had also gotten bored being up here… So yeah, now we’re looking for a cat.

“Anyone know about a lost cat?!” Celest called out to everyone, but they simply took passing glances at us, until a young man walked over. He told us to head over to one of the connected islands, and so we did, traveling on one of the large vines to get there.

We met some guys pruning the vines, to make sure they stay pretty. “It’s hard daily work, inspecting every vine and manually cutting them. Helps keep me distracted. It’s hard thinking about how I may never see my family again…” A zombie man with a neat hat told us, before we moved on to the actual island.

The island itself wasn’t much different from the first one, just a different layout using straight roads instead of circular disjointed ones. “You wanna talk about Collocorro?” Celest asked me… It seems she couldn’t get the thought out of her head either.

“No. It would ultimately lead to a discussion on how powerless we really are. How’s your relationship with Sirius been? I haven’t seen you hanging out with him lately.” She carried me around the island, still looking for that cat-

The trees were covered in growths of many different shapes and sizes, most of them were tall, others were bulbous, and some were absolutely massive. “It’s fine. Just a little break from each other, we’re not exactly used to living together so suddenly, so I figured I would take this chance to get away from him for a moment.” She placed her hand on one of them, and stared at it, until a large man walked over-

“Please don’t touch the trees, they’re not well.” He told us, and Celest pulled her hand away. He was a tall, large man made of wood, obviously another floral demihuman, he must be half jungle-tree of some kind. “Right… I’ll be on my way, then.” She tells him, and I take this as my sign to run off for my own investigation.

It was a simple matter, breaking away, I did what I usually do and slowly refilled the glass cup as I moved my body to the floor, making sure I was as thin as possible, so as not to be spotted. And so I investigated the tree, using a different and highly transparent liquid so the tree doesn’t try and eat me.

It certainly is massive, climbing up it is taking a while, despite moving as fast as I can between the seams in its bark. As I arrived at the top, I found a woman and a wolf. She was part wolf, another demihuman, probably the same species as the wolf sitting next to her.

Her eyes are whited out and she’s praying, resting against the wolf who sits curled around her backside. At the other end of the room is a skeleton with a beard and short hair, he’s wearing a leather jacket, simple jeans and a top under the aforementioned jacket.

He’s encased in a large amber orb, surrounded by many branches that more resemble roots, with a little snail sitting next to the amber orb. The room is motionless, and I don’t quite understand what much of anything here means specifically… But I’m sure I’ll figure it out.

I didn’t want to leave the room unwatched, so I created another body, and left it here with the singular purpose of watching the room. Aside from the few things it DOES know how to do, it’s pretty much mindless, and will wait here for me until I return to retrieve the information.

I made sure to investigate the rest of the tree, it turns out there’s a whole staircase built into the backside of the tree, leading to a large thick bush near where Celest and I were standing. Speaking of whom, I met up with her at a stone fountain decorated with flowers.

“And that’s what I saw.” I tell her, as she stares down at me. “Weird. We’ll have to look into that further. In the meantime… I found the cat!” She tells me, pulling out a kitten-skeleton she’d been petting on. “Nice, let’s go return it now!” And so we did, a little quest we got out of the way, before returning to fully investigate the rest of this area…

I was rewarded with another crystal! Like the one I got my force-field ability from all that time ago! This one allows me to produce clouds, and of course I snapped it out of the ring and ate it. “You want the ring, Celest?” I ask, spitting it back up for her to catch.

“Sure. So what’d the crystal give you?” We return to the bench, sitting on it again as we observe the many growths in the many great large trees. “Simple fog, ‘can just make it anywhere in my mana zone. How about you?” I asked as she pulled out a little orb with two wings and a spike on it.

She places it on the ring. “Just this little thing, I think it’s kind of pretty.” The metal ring bends and she molds it back into place gently, before fusing both objects together, and putting it on her finger. It’s a little big for her, but it doesn’t look too bad. I kind of like it on her!

