One day, Emily and several of her friends were fighting in a burning forest. Ash and smoke clouded the skies as fires blazed around them. Emily, Tim, Rose, Azalea, Charlotte, and Nina fought against entities wreathed in fire.

“Emily, can you hear me?” Emily heard Elizabeth’s voice ringing in her ears, interspersed with static. Emily saw one of the enemies clash with her. “Barely,” Emily said as she coated her swords in water and doused the opponent. “Where are you?”

“That is…where…” Elizabeth, from the Black Box itself, struggled to maintain contact with its core. She soon lost contact with Emily.

“Great,” Emily said as she saw more living fires approaching her.

Tim meanwhile performed a series of moves to channel the wind towards quelling the fires around them. Rose carried Nina to safety, slashing her way through several walking burning trees. Azalea used water magic to douse several of the fires in her way as she and Charlotte tried to find Emily.

From the smoke-filled skies, Halcyon cried. The rain fell from the heavens, her tears beginning to weaken the burning entities. Emily managed to regroup with the other five and escape the inferno.

“What is going on here?” Emily said. The last thing she knew she was meditating on igniting the furnace within her, and the next thing that happened they ended up here. Tim has an inkling of what is going on, while Charlotte suspects the involvement of the demon Pruflas. It is already evident that they were somehow thrust into the middle of an area that is currently undergoing a cataclysm.

The group of six rushed along a familiar patch, they saw fire blaze on the horizon in all directions, only being quelled by Halcyon’s tears. They saw burning treants and spirits of flame recede into the inferno, repelled by the storm of water that poured down on them.

Eventually, they arrived at the end of their path, and Emily saw something that shook her to the core of her core.

“Oh no,” she said. In front of her was the charred remains of a village. Rosenkreuz.

✦✦✦

Earlier in the week. Emily and Tim looked over the furnace-like device in the Core Room of the Black Box.

“The end of Nigredo, right?” Emily’s voice echoed to Tim.

“Seems like,” Tim said. “I can tell you are on the cusp of Albedo, Emily.”

“Do you know what it’s like, Tim?” Emily asked.

“…not really,” Tim said. “I know Master Wu had taught Elizabeth about Alkahestry, but I’m uncertain if that contained more concrete tells. Even if it did, I suspect that those differed by the person, especially in your case.”

“Don’t remind me, Tim,” Emily said.

Elizabeth fluttered in a panic. “Guys I have some news!”

“What is it, Lizzie?” Emily’s voice calmly echoed to the fairy.

“Paulina told me that we’re getting a visitor from the Fallow Institute!” The pink-haired fairy said.

“Fallow?” Emily is confused.

“I heard about them,” Tim said. “They are rumored to be the leading experts in researching Dungeons.”

“That’s true!” Elizabeth said. “She told me that one of them is currently forming a party to visit the Black Box in a few days!”

“Hmm,” Emily thought about it before realizing something. “Do they know about cultivation?”

“I’m…not sure,” Elizabeth said. She began panicking upon remembering that while the Admsitrators had sanctified Emily’s practice of the art, few outside the Black Box itself knew of it.

“Calm down,” Tim said. “Cultivation and Alkahestry remained a lost art in the minds of most. I don’t think the researchers would notice any tells of a cultivating Dungeon.”

“You don’t know that!” Elizabeth said. “The Fallow Institute is one of [Liberté]’s foremost centers of Dungeon and arcane research.”

“And yet they have yet to publicize any instance of Cultivation,” Tim said.

Emily looked at her collection of Elementalist’s Spheres. The magenta Electrosphere, the purple Umbrasphere, the blue, Aquasphere, the cyan Cryosphere, the green Aerosphere, the yellow Photosphere the orange Geosphere… Her eyes and mind then lingered on the red Pyrosphere. While she possessed it, she consciously chose not to draw mana from it or use its abilities, how could she, knowing the reason she got the sphere is also the reason why several children remain trapped within and bonded to her? Her mind then turned to the incident in Hamlin. “Perhaps they could help me free them?” she mused.

✦✦✦

Later, Azalea and Rose are in the Bleumaw. Rose is helping Azalea with her new routine.

“Alright, Lea. I’m here,” Rose said to the Mermaid.

“There really is no place like home,” Azalea said. “After defeating that Strega, that is. Anyway, I have a great idea for a routine!”

Rose slithered to a nearby rock in the nanomachine-coated forest and climbed it. “Alright, let’s hear it. Is Emily listening too?”

“Huh?” Emily’s voice echoed to Rose. “Why me?”

“I can’t be the only one that has to…er, listen to Azalea’s experimental routines,” Rose said.

“Don’t worry about that,” Azalea said. “Emmy already heard the routine.”

“I did?” Emily asked, she thought about things and realized the actual reason Azalea wanted to be alone with Rose. “Oh, right. I did!”

“Terrific,” Rose said flatly.

The dungeon focuses her attention elsewhere within her halls, leaving Azalea and Rose alone.

Azalea turned to Rose “Don’t worry Rosie, you’re gonna enjoy this.” She began her tale. “Now one upon a time there was a young lass. She wanted to make others smile and laugh, but no matter how much she tried, she…”

Azalea continued through her story. “…one day she met a fairy who wanted to help her reach the hearts of people, everyone. The girl accepted their help and grew more determined to make others laugh…”

✦✦✦

Meanwhile, Charlotte continued to learn gravity magic under Anemone. Euryale, Stheno, Lily, Nina, and Pearl were watching.

“Gravity spells?” Pearl asked.

“A rather rare school of magic,” Lily said.

“Lotte has a surprisingly high proficiency with them,” Euryale said.

“Ah,” Pearl said. “And you are?”

“Wait I haven’t introduced myself,” the nezumi-like Cell said.

“Oh sister,” her sister said. “My name is Stheno, and this is Euryale.”

Charlotte focused on lifting a small log. Anemone coached her on the use of apurgy to levitate objects.

Tim arrived at Carla’s home and opened the door. Charlotte was so spoked she lost focus and the log ended up attached to the ceiling.

“Got a moment,” the young man said.

“Oh,” Charlotte said. “What brings you here?”

Tim observed the log on the ceiling. The wooden cylinder rolled toward the wall. He turned his gaze back at Charlotte and Anemone.

“At least it wasn’t us this time,” Euryale said.

“I heard there was someone using Gravity magic here,” Tim said sternly.

Charlotte was startled. “Oh, um were we not supposed to?”

Tim looked at the young alraune and then to the lilac-haired wolf-eared girl. The girls feared some punishment from Tim, but he laughed. “How long have you been at it?”

“Um, since we returned from the Feywood, I think?” Charlotte said.

“It might’ve been longer,” Anemone said.

“I see,” Tim said.

“Um,” Charlotte said, “Are we in trouble?”

“No,” Tim said. “I just wanted to confirm something is all. I apologize if I scared you.”

“What did you want to confirm?” Anemone said.

“I had Esteban and Julia search for fellow alkahestic sects the other day,” Tim said. “They found leads to several and the Rouges also mentioned that some of them used gravity manipulation for training.”

“Oh right,” Anemone realized something. “There were some studies on the effect of increased gravity for strength training and endurance.”

Tim nodded. “I also talked with Master Wu, he collaborated that there were some sects that believed that such training helped in cultivation efforts. With Emily at least approaching Albedo, I took it upon myself to see if we could incorporate gravity training.”

“Shouldn’t that be Heathcliff or Elizabeth’s job?” Lily asked.

“Heathcliff wanted me to help him run the dungeon,” Tim said. “Namely for if the Golden Spear school is to be revived here. I already talked with Elizabeth and Emily about it, that’s how I learned about your lessons.”

Charlotte and Anemone stayed silent.

Tim sighed. “Look, you’re not in trouble. You’re free to refuse if you want,” he said cordially. “No one is forcing you to do this if you don’t want to.”

“Are there any complex spells involved?” Charlotte asked.

“There shouldn't,” Tim said. “It’s just increasing the gravity for a specific room and maintaining it for a few hours.”

“Wait,” Euryale said. “Why can’t Emily do it herself? She has an Umbrasphere right?”

“That’s the thing,” Anemone said. “While it is true that this school of spells is associated with the Umbrasphere. It is complicated to master compared to other darkness spells. Some had taken to positing that the school might be the result of an elemental reaction. Others had since used theory as evidence for the existence of Elementalist’s Spheres beyond the known eight.”

“So you’re saying Emily can’t just do something to make things heavier then?” Stheno said.

“Not by magic at least,” Anemone said. “She could theoretically make Cells heavier if she wanted to.”

The Arion twins gulped. They didn’t want to be rendered sessile or take on extra weight.

