KEIV.

If you have found yourself in the glorious library of the prestiged city of Sogara-dai, I commend you for making it this far into a sea of dead. I suppose I should start from the beginning, but before I do so, allow me to explain who I am and what I plan to accomplish with this diary. My name is Keiv, my last name shouldn’t matter in the future because a prideful man should not be remembered for the faults that allowed this city to fall. And this prideful man was coerced into this strange fate by an equally prideful woman, the Savior of Sogara-dai, the Diamond of Gong-dai, also known as Countess Eman Talmine. A woman who I had loved even after seeing the path that led to the destruction of our home. When I was not admiring her lovely form in the nighttime, I was providing for her safety in the morning time as the head of her guard, despite the fact that she was a powerful woman. There weren’t many mages that could be on the same level as Lady Eman, especially ones that were taught under the talented Lord Roden, the previous Count of Sogara-dai. Lord Roden was one of many mages that led a tide-turning skirmish against a tyrannical faction diverting away from the Royal House of Titaneous. If he didn’t win that important battle, The Battle of Shin-zu Beach, against the tyrannical heir apparent, Prince Dameda, then our nation, the Great Vaikoln, would have been lost to Titaneous. It had only been a couple hundred of years since many of their people fled to integrate themselves in our country of Gong-dai. The current state of Titaneous has a royal family of progressive motives that is fighting against itself for power. While the progressive house wants peace, the heir apparent does not wish to concede to Vaikoln as it would be seen as weakness. Their goal is to take back the eastern front with the people that fled to further assert dominance, never mind the fact that they conquered the eastern islands below them.

I know you are wondering about the last bit of information, but it will make sense later. All you need to know is that there are two different factions warring right now and that one faction was dealt a huge blow by one of the best mages in the world, Lord Roden. Not only was Lord Roden an astute Magus Meister, but also a caring leader of this city. Me and Lady Eman grew up together idolizing her father and it saddened me when I realized that I had no magical talent to be nurtured like his daughter. Because I wanted to always be by her side, I decided on going into an apprenticeship, one that was greatly funded by his lordship for me. When I had the time away from my practice, I would sit in on her studies, and it did not take me long to understand that Lady Eman would pass her father. Initially, she was no trouble, but then different magis of respute would come to visit her, challenging her on her knowledge and power. Each time she bested one or outperformed one, her ego would rise until the very day she ascended to her title of Countess, the day that her father would pass away. It was like a darkness had filled her heart and from there she was no longer the childhood friend that I had grown up with. However, whenever the darkness would recede from her heart, I would glimpse into the eyes of the girl I loved.

Lady Eman, freshly twenty-one and ascended, was a much more passionate mage than her father was. Often she made decisions based on her own emotions instead of logic. Maybe she wanted to seem like she cared about her people, or that she wasn’t cold and aloof like her father once was. Despite his good intentions, Lord Roden tried to rule over Sogara-dai the best way he could, through fear and intimidation, something he had learned in constant battles and war. Lady Eman could not lead in such a way, preferring to be physically present when a problem arose. She didn’t mind getting her hands dirty and mingled with the commoners. I was originally against the idea of her mingling through the city because she was bound to meet unsavory people. Really it was my selfishness and jealousy that had me against that plan as I wish to be the only commoner in her midst. After taking me to bed the first night she went to feel for the poor people, I didn’t complain anymore. I was misguided in her love. After several years, I wondered if she used her body to placate me so that she could do whatever she wanted. When I called her out on it, she didn’t deny it, but she knew that her father had been grooming me as a deterrent in her life so that she could make better decisions that he did. When I touched her, I knew I had failed the only mission he had secretly posted on me.

A few years into her role, Lady Eman became the face of Gong-dai, a pillar where all people, young and old, rich and poor, could look up to. Her power continued to increase each year, proving to be true of her ancestors. I accompanied her further east where small villages and towns had been decimated by rebels, the seeds that had unfortunately made their way into the Royal House of Titaneous. With a flick of her wrist, she summoned waves bigger than the tallest mountains to flush out the calvary. Fire hotter than the sun itself burned foot soldiers into a darkened crisp. Rocks studier than the strongest metal held fast against the invaders proving that she was irremovable. She sucked the air straight from their lungs, leaving their bodies crumbled in an abandoned heap. Along with her own troops, she was seen as a strong symbol of power and peace. Alone, she was a monster with no one bothering to walk into her path. I was honored to be serving under her even when my brain thought that she needed to be talked down from her driving ego.

Soon after, not even at the peak of thirty, Lady Eman cultivated most of  Gong-dai, the people saw her as a literal human god. I might not know much about magic, but what I did know was that she was excelling at magic that couldn’t be possible. She conjured with little to no effort of her hands, barely flicking a finger. The only displeasure she showed about her magic was that she couldn’t conjure Sun and Moon Magic, leading her to curse her father’s bloodline for not being perfect. That was something that she wanted to be: perfect.

She was so perfect in her own right that she didn’t care about putting commoners and other unsavory people in charge of her rules. I didn’t give her my opinion since I was the number one commoner in her life, the General of all the soldiers in the city. She sent a few of her close acquaintances to spread out to different parts of Gong-dai and a smaller scale town of Sogara-dai had been established. They say Yulin-dai is a trading port for Gong-dai and that it will be much bigger than we can believe in the next couple of years, maybe one day it will be on par with Asarian Frost or even the heights of Zalatine. I know that the town is way out of Sogara-dai’s path of destruction and hope that what happened in Sogara-dai did not impact that area.

I’m sure you tire of these semantics right now, but let this tired man write about his life. I don’t think you, who is reading this diary of mine, will make it out of his city alive to tell my tale, but I can only hope. But now comes the frightening after effects of Eman’s rising power: the King of Vaikoln, King Razel, grew angry about the cult-like behavior stemming from the east and plans of a rebellion led against him by no one other than Lady Eman. The east didn’t like how they were being neglected by the King who only cared about watering his cups with wealth and women. However, judging from the spies that we sent into Zalatine, he was willing to work with us to come to terms with Lady Eman’s growing power. Her strength and passion was the very reason that Gong-dai referred to her instead of the King, thus making Sogara-dai the unofficial capital of the east. If he were to attack her then he would lose the morale of the people, especially the ones who wanted to leave the Miner Baileys after comparing their communities to slave hoards. Lady Eman was appealing to them, seducing them over to the eastern front. Sogara-dai was the most western part of the Gong-fai, almost in the middle of the continent, therefore it was an entrance way into a greater future for the miners. Miner Bailey #2 was not that far away and there were talks of expanding a travel way from west to east, something that the King has refused to do, hoping that they would get more revenue for people needing to travel. Instead of around the mountains that went from north all the way to the center, a path had been started. In desperation, King Razel decided on sending men to speak with Lady Eman to garner peace and help sway public opinion in the King’s favor. There were five men, different types of emissaries to the king, that stayed in the city for several months hoping to talk to the Countess. All of them were citizens of Vaikoln except for a man who hailed all the way from the southern isle of Juyria, a country that lay southwest of Vaikoln. I don’t know much about Juyria, but what I can say is that the man who came to speak to us was a rather timid, but curious man. It was such a wonder how he happened to catch the eye of a woman during his time there.

My spies attempted to follow the man each time he left the Countess’ villa but he vanished into thin air each time. I know not about the magic from the southern isles but it must be something strange. When he walked back to villa, a small woman was always dangling off his arm, reluctant to leave his side. We also attempted to spy on the woman as well, but she managed to deceive us at every turn, something that came easily to her, not much to our surprise after learning about her identity.

The emissaries were blind to the real action Lady Eman was taking while pretending to King Razel. Her cult had evolved into something so dangerous, I could barely hold my bowels each time I participated in it. Lady Eman wanted to become stronger, so strong that King Razel would leave her to her own devices, and the city as a whole alone. But before that happened, she would have an empire built beneath her feet, one that had the blood of her enemies. Without her, Titaneous would attack the east and march down onto Zalatine. Their people didn’t take kindly to those blessed with magic and would do anything to gain an upper hand in controlling a continent full of magic. We had intel from Titaneous that they were hoping to reign in a powerful enough weapon in order to destroy the monsters and beast men that plague their land. Our continent didn’t have much beast men, but surely we believe that their measures were something akin to insanity. As Lady Eman was awarded the title of the strongest mage in the world, she was in talks with the current leaders of Titaenous, who unfortunately were the benefits of the tyrannical heir apparent. The emissaries were not blind to it, but they could do nothing but sit back and go along with the flow. They had failed at changing Lady Eman’s mind and instead, she propositioned them for a plan that would give them access to more power.

Lady Eman had some asinine idea of harvesting magic from someone stronger than her. Instead of refueling on her elemental magic by siphoning from the earth, she decided on harvesting enough magic that would keep her magic fully replenished. She had people stow away in the night to kidnap people with strong magic and chain them up in the basement of the temple. With a maniacal glint in her eye, she could cut into people with no remorse to carve out their organs and drain their life force. Not caring about how forbidden it was, she started casting spells of Blood Magic and instantly she would harvest magic into her body. After claiming that it wasn’t enough, she planned treachery as a solution to get other powerful mages onto her precious land. The powerful Magus Meisters would not step foot into Gong-dai, claiming that their vow could not be tarnished by political views. With that, King Razel could do nothing but stand at the distance. For once in his pigheaded life, he started working on Vaikoln with a different mindset, both financially and physically. I heard that Asarain Frost became a cold fortress of the north and Penuit City was booming economically in trade--from coal to other farmlands. That man was anything but smart, but his backup plan for his other progressing cities seemed reasonable.