“So what do you think that thing was supposed to do?” She checks her fingers, making sure it looks good herself. “I dunno’. Some type of weapon, I assume.” She said as she folded her legs, leaning backwards as she tried to get more light on the ring.

“Yeah probably, it’s got that spike. I bet it’s useless though.” She lowers her legs and stands up as I jump into her arms, and feel the ring attached to her finger. “So are we going to investigate that tree?” She asks and I form an arm to give her a thumbs up!

“Yep! Let’s go!” She chuckles and starts walking. “That was pretty well defined, you’re better at shaping yourself than I thought.” She tells me as I create a burst of smoke around us, and she turns invisible. “Yeah, maybe I should show you the full body I came up with.” I tell her as she jumps over the bush and makes her way up the stairs.

That was obviously a mixed lie, because I didn’t want her to have any suspicions. In all honesty, I like to imagine just pushing my hand into existence.

Anyways, we arrive at the top, and find my little spy camera, using my telepathy to connect to them. “What’d you see?” It’s been a while, so I’m expecting SOMETHING. “Nothing.” Its voice had no emotion, just as I made it. I never realized it would be so eerie, though…

Celest looks down at me, her hands on her knees. “What’cha up to, Demi?” I move away from my camera, and approach her. “Nothin’. Do you have any idea what’s going on?” She stands up and looks around. “I’m calling Steriya right now, actually. She’s great with pretty much anything magic, so yeah.”

Steriya suddenly teleports in, Calbdin and Tenztore in tow. “Eyup. Can you guys figure out what’s going on here?” They look around the room, Calbdin and Steriya instantly getting to work as Tenztore sits down and watches. “I suppose I’ll watch for anyone coming in.” He says as we wait for something to come up.

“There’s a strong ward spell placed on the area, it’ll take me a while. I bet it’s not doing Cal any favors either.” Steriya tells me, as Celest and I watch her do neat looking magic stuff. I legit have no idea what she’s doing, but it LOOKS important anyways.

“Continue observing.” I tell the camera, just to make sure. “Yeah…” Calbdin begins, sliding his hand across one of the branches. “We’ll be here for a while. Steriya’s right, the ward is clouding my vision.” He continues looking around, while Tenztore begins setting up a trap.

“Celest, let’s go investigate elsewhere while these guys do their thing.” I build up my body again, and pick her up.. “See ya’ guys, make sure to come get us if you find anything.” Celest tells them as she walks away with me in her arms, the other two giving us a thumbs up.

Celest and I slide down the side of the tree, avoiding the growths as I carry us down- Someone turns to look at us, and one of the growths suddenly appears around us, as though they just phased into existence… “Did they see us?” I ask as I slide up to her shoulder.

The wall around us suddenly disappears, yet she rubs her hand against its surface. “No, they think we’re just another one of the tree’s weird growths…” Huh, so she calls’em growths too- We wait until nobody is watching anymore, and begin sliding down as our bodies turn invisible.

“Couldn’t we have just done this to start with?” I asked. “Well ONE of us had to go find that cat.” She replied, as we arrived at the bottom, and started moving like nothing happened. “Well, it’s all a means to an end. Still, it was surprising to see a living girl in there so motionless. I wonder what they’re doing.” I whispered to her, as people began to start noticing we exist, as though they couldn’t before for some reason.

“It’s kind of just bizarre, if you ask me. The girl must be connected to the tree, though, and that’s connected to the skeleton…” She explained, lowering her voice when someone got too close. She hums to herself, rubbing her chin as I wait for her to figure out whatever she’s thinking of.

“I can’t help but wonder if that’s a try at true-resurrection…” She stood still and I stared, surprised this was the conclusion she came to- “Is that actually possible? Isn’t the soul irreplaceable?” I asked. “It is, but Helvetica said it herself, the soul can be held by doom just as it can be held by life.”

“The guys back on Pandora used to talk about resurrection methods all the time. Sirius and I would often joke about how obsessed with the idea they were…” She continued as we noticed another strange individual walking around. They were like a tall blue demihuman covered in fur.