Anemone chuckled. “You know she wouldn't do that.”

Charlotte mulled over the decision. “Can I talk with Mommy about it first?”

“Of course,” Tim said. “Take your time, there is no need to rush something like this.” Tim left.

“I have to go soon,” Pearl said. “The director will have a fit if I arrive on set late. Farewell!” the porcine left Carla’s home, and the Black Box.

After Pearl left, Charlotte practiced more with her gravity spells, starting with bringing the log back down to the floor. With a few motions with her hand, the wooden cylinder fell with a thud.

✦✦✦

Azalea continued her tale. “…the girl was shattered in a myriad pieces…”

Rose was confused. “Hold up,” Rose said. She noticed a lack of comedy in the story so far. “This isn’t like your usual material, Azalea.”

“We’re just getting to the good part,” the blue-haired clionid said. A small ripple formed in the orb of water surrounding her head as she swam toward Rose. “Trust me.”

“Alright,” Rose thought. “She seems more serious today,” the pink-pigtialed lamia thought.

“Now where was I? Oh yeah,” Azalea continued. “The girl was shattered into a myriad pieces. Some of them were merged into a new entity, a monster that lurked the waterways beneath a dark city, beyond even the lowest residential areas. Others reformed into mirror images of the girl, each lacking most of what made her her. Over time they had regained parts of the original girl as they floated in the damp and dark waters, and as they avoided both the gross sludge and the monster.”

Rose suddenly felt a shiver going down her spine and into her coral pink tale. “Lea, this isn’t October, quit trying to scare me!”

“We’re not done yet,” Azalea said. “The punchline’s worth it. I promise!” She continued her tale. “The monster consumed all but one of the girl’s pieces. Each of them is similar to but not quite the original girl. It is eventually found and captured the last girl. Poised to assimilate her as it did the other pieces until…”

“Until what?” Rose said, gripped by suspended.

“The fairy from before had rallied some help. A stalwart maiden thrush forth in a bolt of lightning, joined by another with a will that burned like fire. Together these two had slayed the monster and saved the girl from its clutches.”

Rose found this part oddly familiar, but she waited until Azalea finished to ask questions.

“The young girl followed them, the duo couldn’t bear to leave her alone in the waterways, who knew what she had to swim through. It gives me nightmares just thinking about it. She followed them to the place they called home and helped her clean herself up, and they spent the rest of their days together. And that was how they brought color to the dark city. How things took a turn-ra for the better for the girl and her new friends.”

Realization dawned on Rose. “What is the girl—”

“Swimming right before you?” Azalea said. “Yep.”

“That can’t be right, that would mean you were—” She thought about it for a few moments. She noticed how similar the monster was to a Strega, and the girl was one of the fragments seen in their domains. “Does this mean that—”

Azalea nodded cheerfully.

Rose was left speechless.

“I know it’s a lot to take in,” Azalea said.

Thoughts raced through Rose’s head. Now aware that Azalea is or rather was a fragment. “But Whisper said Fragments were born from Strega.”

“Yeah,” Azalea said. “And?”

Rose began to piece things together and made a realization that shook her to the core. Azalea calmed her down before she suffered a panic attack.

“Calm down, Rosie. Breathe,” Azalea said.

Rose remained in shock for several moments before regaining composure. She had just learned a truth about Azalea and about herself in the process.

“Is there any way to…”

“There is a reason why Whisper wanted to ensure we have mana, and why they worked overtime to ensure we got adopted, remember?” Azalea said.

“Right, right,” Rose said, trying to keep calm. “So does that mean—”

“The transformation is reversible, technically, but Strega will try to consume the fragments to ensure their own existence and even if people were restored, they still lost a part of themselves.”

“Right,” Rose said with a little dread. “You did say you forgot everything that— Wait you lied to us! You said you forgot everything before we met!”

“I’m sorry,” Azalea said. “But it is true that I had forgotten some of my memories, it was that those were up to before I…”

“Why did you keep it from us?” Rose said a little hurt that Azalea withheld a secret that dire from her friends.

“I wanted to make sure you were ready?” Azalea said. “Merely telling you risks that kind of transformation, especially since—”

“You thought I couldn’t have handled it back then?” Rose said. A black sludge is secreted from her scaly tail and a similar liquid streamed down her face. She realized what was happening and tried to calm herself down. The black fluid stopped. “It’s okay, it’s okay. I’m fine. Even though someone I thought I could trust just dumped a life-changing secret on me. I’m totally fine!”

Azalea is stunned by Rose’s outburst. She silently wondered if she should’ve waited a little longer. Rose slithered away silently, leaving behind a trail of gunk in her wake for a minute. Azalea hoped that she hadn’t made things worse for Rose.

✦✦✦

The next day, Rose slithered around in a small room in the Black Box. Mostly alone. The lamia sulked around for several moments. Emily was alerted to what had recently occurred.

“Rose,” Emily’s voice echoed to the lamia, “are you okay.”

“What does it look like?” Rose said with a sigh. “How long did you knew?”

Emily did respond. Rose sighed again. “I guess it doesn’t matter.”

A few people walked into the room. Sarah, Raine…and Azalea. The former was carrying a large box of armaments. “Heard you needed these?” the tanned dwarf said.

Rose looked at Azalea who sheepishly tried to think of something to cheer up her friend.

Rose moodily slithered to Sarah’s crate and examined several weapons, armor, and instruments. The ebon ooze was secreted from her hand and moved to engulf the various objects, redundant them into mana and “digesting” them. “Thanks,” she said.

Raine approached Rose. “Mind, telling us what happened here?” her voice was calm.

“Did she tell you?” Rose said.

“That maze near the Eitri meadows,” Raine answered. She knew it was about the true relationship between Strega and Witches.

“Of course she did,” Rose said with a humph.

“I …also told the others as well,” the mermaid nervously said.

“What!” Rose asked. “Them too? Azalea, why did you keep this from me so long? Why did you tell me last?” Rose said with a tone that bared both hurt and a bit of rage.

“I wanted to tell you,” Azalea said. “Eventually. But…”

“But what?” Rose said.

Azalea was startled. “I wasn’t sure if you’d take it well if I did.”

Rose puffed her cheeks. “What do you mean? I think I’m taking ‘learning I could eventually transform into a dangerous monster’ quite swimmingly, thank you.”

Raine gave a skeptical look at her.

“It’s a lot to take in, I know,” Azalea said.

Rose stayed silent.

“Are you mad, Rosie?” Azalea said.

Rose sighed. “Of course I’m mad!” she then took a deep breath. “It’s just, what, I’m.” Rose grew too frustrated to get the words out.

Sarah looked at the ceiling. “I think you might want to get here ‘in person’, Em.”

Emily took Sarah’s hint and manifested an avatara in the room. She then approached the lamia. “Take it slow, Rose. Deep breaths.” She said calmly.

“R-right,” Rose said. “Deep breaths.” He inhaled and exhaled for a few moments. After she was calmed down she looked at her clionid friend. “Lea, I have a few more questions.”

“Yes?” Azalea said.

“Did Whisper also know?”

Azalea and Emily nodded. After all, Whisper and Elizabeth were why Emily knew how Magical Children become Strega.

“Whisper told me after you and Raine saved me,” Azalea said.

“I see,” the serpentine child said. She signed once more. “How many?”

“Huh?” Azalea said.

“How many of them did we send to the Pathfinder?” Rose asked.

“Oh,” Azalea said. “That is…complicated.”

“Complicated?” Rose said.

“Rose,” Raine said. “While it is true that those that contracted with familiars can become a Strega and that they can be restored, that is only if it was defeated while one of their fragments remained.”

Rose looked down. She had expected an answer like that take. If not because of Azalea’s story then because of what she knew became of Evelyn and Betty. They were among the lucky ones. But not all the Strega they had slain in their time as Witches were so lucky. For those that the Coloraturas had failed to find any fragments, Rose had little choice but to assume the Strega couldn’t be saved and that there were several innocent lives forced to be destroyed before they could harm people in their madness.

Rose turned to Raine. “How well did you take it?” she asked.

“Honestly I was shocked to have heard that,” Raine said.

“Really?” Rose said, with a little relief.

Azalea giggled a little. “You should’ve seen the look on her face!” before trying to approximate it. Rose giggled at Azalea’s attempt to mimic Raine’s look of shock, while Raine became mortified at the mermaid bringing it up.

“S-stop that!” Raine said.

“It seems she’s calmed down a bit,” Sarah said. “Good thing too, I wasn’t sure if that crate was enough to feed her.” Sarah left Emily and the three young girls alone. Emily demanifested her avatara.

