Two days later, we came across an oasis. It was rather strange, though, as there weren’t any settlements around it. For a moment I thought it may have been a mirage, but I didn’t think it was quite hot enough to make me see such an illusion. Sure enough, it actually was real and we took a break there and washed ourselves. Not too far from that oasis was a small canyon. I wasn’t surprised to see it, because when I told Flora about what the soldier brought up, she said it did sound familiar. Hiram travelled around Midgard a fair bit when he was a young man and he mentioned coming across a canyon in the middle of the Lost Wastelands that had several caves at the base of it. He said he found rare and potent herbs inside the caves. The last thing Flora had to say about what she recalled was that the place was also rather dangerous, but she couldn’t remember why he said that.

We stayed north of the canyon, but as we continued traveling, I think I did see some caves at the bottom, so this may have been the same canyon. An hour later, we came across what were probably the ruins. Well, it was some kind of ruins. Broken stones, barely reminiscent of the walls, structures, or stones they once were, were strewn all about a space hundreds of yards across. Also, the walls of the canyon sloped into a steep ramp leading down to the base of the canyon.

“So, this is the place,” I said flatly, still unsure about how I felt now that we were here.

“Looks like it,” Tasha commented back. She peered across the vast expanse of debris, but saw no kind of monument or structure that particularly stood out.

“Um, I really don’t think we should be here,” Flora spoke, fear creeping into her voice. Well, that’s an understandable thought.

“Well, you can hide out somewhere until we’re finished with this place,” I suggested. I was no longer afraid, or maybe it was because I was still somewhat afraid, that I wanted to deal with this directly now.

“Yes, Flora, you don’t need to fight with us.” I doubt Tasha really meant any offense by that, but she really was quite useless during most of the last fight.

“N- no, I’m not talking about those soldiers. There’s…something else. It just feels really wrong being here. We should leave.”

“Are we about to get ambushed again?” I scanned all around us but saw nothing.

“No, I- I don’t feel anything coming. It’s just…this place. This place doesn’t feel right.” Tasha walked deeper into the ruins and started randomly pushing aside loose stones.

“Is there something else hiding around here?” she asked as she continued her haphazard search.

“You should stop doing that, Tasha. We should at least come to an agreement before we decide to go any further.” I followed her, and with great trepidation, Flora came as well.

“What do you mean?” Tasha asked me after dropping a large stone slab. I am going to assume that her action did not have any threatening connotation.

“We haven’t discussed it all that well since…since last time, but just what exactly do you plan to do? If necessary, I plan to kill them.” She continued her random search among the ruins for another moment without talking or looking back.

“I hope it doesn’t become necessary, then,” she responded, her tone a bit distant.

“Are you saying you also plan to do what I’m going to do?” I needed more clarification, and not more of what I considered as pretty much a non-answer. The pause before her next response was even longer than the first. During that time, Flora made a series of uneasy noises.

“I don’t want anyone to die,” Tasha finally responded.

“But if someone had to die, you’d rather kill than let yourself be killed, right?” Tasha continued as before, searching through the debris in silence, without glancing back to look at me even once. “Tasha, answer me.” She continued to ignore me. I marched up to her and grabbed her by the arm as she was about to push over a large stone. “Tasha.” I pulled her towards me, but she hung her head and refused to look at me.

“Um, I really, really think we shouldn’t be here…” Flora spoke up nervously.

“Flora, be quiet.” I brought my head down to her level, but she continued to cast her gaze down to the ground. “Tasha, we are not here to play nice with these murderers. Either we kill them so they cannot kill anyone else, or we leave and forget all about them. There is no middle ground here. They are not the sort of people who will change from just a show of strength. I believe that was made clear as day from that last soldier.” My frustration grew as Tasha still refused to acknowledge me. “If you do not have the resolve to kill, then that’s fine. We can just leave.”

“Yeah, we really should!”

“Shut up, Flora!” I took a deep breath. “If you can’t kill, then we can leave and forget about this. But, if you really want to fight these people, then I will fight them with you. I will risk my life for you. However, if that’s what you want, then you must be able to fight with your life on the line as well. They will try to kill you during any chance they can get. If you stay focused, and fight seriously, then I doubt they can do anything to you. But, if you plan to go in there, with the intention to spare all of them…you will die. No matter what, I will not let you die in such a stupid way. So, tell me! What is your decision?!” Finally, Tasha raised her head and looked me right in the eyes. She had on a look of determination, but determination for what? She pulled away from me while still looking directly at me. Then, without a word, she turned around and continued her search. I gritted my teeth in quiet rage. Flora came up behind me and tapped me on the back. I turned around, trying to keep my composure.