Lady Eman ignored what the king was doing, instead still devising a way to become stronger. I kept asking her why she wanted to do this because she had everything already. Why would she want to slaughter people and harvest their magic for her own? She couldn’t give me a coherent question since the Blood Magic had already gotten to her head. All she could repeat was this was for the good of her people. They would no longer suffer the after effects of that dullard King Razel. But she had done enough. Crops were up higher than they had ever been in decades, all done with her cultivation and magic. Our city was the most advanced from all the others, with everything being run completely with magic runes. Technology had been put in the hands of the paupers and they were properly defending themselves and her land. And even when she could have any man that she wanted, she still chose me, as if she were fancying herself in love with me after all the years I had spent loving her. All I wanted was for her to realize her worth and to marry me without the burden of overthinking for a people that had already been taken care of.

She did not listen. I knew that she had completely lost her humanity when every action she did had magic clinging to it. When she was frustrated and sighed, fire came from the edge of her mouth reminding me of a dragon. Each time she cried, her tears flowed into the air, following her to each direction that she went, a watery line behind her. At one point, she did the very thing I would have thought impossible: she started casting elements simultaneously. One palm was coated into water and the other in fire and from there her eyes, the lovely brown I so loved, was always tinged with red. Her power sometimes overwhelmed her and she could spend days bedridden with too much magic coursing through her veins. When she started coughing up blood, there was no way to change her mind from the inevitable. On top of the villa as she stared into the night sky, the last clear one I would see, she made the decision to raise the soul of her dead father and take his magic to balance out the hard effect on her body. Once she did that then she would attach her soul into another body until that one broke down. The Blood Magic spell would have her switching bodies each time the magic overcame her, basically a cursed immortality.

The emissary wouldn’t go back to the king to report what they were doing, they enjoyed the effects of having their magic boosted. But the one emissary, the man from Juyria, I believe his name was Tunka, he would have no part of it. With his own magic, he attempted to seal Lady Eman away but all he did was invoke her anger. She decided that his sealing magic would help her better maintain the magic in her own broken down body. Knocking him unconscious, she tied him to a sacrificial slab next to one that held the old, rotten bones of her father. A dozen people stood in a blood circle around the slabs, and a few more commoners watched eagerly at the oncoming bloodshed that their Countess had promised.

It had happened so fast, so fast that I cannot contain my tears. You must think that I am a weak man who could have left this life behind, but I could not leave my friend in this mess alone. She thought that she was doing the right thing for her people and for herself. I thought that it wouldn’t get as far as it did, but I was mistaken.

She ripped her father’s magic straight from his wailing soul at the cost of four people, their blood holding the spiritual line together. I don’t know how she was able to hold the line for so long as she drained her father of his previous magic, but I do know the face of astonishment he had at his own daughter killing him twice. Once overwrought with so much magic she could burst, she looked over to the emissary and smiled. I think she taunted him some about the woman he had a tryst with and he growled at her, which only made her happier. Over the past few months of slaughter and torture, she had come to enjoy it a lot more than a normal person would. She wasn’t a person. She was a monster. She had no right to call herself a human after all the wrong she had done in this place.

The emissary from Juyria screamed so much I could hear his vocal chords rip. As she fought against his seals, she couldn’t help but damage his body in further frustration. It was then that the woman had appeared. She said something about feeling the spiritual line being mixed with blood, forbidden magic, and that death was permanent. It could not be tampered with. But the woman was wrong, Lady Eman had already gained the magic from her father’s soul. For his soul she had sacrificed several people and continued a stream of magic with the other mages in the circle. The two argued back and forth until Eman got sick of the woman and plunged her sword to the hilt inside of the man. I thought when the woman dashed forward, she would be obliterated by Eman’s magic but that was not the case. She deflected every single thing out of her way as she came to cry by her lover’s dead body. No magic would touch the woman, the attacks going straight through her body as if she were a ghost. People cried out witch, but I knew better. When the woman turned her head to look at the countess, her eyes could not be seen. I couldn’t make out her face, but I knew in my heart that we had angered a god.

Waves of white engulfed the room and all that could be seen was Eman crawling on the ground, screaming as she vomited out her guts. A few of the other people did the same thing while the other half looked at each other confused. I ran as soon as she slumped over, presumably dead. I left her there to die as I tried to find my way out of the temple, but I would soon learn that outside wasn’t better. This curse had affected the city as a whole. Buildings started crashing down, one after another. I grabbed all that I could and started to flee from the city, but the animals had been killed and some people were running rampant. They certainly looked like humans, ones that I had been merry with before, but they didn’t seem to be all the way there. They fought against other people and started eating them as if their friends and families were the prey. Unable to stomach the carnal attack, I found some normal people and commanded them to hide in the temple of Umbara. I thought that maybe death would be kind to us and let us die peacefully and not in the mouths of our neighbors. Some of the people from the sacrificial room were hiding in the temple too, confused and terrified. There is nothing that scares a human more than when they meet eye to eye with an angered god.

It wasn’t long before Lady Eman found her way into the temple, unaware of what happened. Some semblance of the old woman was back and she was commanding like the leader of the city, hoping to get help for us after the witch attacked us. But we all saw her get striked down with the infliction first, and sure enough, after a few minutes of questioning and irritation, she reverted into one of the undead. However, she was nothing like the undead outside, she was smarter. After eating an older man and gaining a little bit of her magic, she fell into a selfish haze and started attacking everyone in the temple. Magic couldn’t hurt her, nor could the steel of my blade. It was a stroke of luck that the ceiling crashed down and the remaining few escaped through a back entrance that led to some sort of crevice. It was then that I figured out that there were secret tunnels buried through all of Sogara-dai. There was no doubt that Lady Eman knew that as well, so as my small group huddled in them like ants, we destroyed some routes which locked us within the underground of the city forever. We established citizenship in an underground cavern that had enough space for a moderate size town. A couple of the survivors would go up on the surface to lead some stragglers to our hiding place. Anyone that had survived was here with me and I did the best I could to provide for them, to make sure I could atone for the damage I had done.

All of her research conducting the blood magic spell was hidden within the library, in plain sight. I managed to build a path from the temple to our cavern. From the temple, I made a shortcut for the library so that any mages that did survive would be able to research a spell in destroying the monsters. As of right now, the creatures continue to gain power through eating humans--seems like they get some sort of magic back after doing that, but whether they are harvesting them or not, I do not know. They have not found our location, but I truly believe that she is letting us live because she knows I am with them. I doubt she still feels something for me, but I will never know. I hope that no one will come into the city to rescue us and instead quarantine us to our fate. All of Vaikoln would have been doomed if not for the divine intervention, unbeknownst to me, she had signed a letter of betrayal to Vaikoln, signing a relationship to Titaneous.

Even though the diary was filled with more entries from Keiv, along with some later insight from what seemed to be his descendants, Rigesh closed the book and tossed it carelessly on the desk. He stood abruptly, nearly knocking the desk over in an uncomfortable panic, the words of the diary seeping into his body like a tumor. Of all the things he could translate, a hidden diary that marked an age of deception and monstrosity that could have led to the end of Vaikoln. How could Lady Eman lose herself in a lust for power and mistake it as a duty to the people she swore to protect? 

“We need to get out of here,” Rigesh started, shoving his stolen books into his bag.

“I agree,” Orantal grabbed ahold of Elanya’s hand to start walking to the staircase but she wouldn’t budge. “Ellie, what’s wrong? Let’s go.”

Elanya stood transfixed in the spot from behind the desk, her eyes glazed in a somber defeat. If she thought that she could possibly defeat Lady Eman in a fight, then she was surely mistaken. She wasn’t cursed because of some petty rule about hospitality or a harsh jealousy between her and a witch. Her curse was a punishment for attempting to forgo her humanity in order to satisfy her perversion for magic. The fact that she ended up murdering Umbara’s human lover was just the icing on the cake. If she hadn’t been caught by the Goddess of Death, she would have started a war that would have destroyed not only Vaikoln, but Titaenous as well. Those people would have believed that they had an ally on their enemy continent when instead they were allowing an enemy the door to their own defeat.

It was imperative that they leave the city while they still had a chance. Morio had drawn the best path possible for an efficient escape route--no debris blocking their way and less Flesh Hoarders around to pose a threat. Even if they picked up a crowd of monsters, they wouldn’t be able to follow them outside the limits of the desert. Lady Eman wouldn’t bother to waste resources or magic on them unless she had the ability to chase them, something that she hadn’t done when she decided to attack Yulin-dai. They didn’t find a permanent weakness besides Sun and Moon Magic--but the Blood Magic spell and Keiv’s diary would be enough to report to the Mayor Meister with.

But Elanya held fast in her spot, thinking about the small details glossed over in the diary. She wasn’t for certain, but there was evidence that the survivors established a civilization beneath the city. Keiv had rerouted the hidden tunnels in the underground in order to keep the Flesh Hoarders at bay and allow them access to the library. Besides the obvious motives of having a meeting place, it gave the person some reprieve after being stuck underground without sunlight or air. She needed to see what was in the temple to find more clues. The library was a start on why and how it happened, but she wanted to know how the humans living here were able to survive under horrid conditions.

“Let’s find the passage to the temple,” she said, reaching over to pick up the diary.

Orantal and Rigesh turned to look at her, startled. Orantal was too shocked to move, but Rigesh walked up to her, holding both of her arms as if she had gone mad.

“El, we can’t stay here. It’s too dangerous, especially after knowing how powerful Lady Eman is,” he said, his voice hard with edge.