Rose looked at her two oldest friends. She had calmed down enough.

“Know that whatever happens, we’ll be there for you, Rosie,” Raine said.

“I won’t let you or the others fall on my watch!” Azalea said.

“Thanks,” Rose said. “I promise that if it came to that as well. I’ll save you as well! I will not abandon the Coloraturas!”

The other two laughed. Rose’s spirits were a little lifted from that. Rose stretched her arms and slithered towards the door. “Come on, we have to practice for our imminent guests!” she said, referring to the Fallow party.

Raine and Azalea followed Rose to the other five Coloraturas.

✦✦✦

Later that week, a storm brew over the wilderness near Rosenkreuz, including the Black Box. Tim looked out at the sky and saw a vortex above him. The lightning flashed. He sensed something unusual about the weather.

Emily approached him, using her avatara vessel. “Is something wrong?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Tim said. “I have a hunch but—”

“Noþing is wrong dear. Your is first trial is nigh.”

A familiar woman emerged from thin air. Claudia. Administrator, Trickster goddess, and the only divinity that saw fit to greet them in person.

Tim gripped his Qiang. Claudia chuckled. “It seems you already knew who I am?”

“You exude a divine aura,” Tim said. “And a dangerous one.”

Claudia chuckled. “Rest assured I come in peace. I come on behalf of [Astra, the Cosmos] herself and her many children. You obtained a special furnace yes?”

“Furnace?” Emily asked. She recalled the ashened one that recently materialized in her core one. “But that means that—”

A sudden explosion was heard.

“Oh my, seems like þe test has already begun,” Claudia said. “Time to see if you are worþy of that first step. Know þyself, know þy fears and overcome them. Þat is how you will ignite the furnace. Toodles!” Claudia faded in a flash of thunder. Before they knew Emily and Tim found themselves in a scorched wasteland. Smoke rose in the distance as the storm clouds remained over them.

Emily tried to move, but she became more unbalanced than usual. Some of her senses had dulled. “What is, happening?”

“Emily!”

Rose slithered to the pair with Nina in tow. “Soemthing’s wrong!” the lamia said. “Everything just vanished!”

Tim started to intuit what is happening. “So this is the first trial,” he mused. He turned to Rose. “Did you see anyone else?”

“Mommy went missing,” Nina said, tears welled up in her eyes. “She had disappeared again!”

Azalea swam towards the group and saw Emily’s avatara with Tim, Rose and Nina. “Seems we washed up somewhere else,” Azalea chuckled.

Rose turned away from the clionid. Azalea sensed that despite the earlier meeting, she still wasn’t in the mood for jokes. “I found Lily, Clover and Stre on the way here, they went to the source of the fire.”

“Fire?” Rose turned her head towards the plume of smoke over the horizon. She saw a blaze burning in the distance. A faint whispers of screams, cries for help were heard.

Emily looked at the fire and felt a profound dread, something telling her that this was more dangerous than anything she had ever faced before.

They saw several figures rushing towards them, among them were Lily, Clover, Streltiiza, Anemone, Hydrangea, Raine, Charlotte and Carla. They noticed the ground behind them burned as if they were being chased by living flame.

Once they were at a sufficient distance, Hydrangea conjured a barrier of ice to impede the heated flames. Emily and her group regrouped with them.

“Emily,” Charlotte said. “What happened? Everything’s on fire!”

“I-I don’t know,” Emily said.

The group shared their bearings and learn that they were teleported elsewhen. They took a look at Hydrnagea’s frozen barrier and saw it melt. Realizing they can’t stay here, they ran away from the flames.

✦✦✦

Meanwhile, Elizabeth fluttered around the Black Box. Her distraught expression was bare for all to see. She flew around the dungeon.

“Emily?” She called out, but she received no response from the core. She tried calling to her, but the dungeon remained silent. She fluttered to another room where she bumped into Heathcliff.

“What’s wrong, cher?” the knight asked. “You look like you—”

“It’s the kids,” Elizabeth said. “Something’s wrong with them and Emily isn’t responding to me!”

Heathcliff looked at the fairy’s face. Her expression made it clear that something had gone very wrong.

A while later, the knight and fairy arrived at the core room, there they found that Nina, Charlotte, and the Coloraturas’ Sleepshells were activated and that they were encased in metallic cocoons. Carla and Minerva looked over their daughters with concern.

Sarah and Richard examined the Cyberworks armor that changed into the sleepshells. “I thought that spell was supposed to work when they aren’t near any beds!” Sarah said with frustration.

“Elizabeth,” Richard said. “Did you alter the runes?”

“The runes weren’t altered,” Elizabeth said. “I checked when I found them.”

Esteban and Julia entered the core room, rolling a black and orange sphere in with them. “We found another one,” Esteban said.

Heathcliff looked at the sphere and knew who slept inside. “This is rather strange.”

The Black Box was oddly silent, the air was a slow breeze. The walls and floors moved at a glacial pace. The Cells acted on autopilot, except for those like the Hamlin children and Evelyn. Atsuko and Hoshikage entered the core room.

“No luck, huh?” Atsuko said. Her ears were pinned back.

Elizabeth shook her head in dismay.

“Has anything like this happened before?” Hoshikage asked.

“Usually, [Somnic Fields] would‘ve affected everything in a specific radius,” the fairy said to the blond and tanned kunoichi. She mused on things a bit. “Emily is also irresponsible. It is technically possible for a [Somnic Field] to affect [Dungeon cores] but even then it would mean it placed everyone in a comatose state.”

“So that’s out,” Esteban said.

“Maybe they had eaten something poisonous?” Carla asked.

“It’s one thing to fall unconscious,” Minerva said. “But to do it in a way that activated the spell…”

Atsuko looked at the eleven spheres on the floors. The teal-haired nekomata looked at the eight Elementalist’s Spheres on the wall. She noticed something was amiss. She looked at the Geosphere and Umbralspheres, they radiated light at normal levels. She then looked at the Pyropshere and noted it shimmered slightly more than the other seven. Her tails stiffened in shock.

“The Pyrosphere,” Atsuko said. “Emily hadn’t drawn from it!”

Elizabeth fluttered to the spheres and noticed the same abnormal glow of the Pyrosphere. Her heart sank as she realized the risk. “Oh no.”

✦✦✦

Meanwhile, Emily, Tim, and the girls had found shelter from the wildfire they were suddenly thrust into, arriving at a glass landscape. The smooth transparent surface revealed various parts of the subterrane; fossils, coal, and rock.

The overcast sky prevented sunlight from seeping though, the only light came from the blaze on the horizon. The wildfire that for some reason hasn’t come after them.

“Well, we have an inferno on one end and … whatever this is on the other,” Rose said. “Lovely.”

“At least the fire can’t be ashed to come here,” Azalea said.

Emily looked around and felt this place eerily familiar but couldn’t place her finger on it. She looked around as the dark sky dimmed visibility.

Charlotte saw a glint at a distance and looked toward a spire. “Look!”

Emily turned towards the direction the alraune lass pointed and gasped. She recognized the shape of the tower. “Is that…”

Tim looked at the tower. “The Arcane Tower? But that would mean we are in la Prairie Inconnue.”

“What?” Lily said. “That can’t be right, we stopped the Strega there!”

Rose looked back at the encounter in the desert. She remembered that they were only able to save one person from there, the sandworm was defeated, and it was destroyed. She wondered who had become the Strega that turned the desert into glass, and if they could’ve been saved.

Azalea looked at her glum serpentine friend.

“Someone’s taking it real hard,” Clover said.

“In fairness,” Hydrangea said. “There were other things on the mind when Azalea told us.”

“Do you think she’s okay?” Anemone said.

“I can hear you, you know?” Rose said.

“…sorry,” Anemone said sincerely.

Raine approached her friend. “You wanna talk about it?”

“Talk about what?” Rose said. “How we could turn into monsters if we’re not careful? How those things we’ve been fighting were once like us? You know they had families and friends. People that cared for them and might never know what happened to them.”

“Rose…” Lily said.

While the Coloraturas were busy consoling their leader. Emily and Tim looked closer at the now glass-like Arcane Tower.

“This doesn’t make sense,” Emily said. “The desert wasn’t like this yesterday.”

Charlotte meanwhile looked at the wildfire. Her gaze extended beyond the flames towards a far-off point. She recalled the events in Hamlin. How her mother was immolated alive in a self-sacrificial plan to ensure the village received a form of closure.

“Lotte?” Nina asked.

Charlotte snapped back to reality. “Huh?”

“You and Rose seem out of it lately,” the spiderling said.