“Mr. Braith…”

“Yes, Flora,” I said, trying not to sound angry.

“I think we should leave now…” I let out a sigh of exasperation.

“Sure, I don’t see why not. Tasha clearly doesn’t know what she needs to do.” I went over to Tasha just as she pushed over a large boulder. It rolled over and revealed an opening in the ground. What great timing. “Tasha, don’t go down there, we’re leaving.” She ignored me and jumped down the hole. I groaned in frustration as I got ready to chase after her. “Flora, wait outside!” I jumped down the hole and found myself inside a tunnel that was both low and dark. I didn’t see any magical torches or stones illuminating the entrance and the ceiling was less than a foot over my head. Just barely, I could make out Tasha’s figure as she quickly made her way down the path. I ran after her, but as I did, she sped up as well. “Tasha, stop running away! We are leaving here right now!”

I charged up a couple bolts through my legs, but as I started gaining on her, she broke into an all-out sprint. This really seemed rather dangerous, as the hallway was now pitch-black and if it weren’t for the path being so straight, I probably would have crashed into the wall a few times already. I could only assume she had yet to get away from me from the sound of her quick steps and breathing. I charged up another bolt through my legs and hoped that the direction of the path wouldn’t suddenly change. I heard her louder and clearer as I raced down the path, and prepared myself to collide with her, as I still could not make her out in the darkness.

Suddenly, I tripped over something. I crashed into the wall and hit the ground. I coughed a few times as dust started collecting in my throat. Tasha’s steps got further away from me once more as I brought myself back up. I coughed a couple more times and I started feeling a bit nauseous. I started running after her again, and just as I was about to reach my top speed, I heard something fall up ahead. I continued running, but when I didn’t hear Tasha footsteps anymore, I slowed down and jogged by the wall. As I got further, I could hear coughing.

“Tasha, is that you?” No response. I slowed down a bit more and tried to focus, but it was futile in this aphotic environment. “Tasha, please, if you’re there, answer me!” I heard another cough, this one sounding stifled. As I still continued walking forward, I heard something lean against the wall. Another cough came, louder this time. “Tasha, hurry up and say something!” The coughing started up again, and whatever was leaning against the wall sounded like it was now gradually falling back to the ground. A few moments later of intermittent coughs, it now sounded like I was right in front of whoever was coughing. “Tasha…”

“What…?” It was her voice, but it sounded incredibly strained.

“Are you…okay?” She coughed in the middle of my question.

“Y- yeah…” I heard Tasha pull herself up against the wall, but I also heard her start sliding down again. I took another step forward, and I felt my legs wobble a bit. This was strange. I breathed in some air, and noticed that it felt…kind of thick. I slid further forward along the wall, and held out one hand, finally touching something, probably Tasha.

“Tasha, that’s you, right?”

“Yeah…” I heard her slide further down the wall at the same time whatever I was touching also went away. I reached down and felt around.

“Tasha, we’re getting out of here now,” I said as calmly as I could.

“B- but…” she coughed again. “We must…stop them…” Tasha tried to move away from me but I grabbed onto her and pulled her in right up against me. The action left me light-headed for some reason, but it was also pretty easy to do. I found her arm and started dragging her back down the hallway. She continued to cough, and a few times, I felt her trying to resist, but they were rather pathetic attempts. As I continued to drag her along though, I felt my own strength also start to fade away. She still didn’t feel heavy, but I started feeling kind of exhausted from nausea. Then, I started coughing again as well. These coughs hurt my throat more than usual, and my mouth started feeling very dry.

“T- Tasha,” the raspiness of my voice surprised me, “how are you feeling?”

“…bad…” she wheezed out in a voice that almost didn’t even sound like hers. I sped up to get out of this dark pathway as I started to feel unnerved by it. I wasn’t particularly afraid of the dark, but being down here without any light for so long was starting to get to me. Eventually, I saw light up ahead shining down from the entrance earlier. The renewed light was almost blinding. I dragged Tasha to the hole and threw her up and out of it. Then, I jumped up and pulled myself out as well. I slumped down over the ground, the sun beating down on me.

“You two look terrible, what happened?” Flora asked with great concern.

“N- nothing…we’re getting out of here.” I picked myself back up with great difficulty, and had to lean against a large stone to keep myself on my feet. Tasha was sprawled out on the other side of the hole, face-down. “Flora, help Tasha up.” Flora went over to her and put one arm under each of Tasha’s armpits. Flora heaved and pulled Tasha up and set her against a different large stone. Her eyes were closed and her face was unmoving. “T- Tasha, are you okay?” No response. Flora inspected Tasha for a bit, and checked to see if she was injured somewhere. I suddenly went into a coughing fit before I could ask for the results.

