The Mists of Death was a place of darkness.

The earth and sky were shrouded in it, and the billowing winds carried the chilling touch of death. Moreover, the visibility was terrible, making the airship float alone in what seemed like infinite, all-encompassing darkness. Only an ever present glow, like the last ray of a setting sun, prevented the Mists of Death from being totally impenetrable, as if the Gods had decided to show the mortals of this land at least some pity.

“What a happy-looking place,” said Boney, looking around.

“It makes the Dead Lands seem full of life.” Jerry shook his head. “Do you think we should approach the ground, Marcus? We could be moving in circles.”

“That’s a good idea.”

The ship descended. Streams of darkness flowed around them, obstructing their sight at times, and they exuded a cold so biting that it made one’s heart feel like stopping.

The ground eventually came into sight. It was barren, cracked, dry, and strewn with bones—a perfect image of what hell might look like, or maybe a desolate desert.

“Even the undead cannot survive here,” muttered Laura. “They break apart, and their bones get scattered in the four winds…”

“You liar! Look!” said Jerry. “There’s a goat!”

Everyone followed his gaze. A goat-like animal wandered below them, colored entirely black and with three sets of horns—one of the mutated animals that Marcus had mentioned. It seemed to be chewing on bones.

“I told you, the animals here are mutated,” explained the treasure hunter. “That thing is clearly abnormal.”

“But what if it’s actually friendly?” asked Jerry. “Should we go check?”

“Anything that can survive such a high concentration of death energy is bound to be hostile, Master…”

“Oh, yeah, makes sense.”

“Boney’s right.” Laura nodded. “The only harmless creatures here are some small birds that are said to bring good luck. Besides those, trust nothing and nobody. In this place, everything is death.”

“How promising,” Marcus grumbled. “Will the wood nettle potion be enough?”

“With a double dosage, yes, but we’ll get stomach ulcers if we stay here too long.”

“Really? The explorers of Alabaster didn’t know that.”

“Maybe that’s why they died.”

“No.” Marcus shook his head. “That was due to the tentacle monsters.”

“The what?”

As the goat-like animal kept traveling below them, it passed by a wide crevice, one of the many that littered the ground. Two black tentacles shot out instantly.

The fight was intense but short. The goat only had time to bleat and move its head around a couple of times before the tentacles got a firm grip, one wrapped around its throat and the other its waist. A third tentacle lashed at its hind legs, and the three of them quickly dragged the bleating goat into the dark crevice, where it barely fit.

A loud, sickening crunch later, everything went quiet.

Everyone on the airship stared.

“What the hell was that?” Horace was the first to speak.

“I told you, tentacle monsters.” Marcus shrugged. “They inhabit the crevices and never exit. They don’t need to eat—they survive on death energy—but meat helps them reproduce.”

“Reproduce?”

“Yes. According to a group of explorers who made it out, these tentacle monsters release a spore cloud that gets scattered by the winds. If a spore lands in an empty crevice, it may mature into a new tentacle monster. That’s how they spread around the entire Mists.”

“Spore cloud?” asked Laura. “Are you saying these things are plants?”

“This is the Mists of Death. Who can tell? I just know that these things are everywhere and make traveling on the ground a total bitch.”

“I’m so glad we borrowed this airship,” Jerry repeated his earlier statement, letting out a chuckle. “So, uh… Where do we go?”

“Aracataron should be where the death energy is densest, so at the center of the Mists,” said Laura. “The Mists are a perfect hemisphere and we entered straight into it, so we should reach there if we maintain our current course. The landmarks below can help us avoid deviations.”

Everyone looked at each other.

“Sure,” said Marcus. “You heard her, boys; keep our course steady! I’ll keep a lookout for landmarks to make sure we’re going straight.”

The Billies let out a roar of agreement. However, somebody disagreed.

“Actually,” said Horace, taking a step forward to command everyone’s attention, “I have another suggestion.”

They turned to look at him. He coughed before speaking.

“Granny used to be a high-ranking member of the Order, and she knows a lot of things. Specifically…she knows how to break the Curse.”

The revelation fell like a ten-ton brick.

“Break the Curse?!” Everyone jumped up, especially Jerry. “Are you serious?”

“Very.” He nodded. “That’s what she told me before leaving. If you people really dared dive into the Mists, I was supposed to reveal everything.”