“Oh, that.” The indigo-haired alraune said. “It’s just. You remember Hamlin?”

“Sure do!” Nina said cheerfully. “How could I— Oh.”

They looked at the wildfire in the distance. “You think it’s that demon’s fault?” Nina said.

As she heard Nina’s question, Emily remembered something. She turned towards the fire and recalled the encounter with the mysterious entity. She looked at the fire and felt like something was pulling her to it.

“We need to go,” Emily said.

“Emily?” Nina said.

“Go where,” Rose asked with confusion.

“That blaze,” Emily said. “It’s hiding something?”

“You want to go back into the fire?” Charlotte said.

“That place is like a cataclysm,” Tim said.

“It is a cataclysm,” Anemone said. “Or at least it has all the hallmarks of one.”

“I’m certain,” Emily. “That woman mentioned a trial, didn’t she?”

“She did, yes,” Tim said.

Charlotte was hesitant to follow Emily. The wildfire frightened her so much, it reminded her of the near loss of her mother and the total loss of a quiet life in Hamlin.

Rose slithered to the alraune, feigning confidence. “Don’t worry, we can keep you safe from the fires.”

“We can’t really leave you here anyway,” Hydrangea said.

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Charlotte noticed they had a point. There is no way to find food in eh grass desert, and the clouds prevent Stella from shining down on them, there is no water nearby if there is any way to find out where they are and to escape it, it has to be together. She looked at Nina, the younger girl gave her a confident smirk.

“Leave it to us!” she said. Charlotte was a little assured by that and silently agreed to go with them.

The group prepares to return to the burning forest.

✦✦✦

Emily’s group approached the wildfire. The scent of burnt wood and ash linger in the air. Emily, Tim, Clover, Azalea and Hydrangea used wind, ice and water spells to protect the group from the heat, quelling the fire around them and Rained used her skill in flame magic to repel the fires that creep closer to them. They eventually found a part of the forest that was too burned out to ignite.

“We need to be careful,” Tim said. “There are other dangers beyond the fires.”

Clover prepared a spell to ensure ash won’t get into their lungs as they ventures deeper into the forest. They discovered various charred unidentifiable bodies around them as they ventured deeper in the burning forest. The errie bodies sent shiver down’s everyone’s spines.

Lily cantered a little ahead of the group and bumped into something. “Ow!” the centauride yelled. She looked at the object in front of her and recoield in horror. It was a ashen statue of a young centaur child.

Anemone rushed to Lily. “What happened?” Lily trembled as she pointed to the corpse. Anemone noticed that the statue bore an uncanny reassembling to Lily.

Azalea swam toward Rose, wanting to make sure she is okay. Rose feigned a confident look towards the mermaid. Azalea noticed that she was still sullen benath the masked and tried to cheer her up with some jokes.

Streltizia and Hydrangia took up the rear, trying to erect barriers to ward off the cinders behind them. The orange haired minotaur heard a spark flicker to her side and saw a shadow move in the ash trees.

Charlotte looked at the various coalblack remains around hem. Her stomach churned as the pungent scent of ash and rot filled her nostrils. She tried to use the aroma of her own petals to counteract the noxious odor.

Raine and Clover noticed several ruins in the forests; crumbled walls and collapsed buildings surrounded them. As they drew closer to the structures they noticed that they felt like they had been here before.

Nina noticed a strange strcture, a slope that looked out of placed amongst the charred trees. She climbed up it and ascended its peak. What she saw there caused her to to open her eyes in shock. She skittered down the sloped. “Emmy!” she called.

Emily heard Nina and came over. “Did you find something, Nina?” she said.

Nina led the others up the slope and until its peak. Emily placed her hand over her mouth. She saw seven other slopes, each leading towards a disk-shaped object. A familiar form, one she recalled from Tarantuopolis, yet it was more so because it was also the basis of the first Constrict. The Sentinel she inadvertently created after she absorbed the core of Tarantlopolis.

The group realized something. These ruins, they were of the Black Box.

✦✦✦

Emily collapsed on her knees, confused and distraught. “Why? How?” she is certain she is still alive, yet they know they walked in the course of her dungeon body.

“Þat which lieþ before you is a possibility,” a voice echoed in her mind. “What þis is yet to be.” She recognized the voice.

“Who are you!” Emily shouted. No one responded. The voice giggles.

“Just someone in the mood to give you one hint, darling.” Claudia’s voice faded away.

Emily stood up, and saw the rest of her group were just as confused as she is. And were more so by her outburst.

“Emily?” Charlotte said.

Emily assured the others that she is …stable. She looked around the ruins of herself and wondered what had happened here.

The group of twelve suddenly heard voices. Wailing, cries for help, memories of the last moments before they knew it the wood and metal around them ignited around them and they are suddenly surrounded by shadowy phantoms. Similar to those they encountered while exploring Spearhead’s Peak.

Tim took out his Qiang and used it to channel a cyclone to repell the shadowy figures. “We need to go, now!”

The group fought their way though the shadows to escape the wildfire that crawled up behind them. They eventually arrived in another dried out place the blaze stopping short of them. They were safe…for now.

✦✦✦

Emily and her group wandered the wasteland for hours. Trying to learn what had happened dot the Black Box Dungeon and avoiding both the flames and the shadowy monsters. They eventually came across a strange structure, a wooden house built from the burned-out trees that surrounded it.

“That wasn’t there before,” Tim mused.

The group noticed that the home was seemingly empty. No signs marking ownership were present. With little recourse, they entered the abode, hoping to find clues as to what happened.

Over a few hours, they had rummaged through the items in the house and found that despite the burnt and ashed exterior it was functional; there was enough food for a month, hunting supplies to gather more, a garden, a runic system for making potable water from the rainfall. Most interesting of all were the few books on the shelf. All seemed to be red-bound memoirs written anonymously.

Emily took one of the tombs and read an entry. The date was smudged out. “…The other New Virginia guilds had attempted to contain the cataclysm. No dice, the elementals had claimed them all. I took a look at their corpses, seems like they got Cerburean folk in their ranks. Poor fools, don’t they know that cataclysms like that can’t be contained in this way?”

Emily’s mind is confused. “Cataclysm?” she asked herself. She recalled that one of the others had mentioned the term. She turned around to the others.

“Did you find something?” Anemone asked.

“I think so?” Emily said. She showed Anemone the book.

Anemone read the entry. Her eyes moved knowingly as if the suspicions she held were confirmed. “Did Elizabeth tell you about elemental mana buildup?”

“No,” Emily said. “She did say that I should try to balance and regulate the man that flowed through me.”

“That is right,” Anemone said. “A Dungeon that fails to maintain proper balance risks inciting a calamitous event known as a ‘cataclysms’. The mana continued through the Dungeon growing rampant and wild, consuming the core and those that resided in the area around it. These are localized apocalypses.”

“Localized apocalypses?” Rose slithered toward the purple-haired girls.

“You’d known this if you paid attention in class, Rose,” Anemone said.

“Does this have anything to do with those things we’ve encountered?” Emily asked, curiously.

“Hmm,” Anemone said. “Judging from the state of the forest, this is a fire-aspected cataclysm. Cataclysms tend to spawn entities known as ‘Elementals’ living afterimages of the victim’s last moments, twisted by the mana. It is possible that we've encountered them, but…”

“The historical evidence points against it,” Hydrangea said, after overhearing the conversation. “The fire elementals tend to be less shadow and more fire.”

“That’s right,” Anemone said. “These feel like they could belong to a dark-aspected cataclysm instead.”

Tim approached Emily. “I have a theory on what those beings are.”

Emily’s interest is piqued.

“When I trained at the Golden Spear before it was attacked, Master Wu mentioned that there would come a time when the students would encounter Shadows,” Tim said. “You remembered the entities we found in my Qiang?”

“The shades right?” Emily said.

Tim nodded. “I think those are the ones we’ve encountered here thus far.”

Rose groaned. “Does that tell us anything about getting out of this place?”

Emily began to piece together what had happened. “So I fell victim to a cataclysm?” she asked.

“That seemed like the case,” Anemone said. “Except for one problem, you’re still conscious. A cataclysm with a dungeon core at the epicenter would have subsumed the dungeon core within it.”

“Besides,” Hydrangea said while wiping ash and dust from her glasses. “There is no way a cataclysm would be that fast.”

“Then what does—” Rose was interrupted by the sound of footsteps. The group realized that they were not alone and hid among the furniture and walls of the house. As she tried to find a place to hide, Emily dropped the memoir onto the floor.

