Kahli gasped as she unfurled the scroll of prophecy, then immediately regretted her decision as she inhaled a copious amount of dust and particulate from countless centuries. Well, five centuries worth of dust, at least.

"Wow, look at this thing," said Kahli, forgetting for a moment that every member of the Trash E Scapaders had died earlier by touching the porcelain skin of the large, white elephant statue in the middle of the room.

Suddenly remembering their awful fate, Kahli was grateful that the only thing she had to do was cough and retch up some old dust. Then, she looked to the scroll.

She was, once again, incredibly grateful.

It was all written in Eldenscript. Plenty of people in Nomachiato could've never read Eldenscript, but Kahli had been practicing it for her schooling. For a moment, she almost but wondered if she'd been placed here at this moment in time and space specifically to enjoy this special gift by divine design.

"Praise Theseosus! Blessed be her pincers, for now and forever, Awoman!"

Pleased by her own prayers, Kahli looked back to the scroll's Eldenscript and poured over its contents.

A dark cloud of doom settled on the land, and all that was good and well soon got out of hand.

Therein was a beast, a Harbinger of Doom.

And it was clear that the world this thing would consume.

All good people, tauman everywhere

Heard of the creature but none would care

Til their sullied corpses were dragged to its lair

And beaten and skinned and then eaten in there

No more was the land all the people held dear

No more love to behold, it all died on a spear.

And the fear that replaced it was impossibly strong.

A feeling of pain that would last for so long that

Those people that might just escape wouldn't dare

For the risk of losing was too high and too rare.

Was it for a person to live down there.

Down where?

Down where the beast was now brooding, down there.

Down where the beast was becoming aware.

Deep in the depths of the Pit of Despair something was brewing and cooing and oozing in there.

Its tendrils were legs. It came from an egg. Its magical qualities were exceptionally rare.

The power to grow and the power to change. With every piece of an enemy its form rearranged.

Life everlasting, its hidden skill. And inside its heart, the desire to kill.

Kahli's jaw was wide open, in fact it was open so wide that it was starting to hurt! That was the strangest, and most troubling thing she'd read in... possibly in ever!

And that was without even considering that it came from an old scroll in a room in a sealed-off tomb in a cave off the eastern side of Old Snow Mountain. This was, in many ways, equally the strangest and most terrifying thing Kahli had ever read.

What would she do about?

What could she do about it?

It was at this moment that, for a second, she wondered to herself by thinking out loud how much easier it would all be if she could just stop time before making a big decision and see the right choice to make, if she could only see the right path forward.

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But it was hard to consider that, when it was all she could do to imagine what the path forward might be, while also at the same time having to consider the best of those vague approximations of truth. How was Kahli supposed to decide?

The only way she could. She'd have to go with her gut. Which was difficult because it seemed to be in a bit of a dire state since she had that whiskeyed-up coffee that morning, and now was no exception. Still, Kahli had to think as hard as she could. She wondered if things like this were as hard for people with systems. Did people with systems always get faced with such bizarre opportunity and responsibility? They must have, Kahli thought. And yet at this moment, it felt like everything was falling on her, and Kahli didn't know what to do.

So she stood there for a moment, frozen in thought, locked in a pained lack of knowing that kept her from taking a step in any direction at all. She felt for a second as cold as Old Snow Mountain itself, and indeed as painfully static.

She had to act.

Right?

Kahli looked around the room. It was beautiful. Maybe she should explore it a little bit more before she rushed into anything. Maybe everything would become clear to her then.

She'd just have to make sure not to touch the elephant. And of course to step around all the dead bodies. But that was no big deal, although it would be slightly more difficult for her to maneuver the path with her big left foot, Kahli thought.

Kahli walked around the room. It was a lot larger than it seemed. Indeed, there were even trees growing in it. They looked like caocac trees, which were these strange, thick trees that almost seemed to grow in sideways or diagonally, but never straight up. They were also known for producing that smelled like freshly cut limes despite bearing no fruit of their own. No, all the caocac trees did was produce small, brown flowers that had a reputation for smelling, confusingly enough, very much like a freshly cut lemon. There was also rumor that their sap was strangely carbonated, but Kahli wasn't sure if she wanted to try and cut into the beautiful tree to check, it just felt wrong.

She walked further along and saw what looked to be huge piles of glorious gemstones. They looked absolutely brilliant, with so many different cuts and shapes, some raw, some refined, all absolutely gorgeous. Kahli wasn't too huge on gemstones, but she shoved a couple in her small, tattered purse and kept on moving.

A loud squawking made Kahli jump. A peacockerel was walking through the room! And this was not like the large elephant of doom in the middle of the room. This was a living, breathing, peacockerel, its long snout snorting and huffing as it strutted along the cold, black and white tile floor and tread on the small red rugs underlying most of the delicate treasures and antiques.

Kahli was confused. This odd creature wasn't scared of her or anything?

She was, she realized, a little scared of it.

Kahli did her best to get over that fear and keep circling the room. That was, until the cool breeze buffeted her face, cracking some of the plaster.

The cool breeze?

Kahli looked around for a source. She looked up and noticed a wide, purple sky. She glanced to the horizon and could see that the sun was slowly lowering itself. It looked absolutely brilliant, like some sort of large grapefruit.

Kahli felt a warm wave of peacefullness wash over her despite the cool breeze, which she now was finding fairly pleasant and agreeable. Refreshing, even.

Kahli laid down on the soft, warm picnic blanket and rested her big left foot in the slightly overgrown grass.

She sighed. This was just wondrous.

And then, she leaned up, and she saw it blocking her vision of the horizon.

The elephant.

Kahli's gaze narrowed as the vicious, static pachyderm stared at her with its glassy, empty eyes.

It was hateful, it was spiteful. It was weird.

And then, one large schism ripped through the right side of the elephant, spraying porcelain shavings in the air. Kahli braced herself, worried that they might kill her on impact, but instead she found them but a little annoying to brush off herself.

And then, another schism, and another, and soon the elephant was bursting open like the egg of some large bird with elephant shaped birth canals.

Kahli gasped as she watched what crawled out. Covered in a sticky, gray foam were large, stiff arms that were lithe and appeared quite brittle. However, their color was a brilliant splattering of green and pink, and they moved as elegantly as a thousand oils paintings flipped on top of one another in rapid succession so as to give the optical illusion of motion.

And then, the arms unfolded, and Kahli was forced by duty of her mind to open her jaw so wide that for a moment she thought that it might pop out of the socket, tumble to the ground, roll down the hill into the river and never again return to her. This was, of course, an appropriate response to have. Because she was beholding the pincers.

The pincers were exquisite, they were large and they were in charge, they were juicy and meaty in all the right places, while still being so incredibly sharp that they might as well have ended in infinity, and of course considering whose pincers they were, canonically, they did actually end in infinity.

And then, came the head. The large, terrifying, dreadful head of the figure, reeling itself out of the base of the elephant as if it was yanking itself out a thickly encased gelatin. And yet, in a moment, it seemed glisten with sparkling sweat, and look dreadfully beautiful.

But that was for but a moment before it reeled and twisted and contorted its staggering form fully out of the elephant, crawling on its four back legs excellently as it walked terrifyingly towards Kahli.

She gasped. It relented. It was getting closer to her. Kahli noticed that, as she stared at the creature's large, triangular head that it seemed to expand to a bit of a kaleidoscope, and endless eternity of spinning and reshaping forms in a looping conglomerate of wheels.

She knew who this was. She just knew.

"Theseosus?"