“There are people here, Rig. If they’re able to survive here for over three hundred years, then they must know of some kind of way to defeat Lady Eman.”

“I think we have what we came for, we don’t need to search them out. They could be living under her villa for all we fucking know.”

Elanya removed his hands from her arms and picked up her own satchel, packing up the diary and a couple of books from one of the bookshelves she was looking at earlier. Ignoring Rigesh and Orantal’s protests, she ran down the twisted staircase and looked around for something that looked like a secret exit. If she kept going parallel to the bookshelves on the bottom floor she would find herself at the library entrance where a swarm of Flesh Hoarders were wandering around in front. The side passage way would lead her back to where they came from initially and judging by where the temple was in comparison to the library, there should be a passage behind the library that led outward. Behind the staircase, she spied a smaller set of bookshelves that looked uneven compared to the other bookshelves around it. Protruding from the bottom of the awkward bookshelf was a simple yarn rug, the edges burnt and frayed.

Bending down, she gently pulled the rug from under the bookshelf and tossed it to the side. She leaned her cheek against the filthy floor and felt the sliver of a cool breeze slip from the small crevice now freed of the itchy rug. There was an entrance on the other side of the bookshelf, but how would she be able to get through without breaking it?

Rigesh and Orantal watched her as she frantically searched for some sort of secret latch to get the bookshelf to open. Soon she started pulling books off the shelves, looking behind them for some kind of clue to get her somewhere.

Sighing, Rigesh moved past her and started moving the bookshelf over to the side. After a few tough budges, the shelf finally moved to the side, opening up the door to a secret passageway of concrete and dirt. The passage way descended down from a long set of crudely, crafted stairs made of mud. Elanya pushed dirt off of her clothes then started her descent down the stairs with no hesitation, much to the dismay of Orantal.

“Rig, don’t you follow her down there,” Orantal said, her voice shaking from obvious fright. “We need to be leaving.”

Conflicted, but not enough to leave the woman he had caught feelings for, he stepped forward to follow her. However, he stopped before he made more steps, concerned about Orantal’s manic state.

He reached out to grab Orantal’s hand, hoping to soothe her worries. “I can’t let her do something reckless alone--”

She jerked her hand from his grasp, a bit shaken up and uncomfortable. Her pale face reddened with anger, big globs of tears formed at the creases of her eyes and slid down her ruddy cheeks. “Do NOT touch me!”

Orantal crouched down, holding herself around her abdomen as her small frame broke out in shivers. Her tears fell down in never ending streams while she started having trouble breathing. Each harsh inhale was followed by a winded exhale, slight foam forming at the corner of her mouth. As her hyperventilating increased, Rigesh knew she was having a panic attack, one that he knew all too well.

He couldn’t touch her without frightening her further, but he couldn’t just sit there as she struggled to compose herself. Before he could give her some words of encouragement to calm her brittle nerves, Elanya brushed past him and held Orantal in her arms, soothing her soul with small words of affirmation. He couldn’t make out her soft words, but he saw that her presence was calming her down. As Elanya rubbed one hand up and down Orantal’s back, she dried away her friend’s tears with her knuckles. Tears had stopped flowing, but Orantal was still having trouble breathing, coughing sharply between her inhales. Taking both of Orantal’s cheeks in her palms, she mimicked her breathing, inhaling and exhaling as slowly or as fast, her knuckles still wiping away at the dwindling tears on her face. 

A few minutes later, Orantal was breathing normally, her face firmly planted in Elanya’s chest as she held the smaller woman close. Rigesh watched on silently, taking in Orantal’s state as he realized what she had given up to protect her best friend. The young woman wasn’t cut out for gruesome missions, but she had a desire to protect and heal all those that come across her. It would be a waste of her talent if she didn’t utilize her magic to it’s full use. But her reaction wasn’t just a grievance of Elanya refusing to leave without more answers, it was something else. Something traumatic happened to Orantal and Elanya knew about it.

When he looked up to Elanya for some kind of hint, she shook her head, her eyes pleading for him to drop any further questions. After a few more moments, she leaned back to look down at Orantal whose eyes were red and swollen, her cheeks stained with dried tears.

“Are you alright now, Orantal?” she asked softly, her voice like a soothing mother. Orantal nodded, her throat too dry and hoarse to answer vocally.

As much as Elanya tried to mold her face into a blank mask, there was conflict in her hazel eyes and slight trembles around the edges of her mouth. “Orantal, I’m going now. You can go back to the truck if you don’t feel comfortable coming with me. I won’t force you to do something that you don’t want to do,” Gently, she ran her fingers through Orantal’s blonde hair, some of the threads brown from the dust. “But if you do come with me, I will protect you with my life as I have for the last three years.”

Holding back tears, Orantal nodded and sniffed. Without a sound, she held Elanya’s hand and motioned back to the opened bookshelf, a small bit of determination kindling in her sky-blue eyes. As they walked forward into the darkened tunnel, Elanya took Rigesh’s hand with her other free one and led them down. Rigesh summoned a spark of fire on his finger to act like a lamp as they shuffled down the uneven muddied stairs, him leading in the front and Orantal in the back, her hand still firmly glued to Elanya’s.

Silence enveloped them in an unnerving blanket with their soft footsteps the only thing making noise. The tunnel seemed to go on forever, endless twists and turns that worried them whether they were in a maze of some sort. Rigesh held in his annoyance at each turn that ended with a dead end, trying his best to memorize each nook and cranny they passed so they didn’t wound back at the beginning. Eventually they came to a fork in the road, the right side still a path of eternal darkness while the left side was starting to show a peak of silver light from a distance. With Rigesh leading their three person train, he pulled the girls ahead in a rushed walk, excited to see some sort of hope of finally escaping the underground labyrinth.

They came to the exit, blocked with a sturdy door instead of a bookshelf like in the library. The small slits of light were coming from the opening above the door that looked like a kind of vent, a few faint voices could be heard in the far distance. Suspicious of what lay on the other side of the crummy door, Rigesh gave Elanya a knowing look to which she replied with a curt nod of her own. She was reluctant to let go of either of her friend’s hands, the warmth disappearing immediately after, but she had to stay focused on the objective ahead of her. Cupping his hands together to support her, Elanya stepped on Rigesh’s hands, lifting her high above the crack as she peered through. 

The room looked empty. It was nothing more than a storage room filled high with discarded boxes and crates, some familiar bookshelves broken down on their sides in a side corner. An opened, wooden door was the only other entrance into the room as it had no windows, soft murmuring sounds faded into the hallway. Judging from how distorted the sounds were, the room was at the far end of anything meaningful. While still searching around the room with her eyes, she waved her hand below to signal Rigesh to let her down. Orantal still struggled to speak from her ordeal, but she understood Elanya’s silent words and movements as she reached for her hand to be ready. Rigesh leaned on the right side of the door, his amber pistol pulled from its home at his waist, waiting for Elanya to corrode the lock on the door so they could enter without making a noise.

The lock crumbled under her Moon Magic and she twisted the knob, opening the hidden door as slow as possible, as quiet as she could make it. After she slowly inched herself inside the room, she pulled Orantal into the room with Rigesh hot on her heels, his whole body on the defensive. They maneuvered through the shoddy boxes and crates, some of them empty, some filled with personal belongings that looked worn, but treasured. At least they used to be treasured, before they found themselves in old crates tucked away in a dark room. 

All three pressed their backs against the wall closest to the entrance, listening intently on the noises fading in and out in the background. Elanya wasn’t sure if she could make out voices, but the noises seemed to be echoing from a hollow room not too far away. It would be too time consuming if she conjured a shadow spell that could slip around unnoticed and it wouldn’t tell her about the type of people that lay ahead, only that there was something there. Her right hand gripped the hilt of her sword while her left firmly held Orantal whose body practically melded into Elanya’s. Rigesh was still behind them, this time both hands holding his different colored pistols. A quick peek around the doorway told them that no way was in the hallway, the end diverting to different exits. A few rooms were also on the floor they were on, but the doors were all closed. The end of the hallway had a stained glass window with colors of black, red and white, a story depicting the Goddess of Death walking the children of the world, spirits painted like black orbs, to the afterlife in the flames of the dead. Despite what many people believed about the goddess, she was always depicted in a white outfit making her look more angelic than a fearsome goddess. Elanya thought the depiction silly until she met the goddess herself.

They continued to walk cautiously down the hallway, their feet barely making tapping sounds as they hit the unkempt green rug. The diversion at the end of the hallway came upon them and the muffled sounds became distinctive cries and yelps from the right. Again they pressed their backs against the wall parallel to the other walkway, listening to voices getting stronger in distress. They weren’t sure if humans were speaking or the Flesh Hoarders were, something that Rigesh was aware they could do. Orantal clamped a strong hand over her mouth to keep from making a sound as they stilled themselves to listen to the voices cry out.

“Please...p-please, don’t do this to us...we didn’t mean--” A tiny feminine voice cried out.

“Hush! I don’t want to hear anymore of your crying.” The other voice was much deeper and gargled than the tiny voice that spoke before it. “All you humans ever do is snivel and cry, it’s honestly pathetic.”

It took them a moment to realize that the voices they heard were in Vai and not in Wa Shei, though one of the voices had a thick accent. One had to be a human from this time and the other had to be a Flesh Hoarder, one that was more intelligent than the previous ones they fought. Each time they got deeper into the city, a more sophisticated Flesh Hoarder presented themselves, which could only mean that they hit an important destination for them. The library was an obvious meeting space but what could the temple be for them?

