"I'm getting too old for this." The Man said, accentuating his point by cracking his hunched spine.

  "I'd like to agree, but from everything I can tell, I'm aging slower than you." The Woman said, looking only the barest amount older than when she first came to the black tower. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?" She directed a question to the room.

  "No, if I did, I don't think I'd be asking you to carry things for me." The Man replied.

  "I don't know the specifics, you'd have to look into that yourself, but I remember it having to do with the physical refinement you perform while using spirit. But I cannot give any assurances of this." The Husk rasped out from the center of the room.

  "I'll look into it eventually, not now, though." The Man almost wheezed out the words. "Regardless, you sit still and shut it," The Man continued his task while reprimanding The Husk. "I spent nearly two decades building this; I don't want it failing because you couldn't hold your thoughts in long enough for me to fin- Kehack" The Man's reprimand turned into a small fit of coughing, something The Woman noted was occurring more frequently these days.

  "Should we take a break?" The Woman asked concernedly.

  "KAH, NO hackhah," The Man bellowed out in between coughs. "I hate to admit, but if we wait, I may not live to see the result." The Man said with irritation in his voice.

  "I understand your concern on that front. However, I would like to reiterate that you will see the world again, and the interim will feel no longer than a moment for you." The Husk's rasping voice cut into the room.

  "Shut it." The Man barked.

  This time, everyone listened, the growing agitation on The Man's face leaving them with little retort.

  "Good. Let me work." He said before continuing his surprisingly frantic actions around the room. "Move that stone to the left till I say stop. Stop" He directed The Woman to lift things for him that his aging body no longer could.

  The room was the same one the two had found The Husk in, that half rotted form years before. But if they hadn't made the changes themselves, they would never have seen the resemblance. Gone were the blank stone walls, now replaced with dozens of pillars, all inscribed with runes from floor to ceiling. That same ceiling was different from before, now replaced with several layered panes of glass, each with a unique circle scraped into its surface. Looking to the floor showed a similarly complex ring dug deep into the grey stone, with glowing crystals placed at almost every intersection or angled piece of the pattern.

  "How sure are you this will work this time?" The Woman asked with absolutely no criticism in her voice.

  "I'm hopeful, but not as confident as I'd like. I'm not even sure this is possible." The Man replied while comparing the structure to the notes in his hands. "But, I am completely confident that it won't blow him up this time." He continued, referencing the first time they'd tested his theory when he'd left The Husk as an ashen stain on the stone. "Still, I can't think of any changes to make that would increase our chances, so all we can do is unleash this monstrosity and hope I got it right enough to comb through the world for what we want." The Man said as he checked a few tiny details of the carved pillars.

  "Remind me what he's supposed to do." The Woman said, referencing The Husk sitting silently in the middle.

  "If this works, he'll be the filter and the source for the search." The Man replied before stepping back, carefully avoiding the glowing gems on the floor.

  "Source?" The Woman asked, following The Man away from the circle.

  Every other attempt, The Man had refused to elaborate further on his odd terms. However, this time he was more forthcoming. "We've confirmed that his soul is scattered, and if he's right, the gods will each have a piece of it stuck to them. We don't know where the divine realm is, so we can't do anything to them as they cower away from us mortals. But, if I am correct, we can use him as a lens to search even the stars above, find them, and if we find them, we can hurt them." The Man sounded mad, but The Woman couldn't blame him. She wasn't as fanatical about their goal, but she also had longer before she had to face the reality that she might not see it come to fruition.

  "Alright, so how do we start?" The Woman asked this because every other attempt had been different. Be it an added crystal, a drop of blood in the correct spot, a new line scratched into the stone, a chicken wacked against a pillar. The Woman still thought he'd been messing with her with the chicken, but she couldn't prove it.

  "This time, it's simple; I just push mana into the formation to get the flow started. Aaannndd, DONE."