There they saw a haggard old man walk around his home. “J'ai dû le laisser ouvert,” he said. His grey hair and wrinkled skin indicated he had been here a long time. His musculature implies that he kept himself in shape even in his twilight years and his black and maroon attire clearly showed signs of involvement in various battles. The most striking objects son him were a peculiar red-bladed sword and shield.

The group noticed that the elderly man reminded them of someone but couldn't figure out who.

The man picked up the book. A nostalgic look waxed on his face as she took a pen out from his satchel and turned to a blank page. “Duodecemebr 4th,” he said as he wrote down the date. “Elementals were repelled from Ashwood. The fires seemed to have received a little bit. The Inferno guild had come to me this morning, wanting me to assist them in locating the Elemental at the epicenter. I told them ‘That is a fool’s errand.’ Only a Divine Dungeon could be able to handle that, and as far as I can see, there weren’t any in that guild that seemed willing to do it.”

The elder turned to the next page. “Went to the graveyard the other day, heh I already wrote about, but still. Thinking about those that were lost that day got me. I have to wonder what happened to those other two. I hope they are okay, Noir is probably after them for their alleged connection. Those two were innocent I tell you, but good luck getting that through the thick skulls of the Ebony Guards.”

“The shipment from Grandriver should be coming tomorrow, along with the news. Word is that Sigurdtein had managed to encroach on ol’ Charlie. Liberté is still doing nothing about it. That isn’t their problem the Citizen Primus said.” He sighed before continuing writing. “Maybe I should head to Erebus, try to fight the good fight there at least. Might be better than sitting on my ass at least. Yet I know this cataclysm has to be addressed first. Besides, If I am to to stop Sigurdtein, I need to practice some more. Sword arm has gotten pretty rusty lately. At least the gear is holding up good. If only the artisans were still around.” He sighed again.

Emily used telepathy to read the man’s mind, every word he placed on parchment was heard by her through her ability. She saw the elderly man look at his sword and walk around a bit, eventually stopping I front of the window. He kept a watch out for possible encroachment of the fires.

He returned to his desk and checked the candle. Half of the candlestick has melted now. He took his pen and continued writing. “Magic still left a lot to be desire. Never was one for the arcane, but at least I was able to finagle the runes together for the water. Shame Hacylon rarely saw fit to cry these days. Anesidora and Obsidian might also be too busy. Maybe I should find a church? Bah, that can wait until later. I can only pray that Astra and her kids will eventually stop this.”

“She’s still wandering the forest, trying to find her friends. I don’t think she is even aware that she burned them all away. Or herself for that matter. Administrators only know how much of her is left in there now.”

Emily is left confused. “Her?” she thought. “Whose ‘her’?”

The elderly man looked around, as if he had heard something. Emily caught a glimpse of look of comfort on the elder’s face as he walked around. “It seems I got some friends over tonight. Not sure who would ever visit this shack, but I cna hazard a guess.” He thought as he walked around.

✦✦✦

The elder searched for possible guests. As he approached a table, Streltizia and Clover ran outside behind him. Clover stumbled and nearly tripped but made it out before the man turned. As the elderly man moved to the kitchen, Azalea silently swam out an open window. Raine helped Rose move from behind a bookshelf to the front door. The elderly man then returned to his story, and Anemone, Lily, and Hydrangea left through the backdoor. Nina climbed to the ceiling and helped Charlotte sneak past him.

The elderly man snickered. Tim quietly moved to the back door. Only Emily remained in the house with him. “Something is not right,” she thought.

“It’s been a while since I had company over. Most of my days were spent trying to protect wanders from her. It’s for the best that they left now. These ashened woods are dangerous.”

“To any still here, or any that find this book. I must warn you again. Steer clear of the ruins. The elemental that wandered it is too much for the average adventurer, even a Dungeon core is going to have a hard time subduing her. The only person that is capable of defeating her…” the elderly man stops his thoughts and approaches a cabinet. Emily held her breath in a futile attempt to not get caught.

“Is hiding in this here cabinet,” he said. Opening the cabinet door. Emily’s revealed face bore a look of fear.

Heathcliff loosed a wry cackle at his remaining guest. “Welcome back, cher.”

✦✦✦

A while later, Emily, Tim, and the children sat in the living room and kitchen of an elderly Heathcliff’s home. Heathcliff himself started cooking some gumbo over a pot and a burning pile of wood.

“What’s wrong, chers?” the elderly Heathcliff said. “I should be the one acting like I’ve seen a ghost,” he said with a laugh.

“Heathcliff,” Emily said. “What happened here? What caused the cataclysm?”

The campfire burns, a microcosm, and a reminder of the wildfire that scorched the land. Heathcliff gazed at the flame before turning his attention back to Emily. His face had a tinge of nostalgia and also regret. “There was an incident?”

“What incident?” Rose said.

“It had been so long ago,” Heathcliff said. “Yet that damned day is burned into my mind. The Black Box glowed with an incandescent orange. A fire had broken out in the core room and spread through the entire Dungeon.”

“I…a fire burned behind me?” Emily asked.

Heathcliff nodded. “It wasn’t your usual case of heartburn, Em,” Heathcliff said. “I was in Rozencruz when it happened, making groceries with Esteban and Julia. Little did I know that some spark ignited you like a candle.”

“Did anyone else survive?” Tim said.

“The three of us and Chiron had tried to find y’all,” Heathcliff said. “But all we could find were ashen statues and Elementals. Lingering memories of you and the other. I stuck around and this forest of course and you're the only …you that I saw since. Elizabeth, Atsuko, Minerva, Richard, Sarah…” he paused for a bit. A tear dropped from his eyes. “Carla… they. Well, you can guess what happened to them.”

The others were heartbroken. Charlotte and Nina mourned their mothers. Emily and Tim mourned their friends. Yet they also needed clarification.

“How long ago was this?” Anemone said. “It couldn't have been recent.”

“Yeah,” Tim said. “It’s clear that a considerable amount of time has passed given you…”

“Heh,” Heathcliff said. “You’ve noticed? Well, it had been quite a few decades since the cataclysm began.”

“A few decades?” Streltizia asked.

“More than a few,” Heathcliff clarified. “Though I forgot the exact numbers, the papers might help.” He pointed to a stack of old newspapers.

“How did you survive for so long?” Clover said. “This is a cataclysmic area, it would destroy most people.”

“You’d think a little wildfire could fell the Crimson Hound?” Heathcliff smirked. “Tim and I had seen worse.”

“Indeed,” Tim said. “We’ve encountered and trekked through several cataclysmic areas in our travels,” he then thought about something. He wondered why his counterpart had perished in this one.

Hydrangea looked over the stack of old newspapers for the dates of publications. Her eyes widened in shock. “This, these is at least half a century old!”

“What!” Lily said. “But that means.”

Azalea looked at Heathcliff. “You’ve been smoldering in this place for more than fifty years?”

“And still alive and kicking,” Heathcliff said. “There were some close calls, but I pulled through.”

“Did the cataclysm affect the desert as well?” Emily asked.

“Oui,” Heathcliff said. “Turned the whole thing into glass.”

“Wait,” Nina said. “Why are you so…jovial?”

“Excusez moi?” Heathcliff said.

Charlotte realized something. “That’s right, if half a century, at least, had elapsed since the cataclysm happened, and we’ve been dead for that time, then why did you not suspect us of being Elementals?”

“Good question,” Heathcliff said. “I’ve been around these parts for quite a while, long enough to know what these ashened memories looked like. And to be frank, you haven’t screamed in pain or displayed signs of immolation.”

“There could be other reasons,” Tim said. “Are you certain we are not as illusions?”

“Not entirely no,” Heathcliff said. “I’ve been long in the tooth for quite a while now, can’t rule out the possibility of hallucinations, or maybe the Reaper himself deciding to use your visage. Granted in the latter case, he seemed to be a little understaffed here.”

Emily mulled over the worlds of her Dungeon Master. She wondered about something. “Is it normal for a cataclysm to last this long?”

“It’s possible,” Anemone said.

Raine helped Hydrangea look through the newspapers to find the most recent dates. “For a catastrophe to last this long means that it found and consumed several mana sources. You’d have to destroy several Divine Dugneons’ worth.”

“And yet the cinders still smolder,” Heathcliff said.

Hydrangea noticed among the papers one issue of the Apogee telling of an alliance of Divine Dungeons trying to quell the cataclysm and being consumed, retreating the Sisyphean process until they couldn't sustain their avataras or their true bodies and becoming inert. Raine then saw a Bugleblitz issue about how the cataclysm had scorched through half of New Virginia and the areas were quarantined. Websdale and Eastshire were among the towns that had fallen.

