After I slew Nefelair, I rushed over to the slumped child cradled next to what I assumed was their parent. I didn’t know what to do, nor how to help. I almost hoped whatever power had manifested in me would magically reveal a method to heal and repair the small child, but no amount of concentration or hard thinking produced any effect beyond sparks and fizzles. Whatever I had used to defeat the monster, Nefelair, was exhausted or just couldn’t help with such an injury.

The rage inside me was fading, quickly flowing back to silent stillness again. I didn’t even feel pity or sadness, I simply felt nothing. A few moments, maybe a minute, passed of my attempts to aid the child, but soon a new danger arrived. Bursting out of the flames and wreckage was a group of warriors. Upon closer inspection they had snow-like fair skin and long pointed ears, large eyes that stared at me in horror and rage. One of them hefted a javelin and tried to throw it towards me, but another warrior’s yells of worry made the weapon waver in the air and fly off course, hitting several feet in front of me. Not taking any chances, I rushed over and past the still bodies of the child and their parent. I want to say I hoped they survived, but at that moment I only felt the need to cover myself and hide my skeletal shame.

The warriors didn’t pursue me, busy with checking inside the houses and tending to the bodies on the ground. So I fled into the surrounding fields that were still fighting off the consuming flames. My willpower seemed strong in the moment, and so my body raced quickly. I found myself atop a small hill nearby, away from the fires, and watched the campsite town.

The tenants of the encampment hurried to dampen or cut off the fires. They seemed to have already fended off the attacking monstrosities. Most of the people below hefted weapons or various tools to cut away the fresh grass in an attempt to starve the fire and prevent its spread. A few, however, seemed to channel similar strange effects as I had. Some created gusts of powerful wind that billowed the fires in a spiral to keep them from spreading outward, while others manifested water from nothing and doused the path of the flames. The gathering of strange people seemed effective at curtailing the blaze, and most seemed to have survived the attack of the monsters. I briefly feared what would have happened if such warriors had pursued and fought me, I doubt they would’ve shown the same weakness of arrogance as Nefelair had.

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I didn’t know what to do, and my curiosity had been sated, replaced with a caution of the warrior’s instant hostility towards my skeletal body. So again without a purpose, I continued to walk into the fields and trees. Following some animal’s path in the underbrush, I began a trek once again into the unknown.

I don’t know exactly how many hours I walked, it hadn’t yet been a full day and night was quickly approaching, but eventually I had fallen into my next destination. By this, I mean I actually fell. Stumbling through the tall grass, the trees were becoming thicker and more eerie. I could feel myself becoming clumsy and slow, maybe some side effect of fighting Nefelair as hard as I did. As if following me, a heavy and sluggish fog was beginning to set in, obscuring my feet and blocking my sight only a few feet in front of my face. Then I fell.

Tumbling downward I rolled down a sharp cliff. I suddenly crashed into a hard stone wall, feeling the impact weaken my focus more than it already was. There was almost no way to see where I was or what was around me, as darkness was setting in and fog was all consuming. I could barely see the stone wall I had crashed into, the fog was growing so great. The cobbled stone wall was rough and mossy, like the stone itself was ancient beyond the ruins I had seen before, and they crumbled into strange shapes while barely holding their structure together.

Standing up I reached through the fog trying to find my way. Using the wall beside me as a guide I followed it, keeping it always on my right. Unsure where I was being led I followed the wall into the fog, hoping to find some kind of shelter to wait until my sight would return. The wall led me through a long spiral, seemingly deeper into whatever ruin I stumbled into, and eventually the dirt and muddy ground gave way to a decrepit stone tile. As I passed further into the ruin a stone frame was revealed despite the fog. Promising a dark shelter, I ventured within.

Walking past the threshold, a shadow fell covering what little light glittered through the foggy mist. The interior of whatever stone structure I had entered was rugged and barren, I didn’t sense or hear anything within, so I progressed further inside. I didn’t know why, but I felt myself becoming almost tired. My movements were progressively getting more sluggish, my perception poorer, and a nagging feeling begging me to just stop moving. I couldn’t fight the sensation very well, and didn’t try very hard either, it had been slowing me down and making me clumsy the entire time I had been walking but I simply hadn’t truly noticed until then. So I began to give in.

A new sensation was curious, and I hadn’t experienced something like this before so I had no idea if it was good or bad. So I followed the instinct. I found a place within the ruin, a spot that didn't have very much dirt or moss, and I sat down with my back to the stoney wall. Sinking into the feeling, I let myself become lost in the dark as my mind slowly faded into the unknown.