I traveled through multitudes of ruins. Though, in one of my travels I encountered a Twisted Thing, and I realized that even with the spear I couldn’t fight it. It had taken a single hit from it for me to almost pass out. So in the end, I had to run from it. Even though So’las’ Spear gave me confidence it certainly wasn’t enough to kill everything. Though, if I still couldn’t fight a Twisted Thing…

What was it fighting?

When I came here, one of those monsters was fighting something, and to this moment I still had no idea what it was. But it was clear to me that I was still very far away from being at the top of the food chain.

Was the Hero of Arlas strong enough to fight anything in this space?

I wanted to say yes instantly, but my mind told me that that possibly wasn’t the case. At least, not without a great struggle. In the end, I felt kind of stuck. I had explored multiple ruins and traveled probably hundreds of kilometers, and I had yet to find a single clue in regards to the bloodied paper.

I was sure days had passed already, and I was beginning to think the man had died before achieving anything great. And the thought honestly made me angry, I thought I had found something worthwhile, but I had been mistaken. To top it all off, the pain on my hand was getting worse, so I had at best another week before I had to amputate it.

“How stupid.”

I grunted, kicking the door to some ruins open. Around me lay the corpses of numerous corrupted beasts, and after taking a cursory glance at the corruption floating into the air I stepped into the building.

This one was dilapidated ⁠— fallen apart, but it still belonged to the civilization that I was looking for. So far everything had been fruitless except for the ever increasing stack of papers with graphic images that I had.

I wasted no time rummaging through the different rooms of the dark building. Some were empty, some had nothing more than a chair and a desk with nothing else, some resembled labs, but little by little I managed to find papers that could be of use in the future. And then finally, just like many times before, I arrived at the final room.

It was an office; like many I had seen. Except it seemed to have a dead plant in the corner which I found interesting. Corruption had nested itself in one of the corners while the others were dusty and moldy. It was a rather normal sight.

Still, it was impressive that so many of the buildings were still standing. Of course, some had long collapsed to the passage of time but based on my observations, at least a good seventy-percent of them remained.

I went through this room like any other, and just as I was about to leave I decided to look towards the corrupted corner. Perhaps it was due to the fact that I would soon suffer the same fate, or maybe it was just a simple observation — I didn't really know — but it allowed me to see another paper.

Part of it was fused into the corruption, which was enough to catch my attention. It was also rather hard to see so I missed it when I entered the room. After another second of curious wonder, I approached it and snatched it.

Part of the paper had been torn from grabbing it, the corruption keeping it. However the two-thirds of paper that remained were enough to make me pause. It had writing in it— it wasn't bloody, but it was something I could read.

'Research is tiresome, but I think I'm close to figuring this out… why am I even writing this? It's not like anyone will see it. Though it is comforting to know that this will exist even if I die…'

The page was… full of ramblings, but it gave me hope. The man hadn't died. It was a bit weird to think I was relying on someone — a mysterious figure no less — to figure something out. However, it was all due to the fact that I couldn't be bothered to spend months, or even years to figure it out by myself. It was too much. If I did all that, by the time I returned, I…

And I shook my head, a long sigh leaving me.

"Well, this is a start."

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With that I stowed the paper, and before leaving I made sure to double check the entire building but I couldn't find anything. I also took the time to go through all previously gathered papers. And to my surprise I found one that had more writing in it, except…

Well it was just some arrows pointing at a diagram with the word 'this!', nonetheless I still placed it with the new paper. Though I did take a pause, all to think about where I had found the previous paper.

It took about an hour as I retraced my steps in my head from the previous day, but eventually I realized where I had found it. It was in the South East, and oddly enough I had also come from the South East; the place where I found the original note.

Which means…

"I should keep going North West."

Of course there was a possibility the man just went to follow any of the other cardinal directions and I wouldn't know. In fact there was a possibility he still died after writing this last note and there was nothing more to find. Or even a possibility that he succeeded but his research and everything had been taken by the corruption. But even then, I just chose to follow the pattern.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

"This really is… hard…"

I looked at my blackened hand, and shook my head. I didn't want to lose my hand too. I could live with not having a leg, but… an arm? I didn't know.