“Mr. Braith, are you okay?” I was a bit surprised by the question. Clearly, Tasha is the one you should be worried about.

“I’m…fine. What about Tasha?”

“Tasha…she’s unconscious.”

“W- what, why?” I asked, still coughing.

“Mr. Braith, please try and remember, what happened down there?” she asked, panic in her voice.

“N- Nothing. We just were running. Just running for a while. Then, we both tripped.”

“Tripped on what?”

“I don’t know; it was too dark to see anything.” I really couldn’t make it out at all, but the sensation did seem eerily familiar.

“What else, then?” Flora asked her follow-up question quickly, her nervousness from before suddenly gone.

“Uh,” I coughed again and almost keeled over, “I, uh, got some dust in my throat and started coughing. Uh...Tasha also started coughing, a lot more than me though.” I coughed again. “Well, kind of like right now.” My head started pounding and it was hard to see straight. Flora came over to me and laid her hands over my head.

“By my contract with the guardian tree, grant thee nature’s blessing.” Instantly, the headache and the coughing fit went away. However, I still felt exhausted. “Did that help?”

“Yeah, it helped a lot. Quick, please do it for Tasha, too.” Flora nodded and repeated the same thing for Tasha, but she didn’t wake up. “Why isn’t it helping?”

“I don’t know…Mr. Braith, are you sure there wasn’t something else that happened down there?”

“Uh,” I wracked my brain trying to recall anything else, “the air was…I don’t know, kind of thick I guess.”

“Thick?”

“Yeah, it was kind of hard to breathe.”

“So there wasn’t very much air down there?”

“No, not like that. It was more like…there was something else in the air…” My eyes widened from the sudden realization. It may have been just speculation, but it also seemed obviously true. First off, what we’re we even doing here? We came here because we were told this was the True-Bloods’ base. Well, pretty safe to say that that was clearly a lie. But why would the soldier mention this place in particular? He wanted us dead, even if he could not do it directly. That sickening feeling as we got deeper, the “things” that were lying on the ground? Maybe even something to do with Flora’s feeling of unease?

“What is it, Mr. Braith? Why did you suddenly go quiet?”

“Poison gas.”

“What?”

“There’s poison in that underground passage. We’re not the first to figure that out either. There are at least two others who died in that passageway. Tch…I can’t believe I was stupid enough to think that soldier actually gave us directions to his base.”

“Poison? But, I don’t think that’s something my powers can cure. Or, at least, it’s not something I should have been able to help with without knowing about it first.”

“You only helped with the symptoms, probably.” I went over to Tasha and picked her up. “Also, if it really was poison in the air, it explains why it was worse for Tasha. She was sprinting a lot harder and she has a smaller body.” I found the nearest remains of a wall and set her down over there for what little shade it provided. “Here, get out your apothecary thing and make an antidote or something.”

“An antidote?”

“Yes, for the poison.” I then hit myself in the head after saying that. Is this some kind of role-playing game? Real antidotes only apply to specific poisons. Antidotes aren’t just some sort of cure-all.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t have the ingredients for that.”

“Don’t have the ingredients? Wait, you know what kind of poison this is?” I frantically grabbed her by the shoulders.

“No, but if I have some very potent ingredients to work with, I could make something to fight the poison.” She responded quite calmly given my sudden advance, and she looked off to the side for a bit, as if pondering. “Wait! Let me try my powers again. If I know it’s poison, maybe I can do something.” She went over to Tasha, who was now visibly starting to break out into some kind of fever. Sweat was running off her brow, her face was flushed, her body was shivering slightly, and her breathing was haggard. She tried using her powers on Tasha again, and the shivering and heavy breathing stopped. However, she still looked like she was burning up. Just then, I felt my throat start to feel a bit dry. As I thought, she was only alleviating the symptoms. Flora looked back to me, her panic and desperation showing.

“Flora, you said that if you have the ingredients, you can make an antidote, right?” After I asked my question, I felt my forehead start to burn again.

“Y- yes, probably. No, I can definitely do it!” she announced with determination. I looked over to the direction of the canyon.

“You said your grandfather found some rare herbs here, right? Do you think they would do the trick?” Flora brightened up a bit.

“Yes! In particular, he mentioned finding violet ivy. One bunch of them is already very potent.” Flora got up. “Let’s go and find them!” Her eyes were suddenly very bright and I almost thought it looked like she was smiling slightly.

