From the fragments, a rush of smoky light washes over us, oddly stifling. Not expecting much of it, I draw my sword, ready for whatever Arevas has to throw at us.

"That trinket will avail you little," Arevas declares, the suffocating pressure returning in force, pushing most of the group to it's knees under the weight of the Archdemon's ire, "If you would cloak yourself in prosaic denial, then allow me to put the lie to your jejune bravado, you insipid wretch."

 

 

Before I can even process what's going on, the liquid beneath the pool surges forward, engulfing and suffusing me. The distance between us might as well not have existed. Though I can register it's presence as it floods through the gaps in my armour and underclothes, overtaking my body and piercing through every pore; I can't feel anything from my Vessel's flesh. Like my body instantly numbed.

Then comes excruciating pain, at once hot, cold, slicing and aching. My Soul practically vibrates as what feels like a burred grinding wheel scrapes across it's entirety, like a novel advancement on the classic Iron Maiden's design. Meanwhile, tendrils drag themselves through the surface, dredging up quickly intensifying feelings of jealousy and self-loathing from somewhere deep within, compounding upon itself more and more as my consciousness sinks like an anchor into a colourless void.

Something audibly cracks, breaking away - the fragmentation of my soul shoots up to 30% in concert. A ghastly, raw agony radiates like a wyvernfire burn wound or a dismembered leg.

I don't know how I can find the energy to be pithy. It's as if this conscious part of me is being shielded from the ravaging energies.

Not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I don't know what it is I'm supposed to do in this situation. I'm hardly a gifted mage, and my knowledge of Soul magic is definitely lacking - focused on recognising and avoiding it, not breaking free of a freaking Archdemon's focused effort to make an example of me.

If this spell was an enemy, I could at the very least cut it with my...sword?

Looking around this strange internal world, I recognise a familiar-looking blade, calling to me, stabbed straight into the wall, visual space distorting around the puncture, reminding me of that diagram of a gravity well my physics teacher showed me in high school.

Ah, the source of my earlier consternation, is it?

I don't even need to think about walking towards the sword as, already, I'm 'stood' in front of it. There's little remarkable about it, besides the almost crystalline material, without embellishments or aesthetic panache. No sense of power, nor in-born will.

I feel a compulsion to take hold of its smooth hilt, but feel like something will unravel the moment I do.

I'm, generally speaking, not one to obey such urges...but under the circumstances, I don't expect it can make things any worse. So I take it in hand and exert my full willpower to extract the sword from its sheath. It refuses to budge at first, but as I dedicate more of my focus and desire to the action, it begins to slide free. 

And immediately, things get worse.

Now, I feel everything.

Unfiltered.

---

 

Henna

"No, I won't be owned," Henna spits back at the arrogant voice in her head, "I don't need-"

"Spare me your sophisms, girl, you're only deceiving yourself," Arevas cuts her off lazily, "Whether him or me, the only difference to you is that I at least I'm honest about my intentions from the outset. Or do you think that well-placed platitudes are a stable foundation for cooperation? Given your adroitness in avoiding more sophisticated snares, that you'd be so weak-willed as to give of yourself so freely the first person to give your snivelling the time of day is rather disappointing."

"The source of my torment seeks to pass judgment from on high?" Henna growls, "Fie upon thy name, creature of deepest evil, thou shalt never see Starlight radiant!"

"How quaint," the Archdemon comments, bemused, "You seek to indict me on the principles of morality? I care not for mortal law and belief, only that which sustains and enervates me. To see mortals ignore, revile and deny both I and the Truth that birthed me, time and time again throughout each Era...It is tiresome in its repetition and aggravating in its lack of understanding. To borrow a phrase taken from your beloved owner's mind, it is akin to cutting off your nose to spite your face."

From the roiling black prison engulfing Silver, a wet, bony crack resounds, a pair of arms protruding towards the restrained and prone group of would-be heroes, followed by yet more grasping limbs, all protruding from the torso of a featureless, humanoid figure coloured deep crimson red.

"Look, then, to what your 'saviour' keeps restrained," Arevas gloats, "Is such an ugly beast truly worthy of admiration? Is the man? I think not."