“Is there something that you want? What have we done for you to attack Yulin-dai?” They choked on a sob. “We were just trying to escape the destruction...we-we didn’t mean to…”

A loud cry broke out, followed by an even louder slap against skin. Silent weeping was all that could be heard as the other person seemed to pace into a line, the distinct sound of heels clicking against what could only be a marble floor. Unable to stand by further, Rigesh moved from behind the wall, crouching in trepidation as he slid the slides of his pistol in place. Still hidden by the overwhelming shadow of the hallway, he jerked his head to the side, indicating for the girls to follow his lead and be ready for an attack.

“While you’re trying your best to be hidden, you have failed at the task. Why don’t you rats come from your hiding hovel?”

Rigesh held his breath, shocked. The other Flesh Hoarders could never detect them like this, they tended to react on what they could see and what loud movements they could hear. The large chimera they encountered in the shopping center, while advanced in strength and endurance, was not an overly smart creature. The Hunter-like foe with its limited amount of magic was more in league of the enemy behind the wall, except this one was more coherent and lethal. What scared Rigesh more was that the threat of one of these minions wasn’t even a tenth of Lady Eman’s powers.

He pointed for the two women to stay hidden behind the wall while he edged himself from the darkness, his amber pistol aiming for the target coming into his view. The Flesh Hoarder looked more human than its other grey-skinned kin, but the predatory gaze of it’s gold tuned eyes told him that they were anything but. Despite the voice being gargled and deep, the Flesh Hoarder was obviously a woman, one that was dressed very nicely despite the state of outside. She wore a nice embroidered suit of gold and blue, the gold trimming around the collar and cuffs. Her tights clung to her muscular figure, plus tall, brown riding boots coming up above her knee. Her curly, dirty blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail on the top of her head, a shiny silver bow hanging off the quiver on her squared shoulders. Disregarding him as a threat, she placed her hands at the dip of her back and smirked, a sickly smile that didn’t match her grey and nightly sewn skin.

She analyzed him up and down as if he were a small prey. “Oh? What’s this? You mean to tell me that you’re here by yourself without the rest of your pitiful crew?”

“Who are you?” Rigesh asked, wary of the Flesh Hoarder’s laid back stance. 

She scoffed, the sound like a rumbling screech. “I don’t think it matters who I am, but I will tell you, nevertheless. I’m Commander Nao, one of Countess Eman’s greatest allies here in Sogara-dai. I suppose if you have made it this far then you are not someone to be underestimated.”

His gaze flicked at the terrified woman holding herself on the floor. She looked as worse as she sounded, her clothes unrecognizable in shreds and blood. Blood that no doubt belonged to the family she had travelled with.

“If there is something you need, hurry up and spit it out! As you can see, I’m trying to feed before her flesh goes bad.” Commander Nao snapped, scowling as she hissed behind pointed fangs.

Rigesh said nothing, his weapon still poised at the indignant woman, her hands still folded behind her back. He tried to move toward the woman, but the Commander shook her head, unfolding one of her arms to shake her index finger in a condescending tick. In a seductive manner, she stuck out her long, grey tongue and flicked it out to him, then licked around her lips with a smug look.

“You really are stubborn, aren’t you? I guess I could have you now and save her for later, it doesn’t matter to me, rat.” She turned her entire body to face him, drug her hands up her body, then unbuttoned the top buttons of her suit jacket, flashing him a look at her stitched up skin. “You should be honored to be eaten by me here in the temple of the dead. All of those troublesome humans died outside, but you, haha, you will be eaten in this sacred place like all the other chosen humans.”

Rigesh held a defensive position, one pistol still aimed at the deranged creature while he started to reach for his other pistol. “You’re playing a sick game torturing people here and eating them for sport. I don’t know what your goal is in doing all this.”

“Game? Oh, my dear rat, we do this because we can. No one can stop us, not even you.” She snapped her fingers and jumped back as she reached for her bow, a flame of fire separating them from one another. Three more Flesh Hoarders appeared from the sides and into the fray, one of them dressed similar to the commander but was a male with jet-black hair, a katana in his hand. Rigesh shot a few shots out, but the four of them dodged with unmatched precision, casting magic equal to his. He rolled to his left to avoid a swipe from a sword and kicked a Flesh Hoarder away from him in the process.

A blood-curdling scream took him from the battle and onto an altar on the other side of the room. Commander Nao had managed to take the human woman from the floor and rip out her throat with no inkling of remorse. She brought the woman’s neck to her mouth once more, taking a bite out of her as if she were an apple. Blood spluttered on the Commander’s clothes and a few streams dripped down her chin. To antagonize him, she lifted the bleeding corpse and shoved her claws into the dead woman’s chest, ripping out her bloody heart. After discarding the corpse like it was nothing more than trash, she burst the heart in her hands, life blood slipping down her golden, crisp cuffs and onto her boots. One by one, she sucked hard and loud on her fingers, twirling her tongue around them like she was playing with a lollipop.

With ill-concealed contempt, Rigesh rushed forward to attack, but a Flesh Hoarder with a short sword stopped him in his tracks. He narrowly avoided the tip of the sword, but he couldn’t pivot around the next attack from its partner who charged in for a punch to his gut. He staggered as he found his footing, crossing his pistols together to block the tip of the enemy’s sword from nipping at him. His flank was exposed to the other attackers who pounced on him as soon as they saw it, but a blast of shadowy magic stopped them in their tracks, one of the less Flesh Hoarders disappearing into thin air in the process. Rigesh felt the sword leave his pistols and jumped back into a defensive position while he had one pistol aimed at Commander Nao.

The Flesh Hoarder who wore similar clothing to the Commander walked backwards to stand next to the deranged woman and smirked. He finally spoke after watching Elanya walking from the hallway, rapier pointed high and rage filling in her eyes. “We finally brought the other rat out, Nao.”

Commander Nao chuckled, placing a bloody hand to her mouth as though she were a noble lady playing a coquette. “And she killed poor Mavvy, too. He was hoping to impress you after his next feed, Lieutenant General Elou.”

“I suppose now we have evened out the board of fighters,” Commander Elou ran his rigid, grey fingers through his dark hair and spoke to the hidden hallway. “Why won’t your friend come out to play?”

“You leave her out of this. Your fight is with us.” Elanya said, hastily planting herself slightly in front of Rigesh.

“You’re cocky coming all the way into the city, but you really don’t know who you’re messing with,” Commander Nao rose up from the altar and wiped her bloody claws on her pants. “We have hundreds of years on you kids.”

She dashed to the side and drew her bow, shooting several arrows in front of them. Rigesh dodged right and Elanya dodged left, swiping with ice magic, sicles flying out in vollies. Lt. General Elou moved up on Elanya, clashing his sword in a dramatic display. He grinned and leaned his face into her space as they held one another at bay with their swords, taunting her further with an animalistic hiss. No matter the hundred years gap between the two, she would not lose this fight. She would protect Orantal at all costs.

Rigesh and Commander Nao sparred with a battle of projectiles, both moving at speeds that would amaze the human eye. When he wasn’t focusing on trying to hit his speedy target and dodging her attacks, he was dancing his way around the lower Flesh Hoarder’s sword, making it an unfair disadvantage for him. He wouldn’t ask for help or show himself muddled by the two versus one battle, but he needed to concoct some way to kill the weaker Flesh Hoarder without opening his defensives for a sneak attack by Commande Nao. Not only was she fast on her feet, but she shot her arrows with almost perfect accuracy. If he hadn’t angled his movements behind the melee attacker in front of him, then he would be at an even worse disadvantage, since the Commander wouldn’t dare hurt her subordinate on the battlefield. It wouldn’t do well for a commander to send their units into an unfavorable situation regardless, especially not without herself being present. The Flesh Hoarder in melee range wasn’t much stronger than the ferals outside, it had the same type of intelligence as the Hunter he and Elanya faced before, but its job was to be a distraction. Rigesh wouldn’t be able to close in and aim directly for Nao with her insistent moving and her ally deferring all the attacks aimed for her. Rigesh couldn’t even properly shoot the Flesh Hoarder because he was moving so unpredictably that it threw off his own accuracy, even if he came close to killing him without letting his own guard down. That was Commander’s Nao plan--keep him focused on the Flesh Hoarder before him as an easy kill and easily open himself up to attacks. The moment he would go in for the kill, she would strike him in the heart and devour his whole being.
Orantal kept hidden during the destructive commotion, her hands cupped over her mouth like a door lock. As she trembled on her crouched knees, tears fell down in her face like a rapid waterfall, her eyes burning as she attempted to keep her eyes open. If she closed her eyes now, she would only imagine the awful deaths of her friends who were out fighting for her. She could try to escape now while the Flesh Hoarders were distracted, but she didn’t trust herself with making it back to the library without breaking down in a panic attack. Could she make it to the others to alert them? Would she be able to tell them proper directions on how to get to the temple? She didn’t want to admit such a thing to herself, but she was clueless. Her healing wouldn’t be enough to save her friends if tfaced with a foe that would kill her the first second she peeked her head around the hallway corner.

What could she do? She had no doubt that her friends could handle their own in this fight, as she has seen them do time and time again, but she doubted their stamina. They wouldn’t be able to fight against the Flesh Hoarders forever. The monsters had no limits to their mangled bodies and could take any damage done to them and regenerate with ease. Elanya’s magic and Rigesh’s pistols were powerful weapons, but they couldn’t utilize them if their opponents were as strong as they were. Each time she heard swords clashing and Elanya grunting, she feared that her friend had accepted a losing battle. Elanya was a great swordsman, but she wasn’t omnipotent. If only she had convinced her not to stick her nose too deep in the city’s drama, then she wouldn’t be here hiding behind a wall trying to hold her breath while her best friend and new comrade decided to fight an unmatched battle.

