“Are you ready?” I asked Ylva, making sure that she was on the same page as me. What I had in mind wasn’t that much different from the experiment on Sigmir and myself, only that I was now working with the one I ultimately wanted to change. If I managed to gather Divine Power, this would be the application of it. Not that I had any Divine Power yet, nor did I think getting it would be easy. Thus far, I didn’t even understand the interaction between the Astral Power and the Soul, which I considered a lower level than Divine Power. I didn’t even have a firm understanding what Divine Power was, or how it operated, let alone how to isolate and manipulate it.

The first step was one that neither Sigmir nor I needed, namely giving me access to the subject’s skin. I had suggested shaving some of Ylva’s fur, simply because Lenore and I thought it would be a good joke. The look on her face, alongside the outraged growl, was more than enough to amuse us, even if she threatened to bite us. Luckily, a bit of Ice-Magic to keep her fur frozen and out of the way was easily accomplished and I was able to carve the Rune I had used before into her skin with my Athame.

And then the actual work began. It was interesting, just how minor the differences were between the magical mark-up of Sigmir and myself, in comparison to Ylva. But then, even the physical differences weren’t that big, at least not when compared with a being like Adra. With her, I didn’t even try to understand how my magic worked, luckily, she rarely got hurt in a way that I needed to fix.

As I delved deeper into the complexities that were Ylva, I felt the magic around me thrum, slowly pulsing with the beat of my heart. With Sigmir, I had let myself fall too deep into the sensation, stumbling into areas I couldn’t even begin to comprehend, something I wanted to avoid with Ylva. Instead, I focused on the way Astral Power moved within her body, especially the space where it replenished, getting channelled into the physical medium of her blood by what I believed to be her soul.

Calling it complex and complicated was an understatement, but there was something at the edge of my perception, almost nagging at me to reach out and grab it. For a few moments, I simply focused on the intricate dance of Astral Power, the way some of it remained within her Blood, while some of it instantly continued on, infusing her flesh and bones, but finally, I gave into temptation.

The moment I fúlly focused on the thing at the edge of my perception, it was as if the world around me faded away, all my senses cut off. I wasn’t even sure if I was within my Avatar any longer, the sensation not unlike the brief moments of “not-falling” when logging into Mundus, but I wasn’t booted out into my capsule-space.

Instead, the first thing I felt of my surroundings was the familiar, yet unexpected, sensation of cold. And not just any cold, a clear, crisp biting cold, akin to the blowing wind of an icy winter night, piercing through all layers of protection and stealing all the warmth from your flesh. A shiver went down my spine, as I let the cold flow through me, not rejecting it but greeting it like an old friend. As I drew out the Ice that was flowing through me at all times, the cold faded away a little, not vanishing but into the background, always there, always lingering. But not pressing into me for the moment.

The next thing I felt of my surroundings was a greedy hunger, the darkness around me driven by an urge to consume, to take in everything but the cold. It wasn’t the hunger of Darkness, to consume the light to blot it out, the hunger was a little different. But it was close enough for me to feel the similarities, to empathise, even if I didn’t understand.

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After a moment that might have been just seconds, or hours might have passed, I felt the same sensation I had felt earlier, only that now it was no longer a nagging presence, it was the full force of the being, hammering me with sensations I could barely contain, let alone understand.

I could grasp some of the being, thanks to my affinites for Ice and Darkness, but the sensations I felt hinted at so much more. My perception was limited to the barest edges and yet, even those edges made me shudder. For a second, the burning eyes of the Titan that had haunted my dreams sprung to mind, only to be quickly blown away by the freezing cold that gripped my body.

A howl, not quite sounding like the wind, not quite sounding like a beast shattered the silence around me, bringing sound back to my world. But there was meaning in the howl, as complex and difficult to comprehend as everything in this space had been. I thought it was a question, a query, one I knew I needed to answer, or bad things would happen.

Focusing on the ability I had gained from my bond with Lenore, to understand languages and be understood regardless of language, I tried to speak even without perceiving my body, without knowing if there was an intelligence listening to me. My thoughts, already a little jumbled, started to pour out of me, trying to communicate that I was trying to help a friend, that I wasn’t trying to trespass or intrude.

The wind continued to howl, now whispering into my ears, communicating something out of my grasp, the cold now sapping my strength despite my affinity. Pushing back, I tried to keep my mind from failing, to keep my awareness strong. The lure of darkness was strong, to simply surrender to the comforting embrace and let myself fade. As the wind was howling around me, I felt a presence push it back, just a little, while another anchored me, letting me rest and gather my strength for yet another push.

Reaching into the Hunger, into the howling wind, I tried to take hold of the darkness, if only to make myself felt, to be acknowledged. That I existed, that I was more than a gnat in a dream.

In the darkness around me, two gigantic, golden eyes appeared and I could feel the weight of their gaze on me. Measuring me, judging me. Again, I tried to convey that I was trying to help a friend. I thought of Ylva, trying to convey who she was, both to me but also to Sigmir and Lenore. Why we wanted to help her, what I was trying to accomplish. At first, my thoughts had been coherent, formed in a controlled fashion but under the gaze of those eyes, I found myself rambling, barely able to keep track of my thoughts.

The feeling of Judgement vanished and the howling of the wind seemed to convey acknowledgement, but there was an undertone of warning. Before I could consider more, think about what it meant, the vertigo-inducing darkness returned, only that I didn’t return to Mundus. Instead, when I again had eyes to open, I was sitting on my Throne, within my capsule-space.

Leaning back, I tried to stop the world spinning around me, closing my eyes again, only for them to snap back open, as memories of the judging, golden eyes intruded into the normally so calming darkness. My breath came in short, laboured gasps as if I had been trying to complete one of Mrs. Wu’s exercises in record-time, or maybe running away from something. Recalling one of the exercises in her book, I controlled my breathing, letting it flow in measured breaths and counting them as I did.

By the time I got to one-hundred, the world had stopped spinning and my usual calm had returned, even if there was a part of me that wanted to look over my shoulder, just in case the golden eyes were still watching me. But that had to wait until later.

The mental command to log back into Road to Purgatory was one I had given countless times, the brief darkness was one I had long since grown accustomed to, even if it felt somewhat menacing for once.

But the blue box containing a short and simple message, along with a count-down was one I had never seen before.

You died. You can revive at your home in 23h57min.