“Then tell us already!” Jerry ushered. “Don’t keep us waiting!”

“Very well.”

The airship kept crossing the darkness, flying over tentacle-infested crevices and all sorts of mutated animals—Jerry really wanted to take a look at them, but learning about the Curse took precedence. After all, that was the whole reason he’d come to the Dead Lands!

“The Curse is caused by a very elaborate magical device,” began Horace. “It’s not really a plague or anything of the sort. It’s a series of death energy ripples constantly emitted from that device, strong enough to spread all the way from the center to the edges of the Dead Lands. These ripples are formless and invisible, but as they repeatedly strike a living being, the death energy in their body accumulates until it becomes too much to bear.”

“That’s why even the sky seemed filled with death!” exclaimed Laura.

“Precisely.” Horace nodded. “This device is modeled after a legendary relic, the Soul Prism, said to hold the essence of necromancy…and actually, the Wizard Order seems to believe that item is real.”

Marcus and Laura exchanged glances. “This is the first time I hear of such a thing,” said Marcus.

“Not surprising. The five Prisms have been lost since the Great Enigma, and even the few who’ve read about them believe them to be legends. Granny thinks the same, actually…but the Order’s Archmages seemed adamant, so they might know something more. If the legends are to be believed, the last known location of the Prism was here, in the northern part of this continent…and, in fact, that’s the main reason why the Curse was unleashed here.

“They figured the Prism would react with the Curse’s energies, allowing them to locate it, but that didn’t happen. Therefore, they’re forced to rely on a fake Prism they’ve created, even though maintaining it takes an staggering amount of resources.”

“So the Curse was created just to locate this Soul Prism?” asked Boney.

“Granny wasn’t privy to everything, but finding the Soul Prism was definitely part of the reason. The other part was probably Aracataron’s magnum opus, that mysterious weapon for the sake of which he’s been holed up in the Mists ever since the Curse’s inception.”

“Really?!” Jerry looked up at the dark sky, where black streams flowed in all directions like dresses in the wind. “Doesn’t he miss the sun at all?”

“...I guess not. In any case, the Order has stubbornly maintained that fake Prism for fifty years, enshrouding our land in the Curse. They’ve even built a defensive complex around it, a place they call the Prism Dungeon. To break the Curse, we just have to raid that dungeon, destroy the Prism, and then the death energy will naturally dissipate over a few months.”

“What, just that?” Marcus’s eyes narrowed. “There has to be a catch. Otherwise, the Archmages of the Wizard Tower would easily infer the situation, then waltz in here and destroy that fake Prism. They hate the Wizard Order.”

“Of course, they could…but to those assholes, going to war over the already-ruined Dead Lands is not worth it.” He spat on the deck. “The Wizard Tower is not good, just less bad than the Order. Bastards, the lot of them.”

“I don’t buy it. If we can do it, plenty of people can.”

Horace gave him a level stare. “I don’t think you understand how special Jerry is, treasure hunter… Not to mention that this information is extremely well-hidden. I am not playing you for a fool.”

Marcus narrowed his eyes, while Jerry giggled.

“Thanks for the compliment, Horace. So, there is no catch?”

“No, there is one; it just doesn’t affect us.” The death spirit smirked. “The fake Prism was created by Aracataron himself, the only person in the world capable of doing so. If we destroy it, he could just recreate it before the Curse has time to dissipate. We would have achieved nothing except incurring some material cost for the Order.”

“Unless Aracataron couldn’t repair it,” Boney mused. Laura chuckled.

“If he was dead, for example.”

“Exactly!” Horace smiled widely, clenching his fist. “Assassinating Aracataron was already our goal. If we destroy that fake Prism too, we can break the Curse!”

“That’s amazing!” Jerry pumped a fist. “I told you I could lift the Curse!”

Horace laughed. “That remains to be seen, my necromancer friend.”

Laura, however, cupped her chin. “That Prism sounds like a device of massive power…and Aracataron’s ritual, whatever it is, must be very complex as well. I doubt those two are anywhere near each other, or there would be serious interference. We probably have to get them one-by-one—well, not that I mind.”

“Fine by me.” Jerry laughed. “So, what should we go for first? Aracataron or the fake Prism?”

“Aracataron, of course! Otherwise, he’ll definitely know we broke it and will be ready to fight us.”