Their hard hits were shaking the wall so much that she thought the ceiling would crash down on her at any point. As she inched to the edge of the wall, she peeked her head out to look at the fight, Elanya and Rigesh were separated from each other, both embroiled in their own personal fights. She fought against the black haired man and his long sword, him in a robotic dance of ducking and weaving. Each time she went in for the attack, he parried her moves away to try to leave her open, hoping to stab her in the gut or wear her down, but her shadows always came upon her body, acting like a shield of its own. The hardened shadows of hardened armor kept her from being skewered many times over. But she couldn’t hide the pain flashing across her face each time he jabbed his sword into the same spots as before, no doubt she was bruised heavily there.

Rigesh’s fight against two people was too unbelievable to watch. He matched the other two in speed and reflexes, but failed to land any of his shots on both targets. He held the Flesh Hoarder with a melee weapon at bay, swinging and pushing with kicks of his own while he aimed into the distance, but he couldn’t damage them as he would like. Orantal grimaced when she saw the opponent’s sword graze over Rigesh’s thigh so closely, drawing out a little line of blood through his ragged pants. The only indication that he felt the sheering pain from his thigh is by the slick twitch of his left eye. She needed to help her friends before they hurt themselves even more.

Elanya and Lt. General Elou traded more blows to one another, his skin growing back after one cut and her side starting to swell as he continuously slammed his sword into her armored side. Hoping to catch him off guard, she coated her sword with Moon Magic and stabbed forward, baiting him into taking her hit at full force, but he moved back and ducked beneath her sword, kicking in her knees instead. Staggering to the ground, she fell on one knee, unable to successfully dodge a slice to her shoulder. The Lt. General then took advantage of her shoulder pain and punched where he had just sliced her, keeping her stammered to the ground.

“I know what your little soul sword can do. Don’t think you can defeat me that easily,” he scoffed and pointed his sword at her, “I’ll only die if I touch your magic, I’m not dumb enough to not dodge.”

Rigesh moved away from his opponents and started for Elanya, but his path was blocked by Commander Nao who rushed him and punched him in his face. “Your fight is with me, rat, not with him. Do you think a Commander like me is too weak for you?”

He chuckled to himself, spitting out blood from the cut in his mouth. “I think that a Commander like you is enough for me.”

“You’re being overconfident, it’s rather enduring. I would love to keep you to myself instead of devouring you whole.”

Rigesh jumped away from her and shot forward while she was distracted, but she and her accomplice moved out of range. However, his magic bullet wasn’t aiming for them, but for Lt. General Elou who barely dodged out of the way of Rigesh’s attack. Smirking to himself, he gave the male Flesh Hoarder a challenging look, eyes flashing of intimidation and fury. His silent conversation with the Lt. General made Commander Nao seethe with anger, upset that she was being ignored by her enemy. She sent a short skreech to her partner then stepped back into the shadows, raising her bow to attack on the offensive while the weaker one prodded Rigesh with short thrusts of his sword. Unable to keep his attention on Elanya’s fight, Rigesh spun on his heel to give some distance from the two, trying to devise a way to kill both of his challengers without leaving himself open to greater damage. He hoped that the Lt. General would be too full of himself to finish Elanya off and instead toy with her, giving him enough time to deal with what was in front of him now then make his way over to ensure her safety.

Elanya took the quick reprieve to disengage from her opponent and clutch her stinging shoulder, dark blood oozing through her fingers.

“Looks like you have someone who cares for you deeply,” he said swinging his sword aimlessly around, “but he won’t be able to save you from my wrath.”

“I don’t need him to help me. I can take you on by myself without someone coming to help me,” Elanya bite out, Moon Magic coursing around the handle in her sword, waiting for her to channel itself within Valla. Commanding her soul sword for only a small moment of power wouldn’t be worth it, instead putting her at a disadvantage.

“Your iron will is hard to crack and I shall have fun breaking you in half,” he snarled at her, his pointed teeth showing beneath his grey lips.

They started their dance again, this time a little closer to the other three fighting on the other side of the room. Instead of chasing out their enemies’ energy, the Flesh Hoarders changed their game plan to keep the two away from each other. It wasn’t hard to tell that when the two were fighting beside one another they were a stronger entity. How much longer will it be before the two of them tire out?

Rigesh didn’t want to find out the answer and decided that he needed to act fast. If they couldn’t fight them on even ground, then they would need to create a fair advantage or escape before they run into reinforcements, or something much more worse--Countess Eman.

Quickly placing his pistols in the holsters at his sides, Rigesh held a grappling position, ready to tackle the weaker Flesh Hoarder down to the ground. Commander Nao grinned with glee at seeing him finally shift his focus on his melee opponent and notched her bow to strike him above the heart. She didn’t want to kill him just yet, but she needed to injure him so it would be easy for her to carry him back to the villa. 

However, he didn’t tackle her comrade to the ground as his stance suggested. As the Flesh Hoarder before him struck out with the tip of his sword, Rigesh yanked his wrists forward to pull him into his body, holding his sword hand under his arms. To add to the further confusion, Rigesh lifted his hands up to the Flesh Hoarders head and snapped its neck quickly, then used its limp body as a shield as it slowly healed itself. Commander Nao’s arrows firmly made their way into the meat shield’s back as Rigesh ran forward with him, completely hiding himself under the Flesh Hoarder’s weight.

“Elanya, the ceiling!” He shouted, still rushing his way to Commander Nao, who casted aside her bow for a dagger at her side.

Lt. General Elou shifted to the side to parry her sword as she started channelling magic into it. He thrust forward at her again but this time was met with a solid Earth barrier and a small, blonde head behind it. Forming a large ball of Earth in her palm, Elanya threw it against the ceiling of the temple, shaking the foundation as pillars began to crumble under the cracked weight. Separating herself from the Lt. General, she grabbed Orantal by her waist and pulled her away from the collapsing rain of rocks, ducking and dodging as she tried to make her way outside the temple.

Commander Nao frantically moved out of the way of the rocks, trying to shield herself but she was knocked off balance when Rigesh, still running into her and weaving in and out of the sinking rocks, threw her comrade at her. Almost faster than time itself, he took one of his pistols from its home and shot the Flesh Hoarder in the chest, leaving the Commander shocked as her underling died in her arms. Hoping the rocks would slow her down, he turned away from her and found his way to Elanya and Orantal who were trying to find the exit.

“How do we get out of here before we’re crushed?”

Rigesh lifted his pistol to a still standing wall and shot a large hole through one of the still standing walls in the temple. “We make another exit.”

Without looking back, they made their way through the flying mass of broken cement and snaked their way through some of the surrounding damage in the alleyway. In the distance, they could see the demolition of the temple caught the attention of the lesser Flesh Hoarders who released a harrowing scream before they started running down the alleyway for them. Unable to control the fear crawling up her spine, Orantal’s legs gave out and she sat down paralyzed. Rigesh grabbed her quickly, holding her tiny body in his big arms and started running for the end of the alleyway, Elanya following close on his heels with her sword in hand. Their satchels were weighing them down, but they couldn’t leave their spoils behind and risk all their found information to perish inside the city. They trudged along as hard as they could, pain flooding through their calves and a bitter prickle heated the pads of their feet each time they took a harsh step forward.

Rigesh could feel the burn trickle up through his thighs as he ran hard, clearly weakened by the stamina-induced battle with the Commander and Lt. General in the temple. A few times he nearly tripped over rubble in the street way, but he recovered quickly from each misstep, holding Orantal tight in his arms as she trembled with her hands together in an awkward prayer.

Some stragglers managed to cut them off from escaping, their eyes glowing in a terrible hunger and the stank from their rotten bodies filling the hot air. Elanya stepped in front of them, drew her sword and started swiping with crescents of Moon Magic against the starved crowd. Most of them couldn’t avoid the quick succession of her swipes as her magic cut their bodies into two and they died within the wind. But a few hid behind the still bodies of their brethren, using them as shields as they broke through in a counterattack. She killed the first one that made it into her face, but couldn’t dodge the second one that swiped across her already injured left arm. Rigesh hesitated when he heard her cry, however, he couldn’t just drop Orantal and start shooting through the approaching crowd. Not only was Orantal defenseless, but he wasn’t sure how much longer he and Elanya could keep up with killing a bunch of hordes one after another, and it wouldn’t be wise to do if the stronger Flesh Hoarders end up coming after them sooner than later.

He put Orantal down onto her feet but he kept one arm firmly gripped on her waist to keep her close to him. With his free hand, he armed himself with his onyx pistol and aimed for some stragglers in the back of the crowd while Elanya dealt with the Flesh Hoarder that swiped at her.

“You need to put me down, Rig,” Orantal’s voice was barely audible between the howls of ferals in the background.

When he didn’t answer her, she pushed against him, clawing at his aching sides to escape. “Rigesh, you won’t be able to protect her if you’re holding me the whole time.”

“Ora, I won’t leave you--”

“I won’t be a burden to you! I can help, please just trust me.”

Wasting no more time to argue, he released her and pivoted gracefully on the ball of his heel, shooting out a barrage of magic bullets with both pistols. Orantal stayed in between Elanya and Rigesh while they fought and placed her palms together in a mock prayer, yellow Earth Magic channeling around her fragile wrists. Her soft voice could barely be heard over the commotion as she quietly recited a spell and fingered a yellow incantation into the ground. The incantation circle traced several Earth Runes among the ground, separating into lines that reached both Elanya and Rigesh and suddenly, they felt a little lighter and less exhausted.