  The shift from the inactive state of the formation to the current one was abrupt and quite the spectacle. Every painstakingly cut line in the stone shined with a myriad of colors. The floor seemed awash with a colorless liquid, rushing out of the glowing gems like fountains flowing along the brilliant lines, like a river in flood season. The liquid ran up the carved pillars, a rainbow of light refracting through the substance in impossible ways. It created caustics on the walls and dozens of dancing shadows on its way up. It surged up the pillars before slamming into the layered glass ceiling almost viciously.

  The previously colorless liquid took on a deep black color on contact with the glass, oozing across it, unlike the speed it presented upon the floor and pillars. The black bled across the glass before spreading to the second layer, and here it took on another property. Bright, sparkling specks of light that reflected the night sky perfectly appeared in the black, like the stars were dragged below the earth for them alone. The stars appeared one after another until the entire ceiling looked like open air, then the third layer of glass started to change. A gaping emptiness manifested among the stars. A point where nothing showed, where nothing could be seen, but staring at it was as blinding as looking into the bright light of the sun. A shining hollow black, beyond impossible but representing something perfectly. Finally, the liquid touched the last panel of glass. The image took on a life of its own, the stars moving across the sky so fast they left streaks in the eye. The gaping maw twisted, staring, watching, searching for something. The image shifted from stars to a murky sea, from the sea to a white abyss, and further still to planes, mountains, forests, towns, cities, villages, houses, caves, so many changes, so fast that continuing to watch hurt the mind.

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  "Well, that's not right." The Man muttered in response to the rapidly changing scene. "What's happening? Why's it showing so many places?" The Man asked The Husk, a slight hint of panic in his voice.

  "Noisy, can't see past the claws, can't hear past the screams." The Husk rasped out, somehow conveying that it was in pain.

  "What? What claws? What voices?" The Man asked, agitation spreading into his voice.

  The Husk did not directly respond, but the image on the ceiling changed and stabilized to show a new scene, one that left The Woman horrified.

  "Is that-" The Woman got out only a portion of her question. "-Thousands of them." The Man replied, his thoughts aligning with her own.

  What they saw was a veritable sea of bodies, clawed hands sticking out, tearing into each other, ripping limbs from one another. Thousands of husks gathered together, attempting to grab at each other, trying to take something from the rest.

  "Not real; it's how they think of themself." The Husk rasped out in response to the two's reaction to the image.

  And, on closer inspection, he was correct. The sea of bodies was wrong. You could no more follow the body of a single individual than you could pinpoint where the ripping claws were coming from. They faded in and out, appearing at random, clawing at their surroundings, ripping into any of their fellows who were unfortunate enough to be near to them. If you watched, you could see them vanish entirely, leaving nothing behind, before a disembodied arm took their place. But, believing that it wasn't real, did not alleviate any fear. Knowing that this was some projection of the maddened minds of other husks made The Man's fear worse because from what he could tell, the sea of bodies was spreading.

  In the distance, past the mixed limbs and wrapped skeletal frames, The Man could see a liquid of some type. Still, the longer he watched, the further away that horizon appeared, the mass of clawing insanity spreading out across that liquidy surface, engulfing it.

  "They're spreading." He stated what he saw. "What does that mean?" He asked, even though he doubted anyone knew the answer.

  "I can't see; they've taken my eyes." A voice no one recognized resounded from the image. The room shook with the words. "MY ARM, Where is MY ARM?" Another new voice. "I"LL KILL ALL OF YOU, COME AT ME." An enraged voice screamed out. The voices came from the pile and the shadows around the room. The image in the ceiling grew darker, the amassed bodies clawing one over another to try and get at its vantage point.