“Actually,” said Laura, winking at Horace, “I have a different idea.”

“Oh?”

“I know some things about Aracataron. He’s arrogant, but he’s also constantly surrounded by a large squad of death knights. They represent most of his strength; getting past them to ambush him will be difficult.”

“So? What do you suggest?”

“Well, Aracataron is obsessed with his project, to the point where he even refuses to see guests. If he senses that someone is attacking the fake Prism, do you think he will go there himself?”

“No!” said Jerry, his eyes shining. “He will send his death knights!”

“Exactly!” She smiled. “He’ll send a good number of death knights over, then forget about the issue to keep working. Remember, he’s arrogant, and a necromancer’s detection abilities are second to none. Then, if we somehow manage to escape his death knights and attack him while they’re away…a large part of his power will be missing. Maybe, we’ll have a chance.”

“So we should treat the fake Prism as a diversion?” asked Horace.

“Yes. It’s risky, of course, but I think our chances of success will be higher than facing his entire army of death knights. Approaching him unnoticed is almost impossible, anyway.”

“Hmm…” Marcus cupped his chin, simultaneously looking down to keep the landmarks in mind and adjust their course. “That’s some very specific information you have there, Laura… Just how high-ranking were you in the Wizard Order?”

“Not at all, but my parents were very,” she replied. “I would rather not talk about it.”

“Of course.” He nodded. “I’m sorry for intruding. I trust you.”

“Well, Laura’s got the information and she’s smart. I say we go with her plan,” proposed Jerry.

“I agree with Master.”

“I trust you too,” said Horace, nodding. “You have my bow.”

Axehand raised an axe.

“And my undead!” claimed Jerry, laughing. “What a nice team we are.”

“Excellent, then,” Marcus concluded. “So, where is that fake Prism, Horace?”

“I have no idea,” he replied with a straight face. Everyone gazed at him incredulously, and he held their gazes for a good few seconds before continuing, “but Jerry should be able to sense its location, according to Granny.”

“Hmm? Sense it?”

Jerry looked around, then closed his eyes and focused on his soul. He spread it out as far as he could, sensing the souls of everyone on-board and another mutated goat below. He felt a tentacle monster too, a mindless, beastly creature lurking in a wide crevice.

Even Birb’s soul was within his detection range, though it flew far ahead of the airship to detect danger. Birb wasn’t mentioned often, but it played an extremely important role in protecting them from mishaps.

Huh. I’ve gotten stronger again, haven’t I?

Last time he’d tried this, his range had been slightly shorter.

However, despite sensing all these creatures, Jerry could sense no Curs—

Wait. What’s that?

Something tickled the back of his mind. Something wasn’t quite right. He doubled down on his soul perception, investigating a patch of empty air, and there it was! A ripple flowing through his soul, so tiny he wouldn’t have noticed it if he wasn’t specifically looking for it.

It spread over the airship and everyone, into their bodies, over the ground below, and into every crevice…and Jerry could sense its direction. It was coming from somewhere. His finger was already pointing there before he opened his eyes.

“Found it,” he said. “The ripples are coming from that direction.”

The direction he pointed at was slightly to the left of their current course, raising a couple of brows.

“Shouldn’t the fake Prism be at the center of the Mists?” asked Marcus. His question made sense, and nobody seemed to have a good answer.

“Maybe we’re off-course.” Jerry shrugged.

“We wouldn’t be. I was keeping watch.”

“Well, the fake Prism is in that direction, for sure.”

Laura frowned. “That’s odd. If the fake Prism is not at the center, Aracataron’s ritual probably is…but in any case, I don’t think navigation will be a problem. If the two are anywhere close to each other, Jerry should be able to sense the magic fluctuations and guide us.”

“He can do that?” asked Marcus.

“I can do that?” asked Jerry.

“Yes…”

“Excellent.” Horace stepped in. “Now, let’s get going before these tentacle monsters learn to fly.”

“Ah, yes, that would be unfortunate.” Boney nodded. Marcus barked some orders, the Billies turned the sails, and the ship slowly turned as well. Jerry kept his eyes closed as he constantly felt the ripples, guiding them better than any landmark could.

Gradually, the ripples grew stronger. And as the hours passed…they approached the Prism Dungeon.

It was time to raid.