“What is she doing?” Rigesh asked.

Elanya touched her wounded shoulder, the pain ebbing away as the blood still seeped from it. “Ora needs total concentration to heal a wound, so when she can’t do that she casts a boosting spell that allows us to temporarily feel rejuvenated while fighting. Try not to exert yourself and make sure you keep an eye on her so she doesn’t get attacked while doing this since she won’t be able to move while she’s casting this spell.”

He could feel the sting from his thigh and the ache from his shoulders recede as the spell wrapped around their small battlefield. If they could clear out the Flesh Hoarders in a decent time before the Hunters caught up with them, then they could meet up with the others in no time.

“Well, let’s get started then!” Rigesh summoned a tall wall of Earth behind Orantal as she rambled off her boosting spell, hoping to protect from any attacks from the back. Unless they were willing to go through buildings and just out the windows, the Flesh Hoarders wouldn’t be able to flank from the left or the right, which allowed him and Elanya to focus on the rowdy crowd in front of them. While she concentrated on the few creeping closer to her as they strategically hid behind each other to create a cluster to overwhelm her, Rigesh picked off some impatient ferals that rushed around their smarter kin, hoping to get to their feast faster. Instead of keeping his usual distance with his pistols, he moved forward into melee range, combining his martial art skills with the magic from his pistols. Like an impending cyclone, he tore through a few stragglers who tried to attack from the left flank, dealing harrowing damage before their bodies could decompose into black mist. It was another weird fighting style Elanya had witnessed by him, and while she admired his onslaught of their opponents, she couldn’t help but have more questions. How could someone retain more than three fighting styles was beyond her, however, she knew that Rigesh was an adaptable person which probably explained his versatileness. If Nemedion saw him fighting in melee range, still able to aim with his pistol while swinging his feet out, he would no doubt have a heart attack.

Just as they were taking down the last of the Flesh Hoarders, a loud scream could be heard from beyond Rigesh’s earth wall. The familiar strain and gargle left no guesses to the imagination--Commander Nao and Lt. General Elou were coming soon and they were furious. It was then that Orantal could not keep her spell ongoing and struggled to keep herself upright. Even though the pain returned immediately, Elanya could not leave her friend opened to attacks from behind and rushed to her side, leaving the pathetic ground of ferals behind her. Rigesh was quick to cover her, shoving two Flesh Hoarders to the right while he killed another one in front of him.

Something crashed into the wall, shattering it into large chunks of falling rocks. Elanya held Orantal ready to dash away with her in her arms, but Lt. General Elou was on them in an instant, pointing his long sword at Elanya’s throat. Commander Nao stood behind her comrade, angrily pointing her bow at Rigesh who mirrored her actions.

“If I hadn’t eaten the flesh of that girl and her family, it would have taken me a bit to regenerate after being crushed by an avalanche of rocks,” Commander Nao growled, inching up closer to them. “I’m so lucky to have my Lt. General dig me up from that destruction.”

“Aren’t you tired of running now?” Lt. General Elou asked. “Why don’t you just give up? You can’t win here, might as well accept that your flesh and blood will be a part of something greater.”

“Unless the whole city of Yulin-dai crosses that desert you won’t have enough flesh to last you another year, how did you even make it there? What are you planning?” Elanya inquired, hoping to buy some time.

Lt. General Elou licked his lips and ran his free hand through his thick black hair, his eyes looking down on Elanya lustfully. “Asking me questions will not delay the inevitable, so why ask me? I am just an extension of my Countess and her plans will not be ruined by the likes of you. I’m honestly scared to take you back to her as I know she will take a liking to you...just as I have.”

Commander Nao huffed. “You would take her back to Lady Eman when you know that you and I should be sharing her, just as we have shared everything.”

“I don’t want to deny my Lady of important goods. But as I love you Nao, I want to make you happy. You may have that young man all to yourself, not a single taste for myself.”

Her crinkled, yellow eyes widened and she let her defenses down, wrapping her arms around Lt. General Elou’s waist in what could be seen as a display of affection. With her long, grey tongue, she licked down his throat and nibbled at his shoulder, a few drops of his black blood soiled the edge of the collar of his jacket. His eyes lit up in a predatory ecstasy as a haggard growl left his throat.

“The faster we deal with the rats, the faster we will be able to enjoy our own fun, Nao.”

Without warning, he lashed out with his sword, attempting to draw Elanya’s blood for a taste, but she rolled out of the way, Orantal still bound in her arms. Maneuvering her friend behind her back, she reached up to touch her face and felt for the deep cut bleeding down her cheek. If she hadn’t moved as fast as she did, then he would have cut through her neck, killing her instantly. Instead he left her face marred from her nose to her ear.

“For someone with no more energy left, you’re fast on your feet. I could have killed you.”

“Ellie, just drop me and run. They don’t want me.” Orantal cried, pushing up against her friend’s back.

“Just wait a little longer,” Elanya cupped her own cheek, blood rushing down like a waterfall from her face onto her shirt. “One more moment.”

Rigesh stepped forward to fight, defending himself against an attack with his onyx pistol. All he could see was red as he fought to protect his friends, blocking blows with his weapon and swinging out with his feet. Impressed with his new opponent, the dark haired Flesh Hoarder called Nao back and faced off against Rigesh. With the renewed strength from Orantal’s spell, he moved quickly on his feet, doing everything in his power to keep in Lt. General’s face and away from Elanya and Orantal. Every swing he dodged, he punched out for weak points which was working temporarily to his advantage. The weak points, or openings normal for humans, were not keen to work on Flesh Hoarders who had an aversion to pain, but it would be enough to slow the man down since he had a sword. 

After his opponent feinted a strike, Rigesh was caught off guard with the change of directions. Dropping one of his pistols in an attempt to block, he pulled out his hidden knife and parried the attack, causing an uncomfortable strain on his right wrist as he pushed back against the inhuman strength of Elou. The creature could only give him a toying grin to show that he was impressed.

“I can tell you aren’t the best with weapons that aren’t long range but I commend you for fighting as hard as you can. Love is such a powerful, but weak thing, is it not?” Elou swung his sword down, throwing Rigesh off balance as he went forward with his knife and pistol. Summoning an armor of Earth around his heavy boot, Elou thrust his foot into Rigesh’s stomach, staggering him into dropping his secondary pistol and knife. In shocked pain, he held his arms across his throbbing stomach.

Nao walked beside Elou and chuckled, studying the three wounded people glued to the ground. After their intense fighting in the temple, she hoped that they would put up more of a fight, especially after slaughtering their way through the city, but she was sorely disappointed. They would die like the humans who came before them, weakened by the incapabilities of the mortal body.

“I’m saddened, really,” she started, slow walking to Rigesh, her steps languid and short, “No fun after three hundred years and I finally thought I would have a challenge. You have magic that can actually do any damage to us and you’re too weak to even compete, I’m honestly shocked.”

As Rigesh doubled over in pain, clutching his abdomen to steady the aching pulse that ran rampage through his body, he began to mumble to himself. Confused, Nao leaned forward to listen to his inaudible words, but couldn’t gather what he was saying. She looked to her right to obtain some sort of clue from the women, but they looked away from them, one shivering in fear and the other unreadable. 

She hissed at him, her voice garbled again. “Are you praying to your gods now? Raylith will not spare you a glance and Umbara welcomes her children in death.”

Finally sparing her glance, he looked up at the Flesh Hoarder with a crazed look. A small line of blood dribbling from his mouth to down his chin and his black hair matting itself on top of his left eye was all it took to warn her to move, but she wasn’t fast enough.

“Get fucked and fuck off.” He said, crouching forward to avoid the massive wave of Fire coming from behind him.

Unable to take the heat of the fire, half of Commander Nao’s body stood up, her torso and head had completely melted off leaving only her legs to hold up her weightless self. Knowing it would take her a minute to regenerate herself after being badly burned, Rigesh ran to Elanya and Orantal, holding them up to prepare them for their backup. Lt. General Elou screeched at the scene, fury rushing through his head like a thousand bulls and he lunged at the three, only to be stopped by another strong burst of fire. He called upon a Water barrier with his magic to fight off the affects of the fire slowly burning its way around him.

They could hear the steam truck coming closer as it drove through the small hordes of ferals and around crushed foundations of the nearby buildings. Looking every inch of a Meister, Nemedion stood on top of the truck releasing as much fire as possible to any Flesh Hoarder in sight. Despite not killing them, he delayed as much regeneration they could muster in a short time, leaving them in short term agony. Lt. General Elou watched as Commander Nao steadily grew back her torso, but it wasn’t fast enough, even after she consumed the bodies of that human girl and her family. He would have to distract their reinforcements to give her enough time to come back to the living. Letting out a strange howl he called out to his brethren for help and watched them run in doves behind him like rabid dogs going after a kill. Taking her charred body, he dashed to the left side of a building and hid from sight.

Rigesh tsked as he watched the Flesh Hoarder cower after all that boasting about being superior and mocking them for not being able to keep up with them. He’ll make sure to kill the two. He vowed to make both of the bastards pay.

“That was so close,” Orantal cried, touching Elanya’s face with the utmost care, “I can’t believe you were banking on Nemedion and Morio coming.”

Elanya winced as Orantal started to heal her deep wound to her cheek. “Well, it’s not like they could ignore a crumbling building in the distance.”