“No,” I said, putting my hand out, signalling her to sit back down. “Watch over Tasha, I’ll go.”

“What? Are you sure?”

“Who else is going to look after her?” Her wide eyes shrunk back to normal.

“Oh, right. Yes, okay, I will look after her.” She seated herself once more. “I will wait here and try to keep her from getting any worse. Wait, what about you? I should help you as well right now.” She was about to get back up to use her powers on me but I just motioned with my hand again to get her to stay down.

“No, I don’t want you to end up using all your energy up. Just stay here and look after Tasha.” I felt an itch starting to grow in my throat. “Okay, violet ivy. It looks just like ivy right, but violet?”

“Um, yeah.”

“Is there anything I could confuse it with?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, I’ll be thorough just in case.” I pulled out a torch that I took from the True-Bloods and headed off towards the slope that led down to the base of the canyon. Hopefully, I would not have to go very deep into the caves or explore multiple ones, but I was prepared for such unfortunate circumstances nonetheless. Now, seeing as how Flora could just as easily, if not more easily retrieve the ingredient, it seems it would have been better to swap places with her. Especially since Flora probably couldn’t use her powers much more today and the effects were minimal. But Hiram said this place was dangerous, and I don’t think he would neglect leaving out mention of a poisonous tunnel.

The steep slope was somewhat difficult to climb down with my body in its increasingly feverish state, but I didn’t slip down or fall off. I arrived at the base of the canyon and saw five or so caves. I walked towards the nearest one and didn’t see anything growing by the entrance. I was about to walk further in to explore deeper, but I noticed something. The canyon was almost dead silent. However, the one sound I could hear faintly was wind. I didn’t feel any wind in the canyon, though. I wiped the sweat off my forehead and concentrated. It definitely did sound like wind, but what else sounds like wind? I couldn’t really think of anything else, but I decided to move towards that sound. The sound seemed to be coming from the cave furthest from the slope that I came down from. I stood at the entrance of the cave, and although I still couldn’t feel any wind moving around me, I thought I could distinctly hear it coming from inside that cave. With a torch held out in front of me to light the way, I entered.

I lowered the torch to light the ground before me, making sure to not miss what I was looking for. I also brought the torch back up, just in case there was something on the ceiling as well. There wasn’t, and I had no idea if I would ever encounter anything that would grow like that. After a couple minutes of walking into the cave, I still encountered nothing, and my whole body started feeling weak again. My arm was even starting to shake a bit from just holding the torch. On the bright side, though, I think the wind sound was getting louder. I couldn’t be sure, though, my hearing was starting to get a bit fuzzy as well.

When my eyelids started feeling heavy, I slapped myself across the face to keep awake. It worked, but I also ended up dropping the torch at the same time. The torch rolled across the floor, as apparently, the cave had been running deeper underground since I entered. I chased after it until the torch rolled into the cave wall. As I bent down to pick it back up, two things happened.

One, a gust of wind blew in from deeper inside the cave, and two, there was a terrifying shadow being cast down beside the torch. I turned my head to see what was casting the shadow right as the powerful gust extinguished the torch. I did get a glimpse of what it was though, and it sent shivers down my spine. It was a giant spider hanging off the cave ceiling, and many, many more behind it. Now, I have encountered many spiders before, and although they scared me terribly as a child, I’m used to them now. Well, mostly. When I see them nowadays, if they’re small enough, I try to just ignore them. As for larger ones, I usually get a prickling sensation, and then I tell myself to just kill them. These ones, though, were huge. I didn’t get a good look, but even tarantulas were small compared to these ones. This also taught me very clearly that my phobia had not been cured like I thought.

My body froze as I entered pitch darkness. Above me, and all around me, the relative silence of the cave was broken as I heard the sound of a myriad of enormous spiders shuffling above and all around me. During the brief moment I broke free from the paralyzing fear, I tried to will myself to turn around and run out of the cave. At the same time, though, I also thought about the possibility of the herbs I was looking for being in this cave.

Before I could weigh the two against each other, I felt something drop onto my back. Every nerve in my body shook as I felt the thing crawl onto my neck. My fever had now been completely replaced by frozen fear. I heard more dropping onto the ground all around me, and I felt their weight on me as they crawled onto me. Deep inside, I wanted to scream out and run out of the cave, crying like a baby, but no matter how much my insides were violently churning, my body refused to move. More and more got onto me, and their combined weight was gradually forcing me to the ground. As my sense of fear continued to get overloaded, my mind went completely blank. I could not see, hear, or feel anything. I may also have even fallen unconscious, I simply had no way of really knowing.

