A Path was a strange, idiotic thing. Figuring it out was something she was sure would take her months, if not years, of work. Now, she had to do it in mere minutes. The chances of her succeeding were so low that Althea wondered if she should just give up.

Well, wonder was too strong a word. The thought did occur to her, but she was far too stubborn to actually consider it. Not when she could try screaming at the Great Mother. That had worked in the past, and she would make sure it would work again.

Mana surged around her, uncalled-for, but there to support her anyway. Althea took solace in its presence, reaching out as she reached within. Then decided that was an utterly idiotic thing to do.

Not to mention the utter difficulty of maintaining the two senses at once, this wasn't what she had to do. The connection she had to the world outside was from the druid path. That was not the path she wanted. No, the answer she wanted was deep within her.

The core swirled with pure mana, barely contained within its confines. Magic waiting to be unleashed. The Great Mother's path reared towards her, suppressing her as she retreated to her mind and core. An elusive, ethereal force answered the Mother's challenge.

A fog of the night, it rose up as walls of path came crashing towards her. Althea watched from within her core, no longer even perceiving the physical world as she relied only on her mana senses.

This world was dark, like one of those pictures of space where the only thing visible was a few specks of light. But instead of far off stars, the only thing visible was the fog and walls. And of course the light of her own mana.

The fog fought back against the walls, warding them off with its mere presence. The walls were humongous things, dwarfing the fog in size, solidity, and presence. And yet it resisted. This was not the real world. This was the world of images, of...of things that waged war by presence rather than the laws of physics.

The laws of physics said that there should be no fog that could resist a wall. A fog disappeared wherever a wall fell. And yet, here was one that stood anyway. The walls weighed down on the fog, hundreds of feet high in her vision.

Like mountains here to crush an ant. And yet the fog stood. Defying the laws of physics just by its mere existence. Althea watched as minutes passed, mana swirling in her core, its whitish-blue light swirling around her. A hundred wisps of light, unraveling, multiplying before her eyes as the fog attempted to defy the walls.

Even as she watched, she felt herself grow more powerful, the fog growing, transforming under pressure. This was the druid path, the path that had carried her so far. And she could see why it was called great.

Althea did not know why it was a fog, and she might never know. The fog was losing. The poor thing was scarce, barely thicker than a mist. Even as it grew, it faltered, the walls continuing their descent onto it. In time, it would give in.

As she watched, it grew sparser, its presence faltering as several parts of it began to bubble. The walls rushed in as the fog retreated, growing weaker, more liquid as it returned closer to the core. The multiplying threads of mana stopped spinning, merging once more as they grew quieter. The glow of their light dimmed, growing silent as the end approached.

Althea wasn't about to let it end just like that. Of course not. The druid path was still necessary for her to cast spells. That was not something she could just give up. Not if she still wanted to survive. The battle had served its purpose.

Outside, in the battle before, she could not see what the forces were. How they battled. But here, within the confines of her own body, she could sense them. The battle between the walls and the fog had told her what a path was. What it was meant to be.

An image, an idea. A thing that defied the very laws of physics. Althea wasn't sure what her image would be. For some reason, she was sure that she couldn't just apply some random image and call it a day. An image had to be important, symbolic.

What she did have was a feeling. An unwillingness to be controlled that went deep to her bones. Althea would have loved to call on every last part of her will. To use it like it were some resource she could accumulate. But it wasn't. The will was a singular thing, caged within her mind. Empowered only by her principles and her mind.

But today, at this moment, it would have to be enough. Althea would have to make sure it was. The walls bore down on her, proceeding glacially, their threat clear as she stood there, still within her core. The dull light of her mana pulsed.

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The threads budged, not unraveling, glowing or moving in any other way. But still responding to her will to fight back. The fog clung to her core, sparse and dying, but there, unwilling to give up too.

The walls approached. The seconds passed as she felt her head beat within her. A single beat. Then another. Another. The silent beating of the heart passed as the walls approached the fog, their vast selves touching its edges as she felt mana spark.

A heartbeat later, her core was awash with light, the threads spinning faster than they had ever before. Althea pushed her will forward, supporting the fog as it took to the attack. The walls pushed back, not slowing down one bit as the fog fought against them, climbing up their length, apparently trying to strangle them or something.