They had horns and their legs were much like the hind legs of a deer. Otherwise they were covered in white armor accentuated with gold trims, and thick fluffy blue wings to fly with. “Who’s that?” Celest asked, the person obviously having caught her attention too, as they were VERY tall.

They looked to be at least ten feet, maybe even taller, I wasn’t very sure… She approached, until we could hear a conversation- “Is it now?” Turns out it was a HIM. “I’ll be sure to relay your message.” He spoke, nodding as Celest continued to approach…

His eyes turned to look at us, it was surprisingly large, especially for someone so thin looking. His eyes were a mix of blue and purple, with no noticeable white color. Sticking out from the back of his helmet was a plume of yellow feathers like two golden blades…

“Hello.” He said, as Celest and I stared up at him. “Hey… Are you from-” Celest begins, but he lifts his gauntlet to stop her. “I am not from your realm. I hail from The Advent, a realm separated from yours by subspace.” He kneeled down and spoke, his gauntlet was large for even his size, which DID help him hold onto his weapon.

“Subspace, huh? So it’s another universe.” Celest surprised me at that moment, I had never heard of subspace before- “What’s Subspace?” I asked. “It’s kind of like another dimension between universes, it was made to help people traverse the multiverse, supposedly it was created by ancient world powers, generations before the current ones.” She answered, and the thought of ancient world powers before the current ones was jarring…

I was too quickly torn out of my existential muling, when I felt myself placed in the hand of an armored gauntlet- “What are your names?” I looked at him- “I’m Celest, that’s my little sister Demitallis.” He nodded in reply and stood up, observing my form.

“I am Diviniyus, it is good to meet others who are not yet undead.” And that was ANOTHER reminder that I someday would be an ACTUAL water-spirit of some kind… “You too, man. I guess you could say I was starting to feel pretty BONELY down here…” Celest points at him, and I consider smacking her for that one-

Divi, on the other hand, stares at her for a full minute before chuckling. “Ah, yes, I understand it now. Because the population is primarily skeletons of some kind.” He grins as I jump out of his hand, and rest on Celest’s shoulders. “Why, Celest?”

“So what brings someone from The Advent to The Underworld?” Celest decided to ask Divi, emphasizing the different names with jazz-hands. “I came here a long time ago, actually. I have been working for Helvetica herself ever since.” We’re both surprised this time, since we’re technically his colleagues!

“Oh! You’re working for her too-” I quickly begin, deciding to connect a mana link between the three of us! “We’re undercover spies gathering information in this area for her. Do you have anything we don’t?” For a moment he too was shocked, but then quickly composed himself.

“Even if you are lying… there would be no harm…” He too began, as he kneeled before us. “There is plenty to know of the Underworld, my friends. Come.” He spoke, and we followed. “This realm is plagued, my friends. There is a warlord hiding somewhere.”

“The Warlord’s influence is connected with life, it touches all who live amongst the Ardent Forest. He promises them freedom, a second chance, so long as they empower him. I have been searching for it as we speak.” He gestures to the deep jungle and then the islands…

“Many seek the power to take the throne, find them, Demitallis, slay them, then once you have done so, freedom will be returned.” His wings suddenly spread and he lifted off, flying away just after he put away his giant weapon on his back…

“Now that I have an excuse to leave my post, there are other duties I must attend to!” And so he flew away, leaving me with a tinge of his mana as he left my range, just outright admitting he wanted a break…

“Returned? Is Helvetica gonna just keep us here or something?” I asked Celest, and she of course shrugged again… “Man, I have no idea why they gotta fly off all mysterious like. Just be clear, dammit!” She waved her fist in the air, screaming as everyone turned to look at us with confusion.

“I know, right? Come on, let’s go find that stupid Warlord.” She nods in agreement, and I slide back down to drift us down the street, avoiding people and cars as we go.

End of Chapter: 59 “The loss in the jungle.”

Thank you for reading.

“Ah, thank you!”

“Thank you for helping me find my cat…”

“I just wish to see my son, that’s all…”

“Get out.”

“Thank you.”