"This is your doing!" Henna recoils from the creature instinctively, a profane sense of abhorrent desire emanating from within it.

"Yes. But such base tricks are only as effective as the materials used, and such being the case...the result rather speaks for itself," the demon admits casually, "Besides which, this is only a small preview of what lies beneath, the worst is yet to come. Assuming you even survive that long, of course."

As if on cue, the malformed beast lunges forward, targeting Henna, either on the command of the Archdemon that gave rise to it's creation or some other reason, the forest of limbs in it's torso splay out raining punches, hammer blows and scratches on the kneeling Battlesmith, each attack carrying surprising power for such an awkward-looking foe, but any product of an Archdemon's magic is sure to be formidable, even if imprisoned.

Between the perverse aura of the monster, the pressure exerted by Arevas's mere existence and her own trepidatious mind, mounting any kind of defence proves to be impossible. Henna recognises that to do nothing in this situation will most certainly spell her doom, where death would be the kinder fate, and the least likely outcome. But even with her strides in gaining the power to stand for herself and others, she once more finds herself lacking, the identity of Arevas as something even a Dragon Knight failed to destroy not even registering in her mind.

'I'm just not good enough, after all...I'm still worthless...'

The thought crosses her mind as sharp nails hitch into gouges in her armour's surface, the multitudinous limbs grabbing on to her arms, head and torso, looking to drag her deep into the mesh. Henna bites her upper lip, hard enough that she feels it split and gush blood into her mouth.

Suddenly, the creature staggers back, a knife deeply embedded in it's non-face, followed by a flying kick to ram it in to the hilt, courtesy of Olrica, "No you fuckin' don't! Not this time!"

Bounding off with the recoil, the Scout shudders and breathes heavily from the exertion the stunt cost her under the inhospitable environment, "Fffuck....you..."

As if to mock her, one of the shorter arms reaches up slowly while it stabilises itself to pluck the blade from it's flesh, then shatter it into pieces with a casual clench of it's fist. The diagonal gash in the creature's head leaks no blood or fluid, as if it were hollow from the start. Even so, it's enough time for the group to drag their protesting bodies to their feet and engage it, Windy and Henna leading the charge while Olrica staggeringly circles to it's rear with her only remaining weapon to hand, a Copper-Tier toothpick of a stiletto far beneath her level.

Henna takes the flank, doing her best to put her turbulent thoughts to the side, not wanting to confront them when her life is on the line, when it takes all her willpower just to keep her body from crumpling on itself. But those thoughts are not wont to leave her be, even so, piercing through the veneer of enforced ignorance and empty-mindedness at random as she hacks away at the flailing arms ineffectually.

"Ignore the limbs, Henna!" Angelus orders, his attention torn between Windy and Silver, unsure of what to do about the Guild Leader's plight, "Focus on the main body! Windy, you alright?"

"Goddamn peachy, thanks," Windy replies sarcastically, struggling to free her shield from the manifold grasp of the monster, "And you can fuck off as well, Big Bird, I'm concentrating here and I am in no mood for your amateur psychoanalyst bullshit. Christ, you sound just like my humanities teacher, the pretentious prick. Hey, Jade, take a look around for something that'll help, there should be some good shit in here!"

"Aight, on it," the Harrier responds with surprising energy reaching to take a nearby battleaxe wielded by a hulking Lion Panoplast with deadened eyes, before immediately recoiling when a tentacle of dark oily fluid lashes out from the floor beneath him to swat her hand away, "Whoa! Ow, alright, alright, shut up Mephisto, I don't fuckin' care if it's 'yours' or not, su Casa, mi Casa, asshole!"

Moving swiftly, Jade strafes side to side in a z-pattern to confuse the tendril's aim, successfully circumventing it - for a moment. It lances backwards at the pernicious fox, only to miss and stab straight through the exposed, muscular torso of the large man. Grinning at it's apparent clumsiness, Jade once more reaches to take possession of the axe.