Althea honestly wasn't sure. The fog was far too sparse to strange anything. But it tried anyway. A flash of light erupted from it, light that dispersed into a thousand colors. The rainbow of lights appeared before her, and then grew to encompass even more lights. But she did not have time to think about that.

There were things for her to do. There was more than one wall, and she was not going to let them take one step forward. Mana attempted to respond to her as she sent an attack of will towards a wall. The wall did not budge. The ground outside probably exploded, but she didn't care.

The Great Mother wanted her alive, she would protect her. This fight would be fought…wherever it was. In her mind or her core, in the darkness where paths fought.

In this place, she could not afford to fall.

A lance of will shot towards the wall, halting it, but not breaking its advance. Not completely. Althea shot out a thousand lances in response. Shooting them wide towards every wall she could see.

There were three…no five? Wait, there were seven now. And three again. The walls were switching numbers. How? Why? Althea shook her head, shaking the thoughts out of her head as she went back to fighting back.

That was what was important now, not what the Great Mother's path involved. A thousand lances of will surged out of her as she extended her mind, wishing the lances would come. In truth, the lances were just her imagination, carrying whatever weight her will did in this place. Thankfully, that appeared to be a lot.

The walls shook, being pushed a single step back as the lances collided against them. A step, not a centimeter or any realistic measure of distance. This place was closer to thought than reality, where a step could be either a thousand kilometers or a single centimeter.

But both mattered the same. A giant the size of planets could duel an ant here, and their thoughts would carry as much weight as their paths.

Mana swirled in her core as the fog flew back towards her, still glowing with more colors than that of a rainbow. Althea smiled, forming boulders around her core, and then pushing them ahead.

A boulder had more weight to her than lances in her mind, and that should make a dent in the walls. The fog sped ahead of her, its colors sparkling like a million multicolored arcs of lightning.

The walls seemed to shrink as they approached, her smile widening into what must have been the first eager smile she'd had in ages. The fog was the first to collide. The walls had reduced to one, allowing it to attack, like a lightning storm here to deliver its vengeance onto the ground. But if the ground were vertical.

The boulders approached from behind, ready to extract their own vengeance on the wall. The two forces neared, and victory seemed nigh. The mana in her core was certainly feeling like that. The fog was transforming, churning, turning more liquid.

Then the wall sped up.

Althea's eyes widened, panicking as she attempted to reverse the boulder's acceleration. But it was too late, they were already out. The walls sped forward in the blink of an eye, and in the time it took for her to even process what was happening, they had closed the distance. The fog reared in reply, transforming into a beast of its own.

Into the rising tide itself. A tide of a thousand colors that sped ahead, crashing into the wall like the tide against the cliff. And it fell just like the tide did.

But for the single second, for that moment that seemed to stretch on for ages, she felt it. The song of the sea. The breeze upon the trees. The cries of the animals of the forest. Even in the desolate land she had found herself stranded in, she heard them.

The sounds of nature. The birthright of a Druid. What she should have had from the beginning. At that moment, she knew. The fog's last transformation told her what the druid path was supposed to be. That it was no sparse fog, but a rising tide.

The tide that refused to give way, that would rise onward till it swallowed the land. The tide that, here, in this place of strange and maddening, represented nature itself. The grand, brutal and vast might of nature, that shook the walls back a hundred steps, halting their advance for a moment and then some.

But now, it was gone. The might of nature had faded, crushed beneath her will and the walls, destroyed with a final cry. The path that had led her way, that had shown her how to cultivate, was gone.

Althea could feel it, even see it, here in her core. The wisps of mana that had once been glowing, that had let out a joyous light at the show of nature's might, were gone. In their place were silent, dark threads, slipping against the walls of the core, ready to escape.

In time, they would. The path was gone. And with it, her cultivation. The mana would soon lose its anchor, unable to connect to her will. Althea wasn't even sure she could start cultivating again if she found another manual.

But she was sure of one thing. The walls were coming. The rising tide had pushed them back, but they were gaining ground once again. But they weren't the only ones here.

The druid path might be gone. The mana she had been so proud of might be in shambles. But she was still here.

If the rising tide did not answer her call.

If the walls did not break before it.

Then she would simply make her own.