There was only so much I could do with ice, I could walk and run somewhat normally but when it came to fighting, my movements would become sluggish due to it. I could only split so much attention to make my ice extremity move properly.

But a hand? An arm?

It was too much.

My eyes narrowed as I opened the door. I looked at the vast ashen sands and at the entirety of the forgotten places.

"I gotta hurry."

And I set off.

◇ ◇ ◇

I lost track of time, I didn't know how many days or weeks passed, the only thing that kept me remotely aware was the corruption permeating my hand and forearm. Its spread had slowed, especially after I had grown more aggressive during the corruption cleansings. But even then, it was still advancing.

However not everything was bad, I had found notes, numerous of them throughout my travels. Some were still written in blood while others just used normal ink. I read through every single one and slowly pieced things together.

I didn't know how the man had ended up in the forgotten places, or even who he was, however I still learned a lot. One was; he was trying to learn what each of the runes meant, believing that this ancient civilization had created something born from the corruption. Another thing was; he would explore multiple places, making testing laboratories and other things for his research. Not much remained of all of that, but through one of the notes I had found out he had a base. And to top it all off, I knew its general direction.

And now, I was heading there.

I didn't know what I expected. The lab seemed to be north, going over some completely corrupted terrain, the direction I was going seemed to constantly climb in altitude. And before long, the view to my surroundings spanned hundreds of kilometers, allowing me to see a large part of the Forgotten Places. I could see hundreds of ruins, all different sizes. Dozens of Twisted Things towering over the landscape. And off in the distance I saw something that I hadn't noticed before:

A towering pillar of corruption. And it was gigantic. Its sheer aura distorted the space around it, its light enough to illuminate its surroundings.

Seeing it gave me pause but when I saw a Twisted Thing literally generate from it, I decided to look the other way. Whatever the pillar was, it wasn't something that I could deal with.

Shaking my head I continued uphill through the harsh terrain. Until eventually I saw a grand building. It resembled a pyramid but it was in rectangular shape and it also had towers flanking its sides.

That was my destination.

Upon reaching it, I found myself before a grand door of unknown material, odd runes lining it. I stared for what felt like forever, but eventually I decided to try something. I placed my left hand and pushed my mana forth only to be— zapped. I flinched, feeling part of my mana get corrupted yet again.

My eyes grew wide, having a conjecture.

"Don't tell me…"

I placed my corrupted hand and pushed— the mana flowed into the door uninterrupted, filling the runic symbols for close to a minute. They were shining in a deep blue color, before finally, they flashed.

With a loud clack, the door began to open upwards, the rattling of chains resounded as it lifted. And within, warm lights turned on.

Then I paused — froze as I saw a giant standing in the middle of the room. A mass of corruption that was dozens of meters tall. My eyes widened, feeling an immediate sense of dread.

̵̧̞̎͋̎⁠̵̢̟̲̗̟͇͊⁠̸̨̨͎̦̂̄͜͠—̴̧̥̬̺̈́́͑̆͜͠⁠̵̧̥̰̩̳̱̊—̶̛̤̮̪̰̗̞͌̓⁠̸̠̦̞́͂ͅ—̶̡̤͇̺̞̾̊̐̀̕.̶͓̫̖̑̿͜ͅ ̴̢͚̩͐͋̇̓͝T̸̙͉̺͖̯͌̓̒̒i̶͉͙͍͚̔̄́e̴̱̍͋́̈͗r̶̠͙̺̤̤̋͜:̸̟̥̅̈́̾͠ ̷̳͑̀̏͂̈́⁠̴̝̲̄͘—̵͕̖͎͎͒̀͑́]̷̧̞̤͔̀̂͛͝

This thing was… strong.

And it turned towards me.

"Hello," it said, its corrupted voice echoing. "I'm Asok."