Moving on instinct, she ducks and launches herself backwards, that same axe swiping through the air where she once stood with a stiff, yet incomparably swift motion, like a mechanical toy soldier. The tendril flows into the body, leaving no evidence of a wound, a soft smoky wisp rising off his frame like darkened steam.

"Well, shit," she curses, "Uhhh, I got a problem over here!"

"Handle it yourself, Sher, I'm busy-" Windy grunts, sent skidding backwards by a concentrated punch from many fists acting in concert, "-with Silver's inner demon or whatever over here. Hey, Jupiter! Give her a hand would ya?"

"Orders received, Vice Boss! I, Wizard Supreme(to be) will magnanimously fix our comrade's fuck-up!" Jupiter boasts, switching targets.

"Hey, screw you! I didn't know shitty Satan-wannabe's action figure collection would try'n kill me!" Jade takes the time to flip him the bird between attacks from the puppeted body of the lion-headed warrior, "And he still won't shut the fuck up! Argh, for the last time, take a fucking hint creep, I'm not interested! You already nabbed the Tour Guide, I'm more than your poser ass can afford."

"Jade!" Windy admonishes her instantly.

"Yeah, yeah," she sighs, "Whaddaya want me to- unf -do about it?! Take it up with the magic boys!"

"I don't have anything capable of cleansing the debuff, unfortunately," Angelus laments after healing Windy, "He's on his own in there, nothing for it I'm afraid."

One by one, Henna notices the collected men and women's bodies lurch into action, "They're all waking up, we'll be swarmed!"

"Fuuuuck saaaaakes!" Windy grouses, frustrated, "It's taking all we have just to deal with th-"

A crunching noise from the cocooned Silver interrupts her complaining.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding," she hisses, "Take this one down, we've got another spawning in!"

"Silver..." Henna whispers, anguish flooding in, "Endure..."

---

 

Have you ever had the chance to experience what it's like to have your innards and thoughts torn and scooped out of you, piece by blood-drenched piece?

If not, then I'm at a loss as to how best to describe what it is that I'm experiencing, as a huge chunk of self-loathing and envy is forcibly taken from me, like pulling apart a tender rack of BBQ ribs. For all I know, that could actually be happening to my physical body right now, in order to give that ugly, tumorous mass flesh of it's own.

The fragmentation of my soul is now at 56%. Conversely, the integrity of the spell trapping and parcelling out these pieces of my psyche hasn't budged even a fraction of a percent since I removed the lynchpin in my, for the lack of a better term, 'Soulspace'. Though I have the vague (increasingly vague at that), sense that it's the key to my escape from this situation, I remain at a loss of how to proceed from here.

It's not as though it came with instructions or a hint as to its use. As it has the form of a sword, I suppose I could use it as a weapon, but without a target to use it on, I can't claim that is the correct course of action. The only thing here is this projection of my consciousness, and stabbing myself strikes me as counter-productive.

What doesn't help matters is that I am experiencing excruciating agony on a scale beyond anything I've endured in my long life. I'll take getting flayed alive by a particularly sadistic Corprasamancer's custom-designed skin-eating spell while standing on an island in a magma floe over this. No contest.

Or, hell, even the Tier 6 Curse Spell [Greater Damnation of Bonetwisting], where your bones are forcibly turned in corkscrews while stationary. So that whenever you stop moving your body contorts steadily on itself, and every movement after becomes more agonising until eventually your blood vessels and muscle fibres can't take the strain and burst. Since it's a 'Damnation' type curse, it can't be dispelled by ordinary means and lasts until it kills the victim. Even if you resurrect yourself, the damage done persists, and rebuffs all attempts to mend the damage through magic, basically necessitating a manual full skeletal replacement by a pair of 5-Star Grandmaster Surgeon at least.

But I digress.

Time enough for-

A flash of visceral pain, my head aflame.

-for reflection later.

I've more pressing concerns than wallowing in reminiscences of comparatively more pleasant times in my life. It's hard to focus. Harder than it has been of late. With my sense of self functionally cut in twain, and what's left crumbling apart, just staying on topic is a trial unto itself.

H2ey, nagjnpiuj

pbujg?

[oiah=065????