Heathcliff looked at Emily’s eyes. He saw that the displaced avatara was confused. Yet he also saw something peculiar about her as well. “Emily, I think you gots to go.”

“Go where?” Heathcliff said.

“Rosenkreuz,” Heathcliff said. “I think these mysteries’ answers are there.” His expression was as stern and fatherly as ever, let Emily saw regret in it as well. “I’m sorry I couldn't save y’all from what happened that day, but if there is a chance to make it up to you, I’ll take it. I do not have long for this world. And if you are Revotos’ envoys then it’s clear that I have less than I thought. I—”

A loud sizzle was heard. Heathcliff stopped talking and looked outside the window. The wildfire now crept closer towards his house and several figures could be seen marching in the flames.

“Damn! They’re here!” Heathcliff said.

“Who’s here?” Emily asked with concern.

“Fire Elementals,” Heathcliff said with a grimace.

The group headed outside the house and saw the ashened army march toward them. The burning Elementals moaned in agony and utter pleas for help repeatedly, like records stuck on a loop. Embers fly out from their scorched, fire-weathed forms. The group could recognize several people in the fire, including Carla, Sarah, Richard, and the children of Hamlin.

“Emily…why?” the approaching force moaned in unison.

The sight of Carla coated in fire again paralyzed Charlotte with fear. Nina and Anemone shook the alraune and brought her to reality.

“Go!” Heathcliff said. “I’ll try to hold them off. He pointed his sword in a certain direction. “Rosenkreuz is that way, now go.”

“But Heathcliff!” Emily said.

“There are too many, you can’t hold them off alone!” Time cried.

“I said ‘If there is a chance to make it up to you, I’ll take it’!” he said. “This is my chance, and this is also your chance to finally put these spirits to rest. Go, and see to it that their souls, and ours, are a peace.”

Emily noticed the fire in Heathlciff’s eyes, not a blaze of the cataclysm, but a spark of determination. Emily responded to it with a determined nod.

“May we be blessed in the starlight! And may we meet again, in the Sea of Souls. Now go!”

Emily and Tim took the ten children and ran in the direction the elderly knight pointed. Heathcliff then turned to the mob of Elementals. A lurid scent of ash grows as the torched ones drew closer.

“Alright then,” Heathcliff said. “To the last, I grapple with you. Allons!” He charged toward the mob, sword and shield at hand, and made his bid to keep them as far away from Emily as possible for as long as possible.

✦✦✦

Meanwhile, with Elizabeth. She moved the eleven spheres over to the room where Atsuko’s instruments were working, Heathcliff, Esteban, Julia, Atsuko, Richard, Sarah, Carla, and Minerva were also present. Saizo, Suzume, Kei, Aika, Noboru, and Kasumi are helping Elizabeth and Atsuko calibrate the Kaguya Parallel Mirror.

“So what is the plan here?” Heathcliff asked curiously.

“The Kaguya Mirror,” Atsuko says. “Is designed to view through the eyes of a Dungeon’s Core Avatara’ this is in part why Emily’s presence is necessary for the microdungeon expeditions. It was primarily calibrated to her avatara.”

“If we can somehow find its signal,” Elizabeth said. “We could try to figure out what is going on.”

“And you are certain that locating her is possible because?” Richard said.

“I dabble in pataphysics,” the teal-haired nekomata said. “Comes up surprisingly often in my research. The point is the Mirror is keyed to Emily’s avatara specifiably and the evidence showed that her avatara is active.”

“The [Avatara] need I remind you, houses Emily’s consciousness,” Elizabeth said. “And it hadn’t indicated any signals of being disassembled, it just vanished. That the Dungeon remains numb to attempts to contact her, combined with the perpendicular activation of the Sleepshells indicates their minds are somehow somewhere else.”

“Are we able to travel to her if we find the avatara?” Minerva asked.

“That I don’t know,” Atsuko said. “We’re dealing with the fringes of applied metaphysics here. We could tweak the celebrations, after all the use of the Femtonauts requires that everyone but Emily is unconscious as their minds are streamed to the nanoscopic construct, but at the same time their location is also known.”

“Can you elaborate on that?” Esteban said. “What do you mean by ‘known’?”

“I mean that even if we could establish contact with Emily’s avatara,” Atsuko said. “That doesn’t help us find out where exactly she is. When we enter a microdugneon, the Takurabune with Emily’s avatara and the Femtonauts are placed at a point in hyperbolic space, that we can track and observe. This isn’t the case here. Emily, Tim, and the children ended up in Astra-knows-where and we need access to metaphysical data to find out. I’m sorry, but for now, there is nothing we can do beyond trying to communicate with her.”

“Is it possible to wake them up?” Sarah asked.

“There are risks to that,” Elizabeth said. “Trying to rouse the bodies in this state might end up severing the connection and strand their minds wherever they are.”

“And how do you know that?” Julia curiously asked.

“I asked Atsuko to help me analyze the [Sleepshells],” Elizabeth said. “This is but a hypothesis, but I think trying to wake them in this state might yield dire consequences.”

“Je vous,” Heathcliff solemnly said.

The screen on the Kaguya Parallel Mirror eventually showed an image veiled behind a layer of static. Atsuko picked up on that.

“We got something!” Atsuko said. “Kei, Noboru, can we hone in on that signal?”

The two shinobi helped Atsuko locate the frequencies. The image grows a little clearer. The group saw an ashened landscape. A forest that looked like it had burned into charcoal.

Carla is reminded of the time the Piper Pruflas visited the Black Box and the illusion he weaved while there. “Is that…?”

The image grew a little sharper, they saw a wildfire gleam on the horizon. Atsuko made one last calculation, the image became as clear as a crystal.

“We found her!” Atsuko said.

Elizabeth tried to establish contact. “Emily, can you hear me?” she said into a microphone hooked up to the Mirror.

✦✦✦

Meanwhile, Emily’s group rushed in a single direction, trying to find the source of the cataclysm. On the way, they encountered large burning treants. The Elementals merged with the charcoaled wood. The trees intercepted and began to fight the group.

Hydrangea tried to freeze the entities in ice using her grimoire, Azalea used what little humidity in the air to conjure up enough water to help her bespectacled friend. The ice and water spells slowed them down but did not stop them, their flames melted the ice and evaporated the water.

Emily drew her swords and clashed with the burning trees. She chopped off an arm from one of them, but the ashen dryad reattached it.

The arboreal enemies wailed, and the group heard more cries of pain, several of them were from their own voices. The eerie wails unnerved the group, Charlotte most of all. Azalea and Clover used their powers to create a barrier of silence to protect them from the cries.

“This is getting us nowhere!” Rose said as she sliced at the roots of the trees. “We need to—” She is suddenly pinned to the ground by another one. Her tail burned by the attack and she gazed at her pursuer. The effect of Azalea’s and Clover’s spell faded and the tree uttered, “Mommy...Daddy…” In Rose’s voice.

Rose squirmed to escape the blazing monster. The tree’s sound caused a memory to flash before her eyes like lightning. A scene of a bolt of lighting setting a building ablaze lingered in her mind, a younger Rose gazed in horror at the burning burning, her parents trapped inside as smoke rose. She tried to slink toward the building but was prevented, she knew her parents were dead.

Rose’s flashback ended as quickly as it began. “That!” she placed her rapier back in its sheath. “Is!” the weapon became charged by lightning mana, “Enough!” she drew the blade again and an electrified arc followed the tip of the sword with enough force to push back the tree that pinned her down. Separated from the treant, she slithered to her allies, Azalea used water to help soothe the burn on her tail and the armor that coated it.

Emily saw one of the fire-wreathed treants rush toward her. She used her blade to block its punch, but the infernal armor leaned forward and tried to push on her.

“Emily, can you hear me?”

Emily heard a staticky voice ring in her head. She could barely make out the source. She moved her two blades and carved through the arm of the treant.

“Barely,” Emily responded. “Breathing heavily. “Elizabeth, is that… you.”

“It’s me,” The fairy responded from what seemed to be dimensions apart.

The treant attempted to slam down on Emily, but she reacted quickly and enchanted her sword with water mana. She used the enchanted blades to slice at the carve she made with her prior attack and cut her way through the treant. Water and fire evaporated into steam as the flames animating the charcoal treant were doused. “Where are you?” She said to the fairy.

“That is…where…” Elizabeth struggled to maintain contact with Emily, eventually losing contact.

“Elizabeth? Elizabeth!” Emily called out, but she couldn’t get a response.

Nina tried to use her webbing to tie the wooden wraiths, but her silken strings burned up from their flames. One of them soon loomed over her. Nina gave a defiant glare at them as the treant drew closer. Her determination wanes as she hears the sound of her and Mienrva’s voices echoing from the treant.