   "Where am I?" "I can't see." "Help me." "Why, WHYYY." "Give it back, GIVE IT BACK." "My liege, why was I forsaken?" "HELP ME." "KILL." "KILL." "Rip it out, rip them all out." "They've gone mad, I've gone mad, WE have gone mad." "IT HURTS, IT HUUUUURTS." "Kill." "Who am I?" "I can't think; it hurts." "WHY?" "SHRED Shred Shred." "It's so dark. Why is it dark?" "BACK YOU FIENDS, BACK I SAY." "GIVE IT TO ME, GIVE ME YOUR FACE." "Stop it, stop hurting him." "WHY CAN'T I SEE?" "I’ll gut every single one of you; I'LL CUT YOU DOWN." "Whose arms are these?" "MY hands, what happened to my hands?" "Stop it." "I can't feel my legs. Where are my legs?" "Where am I?" "HE TOOK MY EYES." "I'll feast on your tongue if you move." "GIVE IT BACK, GIVE IT BACK." "What was my name? I forgot. Why did I forget?" "Did I have eyes? Should I be able to see? I can't remember." "WHO DID IT? WHO BETRAYED US?" "When did I forget his name? When did I forget my own?" "KILL." "HELP ME." "Find him, find him find him." "I don't want to die." "I can't see, I can't see." "Fight me, FIGHT ME." "Stop it. You'll kill him." "I can't lose. HOW DID I LOSE." "I'll rip your eyes out." "Give IT BACK, GIVE MY SPINE BACK." "Stop it." "Stop it." "Kill." "MY EYES, THEY BURN." "I don't have a pulse. Am I dead?" "I don't want to die." "I won't give up." "Give in, give in to the madness." "I think he's gone crazy."

  The voices grew louder and closer until it was impossible to understand anything they said. They shook the room, the glass rattled above them, and the pillars rocked in place. The image on the ceiling showed them piling atop one another to get closer to them. They didn't work together, but they each tried to climb closer, piling atop each other, making a tower of skeletal bodies. And, if The Husk hadn't spoken up, The Man is sure he would have watched until they reached where he was watching from.

  "Break it." The Husk rasped out a command, restarting the inner workings of The Man's mind. "Stop the spell, or they'll find us." It continued, conveying an emotion that its rasping voice had only ever inflicted, fear.

  The Woman was faster than The Man. She didn't wait for The Husk to finish speaking before she'd drawn a blade to swing at one of the pillars. Her weapon cut through with practiced ease, splitting the pillar in two, knocking it over in the same motion. The rainbow lights stopped, the liquid receded to the gems or faded away like boiling water. And, the image of that tower of bodies vanished from the ceiling as it returned to the layered glass it started as.

  "Another failure, damn." The Man said, focusing on his disappointment instead of his fear.

  "No." The Husk rasped out, having slumped over in the center of the room. "You succeeded."

  "HOW?" The Man bellowed. "How is that a succeEKCAH." He attempted to question The Husk with a self-deprecating rage in his voice before another coughing fit stopped his anger.

  "That failure had nothing to do with your research and everything to do with me. Your spell found every part of me, including those I share with the rest of my kind." The Husk rasped out an explanation.

  "So, we try again with a different target?" The Woman asked.

  "No." The Man was the one to reply. "He means that if we get rid of enough husks', then this one will work." He provided his interpretation of The Husk's words.

  "Correct." The Husk said. "The issue is the time. I cannot free more than one before my body fails me. And while the number of them is smaller than you saw, it will take generations to release enough of them for me to see our goal."

  "So, what? We just sit around and die, while you go and free them?" The Man asked, upset.

  "Not at all, my friend." The Husk replied. "Continue your research, and trust in your past self, the one whose research you bear on your soul. Even if we find them, we will still need a way to rip them down to our realm. Find that, while I find my kin, that is what I ask of you." The Husk replied.

  "I don't really have a choice on one of those." The Man replied, having rapidly accepted, that he'd either see the world again with new eyes or die having given everything he could to this project.

  "I will see you both, eventually." The Husk said before vanishing once again, leaving The Man and The Woman alone once more.

  "Think he's gone?" The Man asked with an empty voice.

  "Yeah, he's gone." The Woman replied, her voice nearly as empty save for a few notes of regret.

  "Good." The Man said, before collapsing, the light of his soul leaving his eyes before he hit the ground.