Fragmentation jumps to 67%. I'm runnnnning out of timeti

m e.

Eurgh. This is awful. Is thi56 twhatwha a computer flich fe-e-e-e-el;s lice?

The sword construct vibrates softly in my hand. A feeling of stability travels up from my fingertips through my arm and across my body. The fragmentation stops at 71% abruptly. It feels familiar and mildly comforting. But not so much as to distract from everything else, just enough that I don't have to specifically focus on keeping my thoughts coherent.

Those emotions and memories being dddddrained - urgh, I want to vomit - by the curse from me. I think I can feel the...threads? Fingers? The force that's digging through me. Not just the pain and the effects of it, but the 'thing itself'. Hard to describe. I can feel Arevas on the other end, distracted by something. His attention momentarily elsewhere, the intensity of the scouring pain dipping.

This might be my only chance to do something, I realise.

But what?

I drift along in confusion and familiar agonies.

---

 

Olrica

Stabbing ineffectually into the back of this hollow mannequin made of hands and emotional baggage, I grow increasingly desperate, racking my brain to remember something - anything - that could possibly help us out of this mess. But there's nothing - I don't remember what exactly happened in that alternate past other than that we had our asses firmly handed back to us.

That said, I'm nearly certain that what's happening to Silver right now is not something that happened before. Seeing the captives all around us lurching towards with zombie-like gait is definitely familiar, though. I can even recall seeing a couple of them lying dead around me, if on the hazy periphery of my sight.

What sucks the absolute most donkey dick though is how utterly worthless I am in this situation without some deus ex machina memory from an alternate universe or whatever. Me, a measly Level 7, with a single shitty Level 2 twig, can barely even puncture this thing's hide even swinging it down tip-first with both hands from overhead like I'm trying to spike a volleyball frozen in mid-air.

It practically bounces off without leaving a mark and trying to forcibly dig it in only draws it's attention away from my meatshield to me for a moment before she reasserts aggro. Not worth the risk - hell, I'm fairly sure it's actually deliberately ignoring me, that's how little of a threat I am to it.

A disgusting, crunchy noise of bone snapping and flesh ripping interrupts my thoughts. 

"...Take this one down, we've got another spawning in!" the tank girl orders hurriedly. The first one isn't even dead yet, why is phase two already starting?

Glancing over my shoulder, I feel the need to retch, a foul odour overpowering the heady smell of perfume hanging over this chamber. It's musty, dry and stagnant, entirely too similar to what my room in college smelled like for comfort, bringing back memories I'd rather forget about. The days spent at my absolute lowest.

My breath catches, I can feel my heartbeat sharply increase, airflow strangled. Oh no.

No, no, NO.

I'm...over...I'm over this!

Panic and anxiety, all too raw, return from a place deep, deep down.

My eyes dart around, the others shudder and gasp. The dull splat of something fleshy and wet hitting the floor draws my attention back behind me to a leech the size of a small dog wriggling on the ground, with a gaping tooth-lined maw that contains a reflective obsidian mirror. My eyes are arrested by the visage of my former self staring back with bloodshot eyes, circled by dark purple bags and filthy, oily skin. The image shifts, showing the moment Henna was taken by Arevas, the look of betrayal on her face and the apology in her eyes.

"No!" I fall backwards, stumbling to the ground with a shriek, "Take it away! TAKE IT AWAY!"

"Such fragile wills..." Arevas mocks, almost sounding disappointed, "Confronted by that which they seek to deny, they fall apart. Time and time again. I had expected more from you, at least, given your similarity, but no, expectation ever precedes disappointment."

Blood thumping in my ears, vision fading, I feel myself growing faint, my energy draining away into the leech, but unable to do anything other than stare helplessly at it while memories of my weakness, failures and jealousy swirl through my head like a monsoon.

A small part of me, beneath it all, realises that this is all the fault of that strange leech demon, but...

"Don't look at the leech! Anywhere else!" Angelus yells. His advice too little, too late to be of any help to me.

I'm too weak. It's going to happen again, and there's nothing I can do to stop it.

The puppeted captives from the demon's collection of would-be heroes surround us and start to close in.