Rigesh shrugged, also wincing at the pain in his stomach. He definitely had a cracked rib after the concrete kick he took from Elou. “I remember Nemedion saying he would come if we ever sent out a flare, well, that was it.”

“You’re both reckless, I swear.”

Nemedion rushed past the three swinging his sword with Fire elemental. He created a wall of fire to slow down the giant mess of Flesh Hoarders answering to their superior’s call, stalling for the others to gather their wits. Once Morio parked the truck, Yahna fled from the vehicle and straight to the rest of them, visibly shaken by the scene.

“Are you alright, Rig?” She asked desperately, her medical box in hand.

“He has a few broken ribs, a cut on his thigh and he sprained his ankle while running,” Elanya answered, concern showing in her eyes despite her best efforts to show a blank face. The whole fight had left her perturbed.

“I may have exerted myself a bit when you told me not too. I appreciate you looking out for my own wellbeing when it’s clear I can’t,” he joked despite the inappropriate time.

Elanya sighed, a cough escaping her. “If you hadn’t decided on coming with me, I would be dead. I’m sorry I strayed from the original purpose.”

“I couldn’t leave you to go alone.”

Yahna glared at the two before her and finally felt what everyone else had noticed prior. All she could do was simmer in anger, she knew Rigesh had been seduced by Elanya into almost dying in this hell hole! If she didn’t act now she would lose him forever, but what could she do? Their bond seems much deeper than she had expected and she could no longer rely on Nemedion to say anything to sway his friend from the lamentable outcome.

At a loss for words, she tried calming herself and felt Rigesh over for his wounds. Orantal looked too tired and too weak to heal extensive wounds like his and she wanted to show him that she could be reliable as well. Using her Earth Magic to feel his body, she grimaced at the damage done to his torso. Two cracked ribs on the right side of his body, internal bleeding in his gut and his wrist and ankle were sprained. There wasn’t enough time to heal everything if they wanted to focus on escaping, so she opted for healing his cracked ribs so they didn’t puncture his lungs.

Morio hung his head out of the window of the driver’s side of the steam truck and yelled, “Are we leaving? Cause I don’t know how much more this truck can take a beating driving through all those Flesh Hoarders.”

Elanya stood up and held her injured arm, analyzing the situation ahead. There would only be a few more moments before Nao completely healed her body and came after them with vengeance. They could all escape in the truck, but they would have to plow through the oncoming herd of Flesh Hoarders and it would only slow down the truck even with the improved shields equipped. If some of the shields’ magic had already been used protecting the truck while on the way to help them, then they would need to reduce the amount of Flesh Hoarders coming after them. With Nemedion’s help, she could probably fight Lt. General Elou and Nao with an advantage since Nemedion’s magic damage is so high. The whole mission he hadn’t expended much magic since she and Rigesh had dealt with culling the city, so his magic was more useful now than ever.

“We have to fight now if we want to get out of here alive. These two will just keep chasing us until we can’t outrun them anymore,” Elanya ran up to Nemedion and sighed, “Only we can do this now, Rigesh is injured and you’re just as good with your sword as that man.”

“Please don’t write me off.” Rigesh snapped.

“I’m not. Once you’re in good shape then you can help, but until then, you should rest.”

Rigesh jerked himself from Yahna’s hands, still feeling a bit woozy from the kick in the stomach. She had managed to mend his cracked ribs, but she still needed to stop the internal bleeding before he caused further damage.

“We can't continuously keep dueling them over and over, they’re just going to keep healing themselves. We have to take them out at the same time.”

“And how do you suppose we do that?” Elanya snorted. “That horde will be upon us any minute now and Nao and Elou will be there to back them up.”

“Or, you could channel an incantation like the one you did at the airport. If we can have Ora boost your magic like before then you can channel enough magic to kill a whole bunch of them.”

Nemedion snarled at Rigesh. “You would put her in danger again? Have you learned nothing from the little adventure that you three just took? You all could have been killed bluffing like you did!”

“We can protect her while she’s casting,” Rigesh argued, “if we shield her from all flanks then none of the Flesh Hoarders will be able to reach her.”

“Casting enough magic to take out that many Flesh Hoarders would not only consume most of her remaining magic but it will take some time--”

“Give me ten minutes to summon the spell,” Elanya interrupted, fully swayed by Rigesh’s faith in her, “I can cast it straight down the middle and clear out every Flesh Hoarder within the next three blocks. Nao and Elou would have to attack me from the front and if they did, they’d die immediately.”

Nemedion wanted to disagree, but Orantal yelled that the enemy were approaching faster than before, their bodies contorting grotesquely as they ran like predators in the jungle. Deciding to be the head of their combined barrier, he shifted his magic together and created a barrier of fire so hot that the first few Flesh Hoarders that touched it would melt instantaneously. Their weaker and fragile bodies would take hours to regenerate.

Elanya reached into her pouch to look for some of her father’s smelling salts. She didn’t think she would need to use them here, but desperate times call for desperate measures. The smelling salts would ensure that she didn’t tire out immediately after casting Moon Magic through Valla, but she would still suffer summoning sickness eventually. If anything, it would act as adrenaline to keep her focused and sane on her task. Regardless of the time, they couldn’t afford to miss their mark. 

With her dominant foot, she traced a circle in the dirt below her and stuck Valla in the middle of it. Spreading her weary arms wide, Elanya closed her eyes and started to chant her magical incantation, purple and black films of shadows slowly following the makeshift circle around the blade of the sword. In front of her incantation stood a small ball of purple Moon Magic, slowly but surely ascending in power as she spoke the ancient words of magic.

“Morio,” she yelled at the truck, “activate the shields on the truck and protect my back. Orantal, I want you to boost me so I don’t wear myself out. Yahna and Rigesh give me a barrier from the left and the right so I’m surrounded by all sides.”

Morio threw his cigarette out the window, then gripped his trembling hands around the steering wheel. Though he struggled for a bit, he managed to channel magic through the truck and into the elemental runes in order to activate the shields, a hint to the amount of magic he held within his uncertain fingertips. With a blazing yellow flare, the shield held fast against the Flesh Hoarders, cutting them off from behind, prickling them with sharp rocks at the slightest touches.

Rigesh watched to the left of the group and, with what little magic he had left, erected a strong shield of Air Magic, pushing away the secretive amount of ferals attempting to sneak in between the cracks of their barrier. However, with the whirling winds on the top layer of the shield, the Flesh Hoarders couldn’t gain vision inside the barrier unless they walked around, or risked getting their flesh torn at the slightest touch of it. They could regenerate easily, as his shield wasn’t as strong as normal, but some of the Flesh Hoarders weren’t privy to the taste of flesh and would take longer to regenerate.

Orantal kneeled behind Elanya with her palms glued together once more, chanting softly as her magic slid around her friend like a cozy, warm film. Her magic reserves hadn’t been depleted like Rigesh and Elanya’s but she was unsteady, fear and uncertainty still wrecking her mental and emotional health. If she didn’t focus on concentrating, then she couldn’t help Elanya boost enough of her magic to take out the horde. She felt an anxiety attack forming, her throat constricting her airway and fresh tears burning at the ducts of her reddened, dry eyes. Biting into her right cheek, blood splashing onto her sore tongue, she reigned in her emotions and centered herself on the particle of magic surrounding them.

Realizing the severity of the situation, Yahna turned to the right and casted a shield of Earth Magic, stopping a few sly Flesh Hoarders in their tracks. As much as she wanted to focus on her own particular corner, completing the circle of magical shields around an indisposed Elanya, she couldn’t help but worry about Rigesh’s injuries. Continuing to cast the rest of his remaining magic, overpowering himself while he was weak was bound to injure him further, doing more damage than just internal bleeding. He could die! Or, at the very least, he could cause damage to himself that even Orantal wouldn’t be able to heal. She knew how important it was to hold her position, but it wouldn’t matter if one of their powerhouses ended up dead from destroying himself. If she moved just a little bit, no one would notice her stop casting her shield, instead being too busy holding their own. If she moved quickly, even just a second, she could turn her own attention to heal Rigesh a little bit further then re-cast her own shield before another group of Flesh Hoarders slid in for another sneak attack to the right.

In her peripheral, she glanced around at the small circle formed--Nemedion held the vanguard, Elanya in the middle channeling her magic, Orantal slightly behind her and Morio in the truck, holding the rear. She and Rigesh were slightly behind Orantal, holding the right and left flanks. Most of the Flesh Hoarders were coming to attack from the front, most of them being charred at the first touch. Some tried dousing the fire shield with their own pathetic amounts of Water Magic to no avail. Another large horde attacked Morio’s shield from the truck, but his magic left his shield impenetrable. Each charge into it forced many of the Flesh Hoarders back, like fighting against an overbearing tidal wave. 

The right and left flanks, while important for covering all their bases, wasn’t as big a priority as the front and the rear. Moving efficiently enough, she could channel most of her magic into an overheal, then she would heal Rigesh quickly and turn back to her spot before some Flesh Hoarders realized that her shield had vanished.

Risky. It was risky, but Yahna didn’t want Rigesh to die. She could see the strain in his face. How his eyes wrinkled as he ignored the pain. His sprained wrist trembled under the weight of his pistols. Blood dripped down his nose and onto his lips, but he didn’t bother wiping it away. Pure determination set his body ablazed, the only reason he still stood. Once he stopped casting, no longer able to output any more of his magic, he would collapse. She wouldn’t allow that to happen. Couldn’t.