Nina tried to scurry away, but behind her were two other trees she began to lose hope until she saw a bold of lightning strike the first treant and stun it enough for Rose to pierce it and retrieve Nina, before the spiderling knew it she was suddenly rising on Rose’s tail.

Rose herself looked back on her first encounter with Whisper. A hazy memory but it was clear enough for her to know she made her wish with purpose. She slithered around to regroup with the others.

Tim used his Qiang to channel a typhoon from the clouds above, she spun the weapon clockwise as the wind swirls around in the same direction. The storm winds began to weaken the charcoal treants enough for an opening to be made.

“We need to go!” Tim said. “This windstorm will not last for long!”

The group of twelve seized the opportunity to escape the treants. The flames of the Elementals were too weak for them to follow the group.

✦✦✦

Emily and her group soon stopped at a point where they were certain the treants wouldn’t follow them, in what was once the Bleumaw.

Emily looked back at the direction they came from. She was concerned about Heathcliff. Tim also looked toward where his adventuring mentor was. His face hid it better than Emily’s but he also showed fear for the Crimson Hound.

“What is going on here?” Nina said. “Did we end up in the future?”

“It sure looks like it,” Charlotte said. Her tone betrayed a slight shock at what had happened around them.

“But how did we end up there?” Clover said. “What did that weird lady do?”

“Weird lady?” Emily thought. She then remembered the encounter that occurred before then. The encounter with the Administrator.

Rose slinked around, a fair distance away from the others. She saw the charred remains of several trees. Those that were burned to charcoal and ash by the cataclysm. The sight had reminded her of something she didn’t want to dwell on. Azalia swam to the lamia child, she noticed her pink-haired friend still holding an uncharacteristically forlorn expression.

Rose looked at the clionid. “Can I tell you something?”

“Huh?” Azalea said with perked ears.

“Do you know how my parents died?”

“Of course I do,” Azalea said. “Whisper told me they perished in a lightning storm.”

“That is right,” Rose said. “What they didn’t tell you was the day that happened. My parents were helping me hone my lightning magic. Said I had a rare talent and a dangerous one.”

“That is…shocking,” Azalea quipped to raise Rose’s spirits.

Raine approached them and learned that Rose was explaining her parent’s fates to the clionid.

“I had a difficult time controlling my powers when I was younger,” Rose said. “My parents said they had to put rubber on everything just so that my mana didn’t accidentally tear a hole. And they’ve feared that I would end up paralyzing myself if I wasn’t able to get a grip on it. It was normal for things like that to happen they said. How many people didn’t struggle with their natural affinity during infancy they asked. Yet they wanted to make sure I didn’t end up short-circuiting the dishwasher or wake up to find my body had been paralyzed. They saw my magic as dangerous, and one day I began to see why.”

Raine stood silent, she already heard this story from her before. Azalea listened curiously.

“On a clear blue day,” Rose continued. “They took me outside to try to hone my abilities. Things were going well. I thought I was able to control my powers for the first time. But then…”

“Then what?” Azalea said.

“Halcyon wept,” Rose said. “Rain began to pour, and lightning followed in its wake. A bolt of lightning struck me, and it caused…it caused.”

“Let it out, Rose,” Raine said.

Tears rolled down Rose’s cheeks as she tried to say what happened next. “There was a discharge. I tried to contain it, I really did, but lightning had erupted from my body and arced all around—destructive lightning at that. Trees were burning, dirt turned to mud from the rain, and my parents. They…they were caught within the lightning. By the time it was over, I was the only one left standing, they...they were gone, and it’s all my fault.”

Raine tried to comfort her. “It wasn’t your fault, Rose. It was a freak accident.” She said it the last time she heard that story.

“But what if it wasn’t?” Rose said. “The weatherman said that day was sunny. There was no way a storm would’ve happened so suddenly. What if I caused that storm? What if I…” She became unintelligible as she wept. Azalea swam toward the lamia and hugged her.

“It’s okay, let it all out,” Azalea said. She then turned to Raine. “C’mon Raine, I know you wanted to help her too.”

“I…” Raine stammered. “I do not!” she soon relented and helped Azalea soothe Rose.

After Rose was calmed down. Azalea asked her a question. “Was this before you met Whisper?”

The lamia nodded. “A week after I was discharged by the hospital. They came to me and heard my plight. That was when I made my wish. I wanted to try to control this power. To save people, not harm them.”

“You had gotten better at harnessing it, Rose,” Raine said. “Now I don’t think you can hurt people by accident anymore.”

“But what if I changed into a Strega?” Rose said. “What happens then? How many people would be harmed as I lashed out?” She looked around at the destroyed Blewmaw. She wonder if she would one day be the cause of destruction on such a scale.

Azalea began to see why she took her story, her explanation of how Strega and Witches were connected, poorly. “Rose…I…”

“It wasn’t your fault, Lea,” Rose said. “But…I…” Black muck began to seep from her eyes.

Azalea and Raine knew they had to do something. Raine was the first to speak up. “Rose, get a grip.”

“H-huh?” Rose said.

“We’ve been together all these years,” Raine said with a stern yet warm voice. “I’ve seen you try to help others. It was you who suggested we use our abilities to help the Underground. It was you who cheered up that kid when we found them separated from their parents. It was you who appealed to a robber’s heart and convinced him to seek a new path in life. It was you who helped Hydrangea back at the manor. It was you who helped Emily save Evelyn. All this time you wanted to help others. Please, let us help you.”

“She’s right,” Azalea said. “Whatever burdens you had, you shouldn’t have to bear them alone. We can help you make sure your powers won’t harm an innocent. I said wouldn’t let you fall, Rosie, remember?”

Rose was touched by the concern her two closest friends had for her. “You guys.”

“Once we head back to the present,” Azalea said. “We can help you master those powers. Don’t worry.”

“You’ll have plenty of time to wallow later if you must,” Raine said. “But right now we still need to escape this cataclysm. Can I count on you, as I always have?”

Rose’s tears turned transparent. Her eyes gain a spark of determination in them. “Of course. I am Rose Rhapsodia! Heroine of justice, defender of the downtrodden,” She said with bravery. “I will not let this fear consume me. With the Coloraturas, my sisters by my side, I will not fail!”

“Attagirl!” Raine said.

“That’s our Rosie!” Azalea said.

Rose thanked her two friends. The three soon regrouped with the rest of the party and they continued to where Rosenkreuz was.

✦✦✦

Emily and her group finally reached the site where the town of Rosenkreuz was. They gasped as they saw what became of the town.

“Oh no,” Emily said.

Only blackened skeletons and charred remains of the buildings remained of Rosenkreuz. The Guildhall, the theater, the various apartments and stores, all reduced to cinders. And in the center of the ruins was a very familiar visage.

A woman wandered the ruins. Her form cloaked in an immortal flame. Her purple hair, kindling for an equally violet blaze. Her arms were molded in the form of blades that glowed with the crimson and orange hues of smelted iron. Her size was twice that of Emily and Tim, and roughly three times that of the Coloraturas. Her form twisted almost beyond recognition. Almost.

“Is that…” Charlotte asked.

Emily trembled at the sight of the entity, she saw too much of herself in it for her comfort.

The bladed woman’s gait was like those of the dead. Dazed, confused, furious. She moved throughout the ruins in a near catatonic state, slashing at the remains of the village she once called home.

“Why?…why?” she cried out as she smashed a lamppost, coated in black dust. Her slash sent out a wave of heat that ignited the lingering wood and metal in its path. Emily saw a crystalline bulge in the back of the woman’s shoulder. Changing position as the entity grasped her head in pain.

Rose looked at the woman in horror. She resembled Emily too much to not remind her of her fears of becoming a monster.

Charlotte is left speechless at the sight of Emily being reduced to such a state.

Emily herself looked at her twisted reflection. Hurt, traumatized, and broken. A clear victim of the cataclysm, yet the evidence made it clear she was also the cause. Thoughts raced through her head. What could have happened to make her into this monster? How did she transform into an inferno that destroyed her friends, her family?

Tim observed the entity’s movements. He could tell that whoever she was, she was no longer Emily, yet he also wondered how this came to be.

The time for pondering came and went. The entity took a gaze in the group’s direction and saw them. And saw a reflection of a past life among them. The two Emilys gazed at each other for a few moments.

Emily drew closer to her bladed counterpart. Hoping to try to find some way to ease her pain, but the reflection assumed a primal stance and howled. She plunged toward Emily.

“Emily!” Tim cried out.