After an unknown amount of time, I regained my senses. I was lying face-down on the ground, but I was no longer in absolute darkness. The sudden influx of light caused me to close my eyes again. I slowly reopened them, as the burning shift from darkness to light eased. With my eyes partially open and adjusted now, I thought that the lighting seemed familiar, and when I looked, I saw light stones in the walls. However, I also saw the immense mass of spiders hanging off the walls and waiting around all across the floor. As my level of fear rapidly shot up, a voice cut in right before my mind began overloading again.

“Hello…” The voice…was not an ordinary speaking voice. Maybe it was because I was still scared, but although I cannot describe it well, the voice induced the same kind of hair raising sensation as spiders crawling on my body. As such, I did not immediately respond. “I did not expect another visitor so soon…” It was a curious comment, but fear kept my mouth shut. However, I was finally able to shift my gaze to the direction of the speaker.

He had tangled strands of hair that ran down his face, covering his eyes. He wore some kind of pure white robe, made out of something I could not recognize. Perhaps due to my continued silence, the man walked towards me. His robe went all the way to the ground and covered his feet, but I thought I could hear the sounds of sandals or something similar slapping against the ground as he walked. He stopped right in front of me, and knelt down. He brought his face right up to mine, and I could make out some features through the long mess of hair. His eyes were closed for some reason and his complexion was gaunt and very pale. His face was barely wrinkled, but looked aged at the same time. As my brain tried to take in more details, he suddenly opened his eyes. They had a faded silvery white colour and did not move around at all as I stared at them.

“Uh,” I found myself grunting out. I had no idea how long I had just been staring into his eyes, but it was probably far longer than any other time I’ve done that. “Uh?” I was trying to ask a question, but it seems I forgot how my mouth worked.

“You are…a lot less talkative than the others…”

“Okay,” I said very slowly, while nodding even slower. He then put one hand on the top of my head.

“Are you scared…?” Initially, I thought he was asking out of concern. “…You should be…” My fear which had plateaued suddenly went up a level.

“Yeah…” Come on, Braith, you can do better than one word at a time. “Who are you?” Awesome, great job.

“That…does not matter. Knowing that…will not help you.” Okay, please, tell me what will help me, then. I’m serious. “You…have one chance. Spare no details…why are you here?” Remembering the urgency of why I came here seemed to be just enough to pull me out of my sense of fear and dread, if only enough to talk properly.

“I am looking for something. Um, violet ivy…yes, I’m looking for violet ivy. I need it to make an antidote. My daughter and I were poisoned just recently.” Then, almost on cue, I realized that my throat was completely parched and aching, and I entered a short coughing fit. With my sense of feeling and awareness back, I realized that my entire body had broken out in cold sweat. “A friend told me that I could find the violet ivy in the caves down here.” My voice was trembling slightly. “Please, do you know where I might find it?” I never thought I would be asking for a favour in this kind of situation, but it seemed like the best idea to be genuine. During this whole time, the man’s expression was impassive. A moment after I finished though, he grinned at me. Then, he got back up and turned his back to me, and I could see and hear the spiders start to move about more energetically. Dread sunk back in. Did I make a mistake? Just now, I mean. I probably made several mistakes leading up to this in just the past…hour or so?

“You really are different from the last ones…” Is that bad or good? Please, tell me that’s good! “Well, not that different…” Am I going to die? Is there any helping it? I still have my sword, but I saw absolutely no chance of victory. I didn’t even know how to use my powers currently due to a variety of factors rendering me impotent. “Is there anything else you would like to say?” Yes, tons!

“Please, I need to help her.” In the instant before my reply, I imagined countless ways of pleading, bargaining, and lying. In the end, though, perhaps believing I wouldn’t be allotted much time, I settled on that. The man turned back around and the spiders stopped moving about. He knelt back down again, and I found myself staring into his blank eyes once more.

“You have a very grey soul…as is common. You do not believe yourself to be either good or evil…also common. You are often just steps away from one or the other though…less common. Lastly, you can strongly influence the souls of others…rare. Rare in that you do not need to tear apart their lives…unlike the others who have moved in. If you wish…go northwest and seek out what you came here to find.” I very dearly wanted to ask him about what he was going on about, but I felt it was better to remain silent. After another moment of staring into his eyes, he spoke again. “You shall be spared…this is my judgement…” He then gently pressed his thumbs against my top eyelids. “Close your eyes.” I obeyed. “And remember to never return.” My breathing rapidly quickened and I felt like I was starting to suffocate. However, I kept my eyes closed, fearing worse consequences if I disobeyed. My light-headedness shifted into a complete feeling of detachment and this time I am sure I fainted.