Hastily, she turned. Opening her fingers wide, concentrating on calling her healing to the palm of her hands, she focused on channeling her magic and walked promptly to Rigesh while his attention lay with his Air shield. As soon as she touched him, he jerked away, astonished. Her glowing, yellow hands and her disregard for her own position was enough to him to comprehend her intentions. It didn’t matter who else she inconvenienced, or that her life was also in danger among the terrible throngs of death, her selfish delusions would always bring her to the conclusion that Rigesh needed her, whether he actually needed her or not.

Ignoring the easing warmth of magic coursing through his side from her heated fingertips, he snarled at her. “Yahna, what are you doing?”

“You’re hurt, Rigesh. If I don’t stop your bleeding, you’ll die,” she started, shying away from the sharpness in his voice.

“You left Elanya’s flank open! She can’t protect herself.”

“She’s fine! They won’t attack--”

A flash of silver shone in the distant right. Air shifted to a suffocating breeze as the Flesh Hoarders continued their frontal and rear attack, but this time, it was more frantic. A demanding cry erupted from the cry. Rigesh ignored it, instead shoving Yahna behind him as pain shot through his injured wrist.

The familiar battle cry was the only indication that an attack was coming. Rigesh launched himself to the right of Elanya and aimed at the blur of a target matching him, hoping he could protect her from a fury of arrows. Multiple shots of magic left the barrel of his amber pistol, pink fluorescent lights illuminating their tight corner with scorching particles highlighting through darkened smoke and haze from battle.

Through the mess of grey clouds and blackened smog, Rigesh locked eyes with Commander Nao, whose face was marred with smug anger. Her glowing yellow eyes glew with confident acceptance, as though the outcome didn’t matter to her. Chomping her bloody fangs on her lips, she drew black blood as she braced herself against the barrage of counter attacks Rigesh dished to her. One of his magical bullets hit her in the shoulder. Another one in her thigh. However, she raged forward to the opened door of their broken magical barrier, shooting steel arrows into the defending group of humans. Some of her arrows bounced away from parts of the closed shields, but some made their path inside the barrier. Rigesh countered some of the arrows with shots of his own while Yahna flicked a few away with some of her Air Magic. One arrow grazed her right calf as she tried to step back from the scatter storm of Commander Nao’s steel attacks.

As Commander Nao notched another arrow, her body dissipated into a plume of black ash. In a matter of seconds, her face shifted from one of surprise to one filled of dark aggression. Her bow and arrows dropped to the ground while her hands vanished, blending together with the salt and pepper haze of burning magic. A crawl of ash slid up the Flesh Hoarder’s neck right before she let out one last yell of anguish to her surrounding kin, they returned her dying cry with a frantic one. The last thing Rigesh saw was her face, contently deranged with a crooked grin, as it thinned another black layer over the growing fog.

Lt. General Elou stood in front of Nemedion’s Fire barrier, wrists covered in Water Magic, no dents against the magic was possible. In a crazed howl, he lost himself in the delirium of his lover’s death and shoved his body against the burning shield. He ignored as the orange fire burned through his uniform, as it boiled the top layer of his grey skin black. Despite how skilled in combat he appeared, his low quality of magic was nothing compared to the likes of a Meister of Combat Arts. All he was doing was wasting his own magic regenerating himself over and over again as he rammed himself into the shield. Nemedion showed the creature a victorious smirk, magic flaring around his nostrils and eyes.

A thin layer of purple smoke surrounded them inside of their elemental barrier. Unbearable heat receded from Elanya’s incantation circle in waves of rippling Moon Magic. Everyone felt the sickly caress of her magic as it leaked from the pooling ball of Magic at the tips of her scraped fingertips, silver particles of light sparkling while the orb grew a tremendous size. Unable to finally take the weight of her siphoned magic, Elanya finished the incantation and released the harrowing orb at the mob of Flesh Hoarders in front of them.

Nemedion leapt to the side once he dropped his shield, barely missing the scorching burst of Moon Magic from behind him. Lt. General Elou vanished in the array of purple and magenta lights, the black film of Elanya’s magic wreaking havoc through the crowds of his kinfolk around them. In an instance, their bodies turned to ash. Their death was quick and painless, though they were blindsided with the raw output used against them.

It felt like hours passed as Elanya continued to pour her Moon Magic into her spell, blasting through her enemies like lead shooting through a piece of paper. The endless droves of Flesh Hoarders lessened by the minute, but the stubborn ones kept coming at them, ignoring the threat of the magic able to end their immortality. As quick as they entered the fray, they died, no reaction fast enough to escape their inevitable death at the hands of the humans. Elanya grunted loudly as she pushed power not just toward the mess in front of them, but along the sides of them, scaring away potential opponents from an unpredictable ambush.

Once she felt a cold chill seize inside of her veins, Elanya finished off her incantation with one last push, grunting as the last of the Flesh Hoarders evaporated from the edges of her Moon Magic. Drained of all her magic and energy, she staggered against the handle of her sword, the tip digging deeper into the ashened ground. Nemedion came to her side to support her unsteady body, arms wrapping around her sides in a quick, but gentle motion. In a moment of dizziness, she closed her eyes firmly, fighting away the pulsating lights in her sight. To add another layer of darkness, she covered her closed eyes with her frail wrist.

“Ellie, are you okay?” Nemedion searched her face with his free hand, his other still supporting her leaning weight.

She wanted to lie to him. Tell him that she was fine and that her whole body wasn’t on fire, but her strangled reply was enough to relay her status to him.

“Let’s get you to the truck before--”

A distraught cry took their attention to look behind them. Leaning against the truck was an injured Rigesh, a steel arrow sticking out from his gut and a gushing of blood pooling beneath him. Yahna fussed over him, her shaky hand feeling on the left side of his abdomen as he gripped his hand around the arrow. With a newfound strength, Orantal rushed to the balls of her feet, nausea ignored, and rushed to Rigesh’s side as he glared down in pained confusion.

“Rig, don’t! Don’t look down!” Orantal held onto him, bloodying her hands as she tried to steady him.

He coughed a glob of blood while he slowly hunched over, pain destroying the will to keep standing. His sidetracked battle with Commander Nao was risky, especially since Yahna opened the barrier so foolishly, but he hadn’t expected to trade off hits with her as he did. When he shot his magic to deflect the arrows, there wasn’t a thought in his mind that he would have missed one. Her face at death came with understanding--she didn’t care that she was going to die because she would take one of them with her.

“I’m losing...consciousness…” He wheezed, sliding down the truck despite the support from Orantal and Yahna. Blood trailed above him, ruining the beige paint of the steam truck.

Breath left Elanya’s lungs at the sight of him. How bloody and torn he looked, the steel arrow jutting out of him as a sign of his arrogance. Her arrogance. 

Weakly fighting to free herself from Nemedion’s arms, she leaned on Valla for balance and started her way over to Rigesh, startled. He fought to keep his eyes opened as he saw the shadow of her walk toward him, a blurry figure he was in a hurry to see. What if this was the last time he saw her?

Yahna ripped off his shirt and inspected the wound as it gushed over them in waves. She wasn’t sure if she had enough magic to heal up a would of this caliber, especially since he was bleeding out too quickly. Balling up a piece of his torn shirt, she placed the makeshift rag to his wound to stop the bleeding, carefully avoiding touching the arrow. She nearly knocked against it when she jumped after hearing a distant, but vicious howl. There were more Flesh Hoarders on the way. Could there be more like Commander Nao and Lt. General Elou?

“Leave me here…” Rigesh breathed, his eyelids heavy against the strain.

Once she made it to him, she dropped to her knees, shaking her head. “...I won’t leave you here!”

“If we want to escape, then you’ll have to,” he grunted and turned his head to the left, listening for the next incoming waves of Flesh Hoarders. “We don’t have time...to deal with this…”

“We will not--we can not leave you here, Rigesh. I won’t allow it, I…” Elanya’s lips trembled, her shield of a mask cracking under the pressure of leaving someone she cared about behind. They all needed to make it out of the city.

Slow shoe falls sounded in front of them. Lt. General Elou hobbled on one leg, determined to take his revenge against them while his body gradually faded away. His maniacal, grey face crinkled with anguish and anger. He barked a couple of laughs at their way, his way of taunting them with the impending death of their comrade.

“It’s only fair,” he hissed, “that you traded his life for my Nao. But my lady, my Countess Eman, will show you loss beyond your imagination. Don’t think you will get out of this city soon!”

With a barely faded arm, he flung magic at the group, his last attempt to deal damage before he passed on to be with his fallen brothers and sisters. Before Nemedion could react with his counterattack, Elanya snapped her head to Elou and casted a spell of shadows, growing outward into sharp spears of Moon Magic. A few black spears skewered the Lt. General who vanished into the dark haze of black and grey clouds. However, Elanya’s anger could not be sated. The small drop of Moon Magic that still lingered in the air of the battlefield condensed into a ball of energy, then burst into a flare of sharp spears, flying into different directions of no discrimination. The lock that held her powers in control had broken, along with her ability to suppress all emotion but anger. Her magic crashed into surrounding buildings, breaking chunks out of them like rocks from an avalanche. Usual soothing words couldn’t penetrate through the blanket wall of fire that engulfed her mind as she let her darkness consume everything around her.

Her vision blurred around the edges while her magic continued to pop off in various directions, some hitting Flesh Hoarders in the distance. The ground rumbled beneath their feet, shook with a harsh groan as it opened to swallow everything up. Before the black door of her mind welcomed her in, the last thing Elanya saw was everyone falling into the dark pit of the crumbling, stone street.