Emily drew her swords on reflex and locked the blades with her reflection. Sweat dripped from her pores as Emily looked into the elemental’s eyes and saw nothing but a void. Whatever happened to her counterpart, it was cleared that she was burned away, reduced to a husk filled only with regrets of the damned. An elemental.

Tim made a charging step and elbowed the larger monster from the bind, following up with a palm strike that displaced one of her legs enough for Emily to escape the stalemate.

Emily tried to charge her swords with water and ice, but found the intense fire mana emanating from her doppelganger had neutralized the mana. She attempted to use wind to quell the fire, but her spells only intensified them.

Rose slithered towards the monster with the speed of lightning and drew her rapier. The force of the draw pushed the fire elemental back while the lightning jolted her. Rose turned back and pointed her sword, only to find that her attack had made the monster stronger.

The lamia dodged the elemental’s riposte and tried to counter with several thrusts, but the fiery opponent either avoided Rose’s sword with ease or grew more powerful with her spells.

The Elemental tried to engulf Rose in a ring of fire, but Raine swooped in and grabbed Rose. The phoenixan girl flew away from the circle with Rose before the spell could incinerate her.

“Rose,” Raine said. “Can’t you see your attacks have energized her?”

Rose looked back at the elemental. The monster that resembled Emily is now faster, stronger, and more dangerous thanks to the lightning mana she had fed her. The entity fired a barrage of fireballs at Raine and Rose, but Raine dodged them with sharp turns and pivots. Rose, still carried by her friend, had grazed some of the conflagratious projectiles.

Lily rushed forward with a Lumiere Avant. Her and Tim’s polearms parry the elemental’s red-hot blades as she tried to burn them to cinders. Anemone and Nita tried to assist them, but the lycanthrope’s arrows were able to root the elemental in place and the webs ignited as soon as they were extruded from the spiderling’s spinerretes. Nina decided to charge forward and attack the elemental directly.

“No one hurts Emmy on my watch!” Nian said. “Not even Emmy herself!” Nina slashed at the firey being with her bladed legs, but her slashes phased through the elemental, as if she was not a solid force. The elemental responded by slashing at Nina, but Tim intercepted with his Qiang and deflected the sword before it could hit the arachne child.

Clover tried to use her fan to quell the blade, but no matter what she tired, the wind only accelerated the ignition of the nearby ruins. Streltizia joined the fray, swinging her labrys at the elemental.

Rose used her magic to empowered Raine, energizing the red-winged girl as she used her fire spells to intercept the elemental’s equally blazing attacks. The fires canceled each other out as they touch while Azalea and Hydrangrea tried to offer their assistance.

“What is going on?” Azalea said as she struggled to channel water. Even the orb of water encasing her head is boiling from the intense heat. “Why is—” her attempt at punnery is thwarted by a sudden fever induced by the boiling water. Hydrangea used a spell to chill the water and create a small layer of ice over it.

“That is a fire elemental!” Hydrangea said. “Our spells are no good up close to her!” They are forced to retreat and try to use their powers to beckon rain and snow form the heavens.

Emily clashed again with her reflection. She parried a slash with a small turn and tried to counter with an earth enchanted sword slash. The attack struck the elemental, but bounced off her body. She then attempted to slash again, but the sword moved through the elemental as if she was made of a plasmic mist.

The group are left to fend for themselves against the shadow of Emily’s fears.

✦✦✦

Meanwhile, Elizabeth and Atsuko look at the screen on the Kaguya Parallel Mirror in horror. They saw Emily and those with her fighting an elemental in her image.

“What the hell is that?” Heathcliff asked with shock.

“A [Fire Elemental],” Elizabeth said. “Spawn of a cataclysm of fire.” She looked at the Pyrosphere. Richard and Sarah are trying to find a way to offload its excess energy. Saizo and Kei were also assisting. Kasumi had the idea to use her mists to lower the temperature, but Hoshikage pointed out that it wouldn’t work, the heat is a symptom of the overloaded Pyropshere. Esteban, Julia, Minerva, and Carla had evacuated the residents to the entrance, with Carla looking over the Cells that were once the Hamlin children. Suzume left to alert the guild of the Pyrosphere and request assistance.

Atsuko looked at the visual data and tried to find a way to reestablish communication with Emily. “Ugh, there is too much fire mana there!” she said with frustration. Her pinned-back ears and tense tails indicated worry buried beneath that.

Elizabeth noticed her replica of the Lifetree had glowed subtly. She picked it up and saw she had a message from someone on the device.

“Intervention is impossible here,” the message read. “Þey have to surpass þis on þeir own. She needs to overcome her fears to reach [Albedo]. To ignite that furnace.”

Elizabeth reasoned with the message. “[Administrator], is this your doing?”

Her device received a new message. “Of course. We boþ knew such trials were inevitable when Emily decided to cultivate.”

Elizabeth began to realize what was going on. This is the first test for Emily. The first trial ordained to test her worth. She realized that it was not an act of malice, but a gauging of Emily’s character. Elizabeth typed a follow-up question. “When did you send them?”

A new message emerged a few seconds later. “‘When?’ Hmm, I could see why you would þink þat they were whisked to the future. While it is true þey are in a future, it is better to say it is less of þe future and more a world of possibility. It is not what would happen, but what could happen, dear. A branch molded by [Shadow]. A kind of [Dungeon] if you would.”

Elizabeth sent a response but received no more messages. The Administrator had left the conversation. She told Heathcliff and Atsuko what she had found out. The three turned their attention back to the screen and expressed their hopes that Emily would prevail in this trial.

✦✦✦

Emily and her group are still locked in combat with the fire elemental. Emily, Tim, Streltizia, Nina, and Lily engage with the twisted reflection of Emily in close melee. Clover, Anemone, and Raine used their abilities to support them from range. Rose, Hydrangea, Azalea, and Charlotte meanwhile are trying to find a way to weaken the shadow by quelling the fries around the ruins of Rozenkreuz.

Azalea swam around the area, trying to perform a ritual that summons a torrent of rain and avoiding the burning projectiles of the elemental. Hydrangea attempted to chill the air and snuff out the fire. Rose ends up battling several smaller elementals and trying to stop them from hindering her friends. Meanwhile, Charlotte stood and looked in horror at the pyre, as memories of Pruflas we dredged up. So shocked is she, that she hadn't noticed a fireball had grazed the petals on her waist.

Rose intercepted an elemental and slashed at it with her sword. She dispelled the lesser elemental’s presence with a well-timed thrust and saw a second one plunging towards Charlotte. One that resembled Carla. As the lamia pointed her sword at the facsimile of the Alraune, the latter uttered the phrase…

“Charlotte…where is Charlotte?”

The indigo-petaled alraune turned to the sound of her mother, her eyes looked at the elemental that took her form and it called her her daughter. Charlotte’s mind was still trapped on the last day she was in Hamlin, and the sight of her mother burned to ash as her fellow villagers cheered for her demise. The apparition clashed with Rose. The alraune looked at the battle and something within her began to stir.

Halcyon’s tears fell from the sky. Azalea’s attempt at a rain-summoning ritual had worked.

“Phew,” the clionid said. “We’re over-deluge for some relief.”

Raindrops fell onto the inferno, and several plumes of steam formed on the burning ruin as Rose continued to fight the apparition of Carla. Charlotte saw what looked like her mother harming one of her friends. She knew that her mother would never do that, she knew that she had to do something. She looked at the core elemental. The twisted reflection of Emily was undeterred by the rain, her flames smoldering still. She saw Nina struggling to land a hit on the entity.

Azalea swam toward Charlotte. “Hello?”

“Yes?” Charlotte said. The first word she uttered upon arrival at the ruins of Rosenkreuz.

“You might want to get out of here,” the mermaid said gently and without a hint of punnery. “There’s a safe path to the gateway.”

Charlotte looked at the drops of rain, she then looked at Rose and her opponent. She heard Carla’s voice calling for her in agony. She realized that the elemental was using the memories of the fallen as a lure to beckon others to their deaths. She remembered that was why the rest of Hamlin’s children became how they were. An otherly force had lured them to their fates. She clenched her fist and looked at the blaze.

“Um, Lotte?” Azalea said. “Didn’t you—”

“This rain isn’t enough,” the alraune said. “It’s too slow.” She began to channel mana. Azalea felt a little pressure as gravity increased. The rain fell faster and faster as Charlotte used all she knew of Gravity magic to accelerate the torrent. She then turned to the elemental that dared mimicked her mother. She pointed her arm in it and lifted her hand. The elemental suddenly found itself higher than before, held aloft by Apurgy spells.

Rose noticed that much of the lesser elemental’s fire had been snuffed by the rain, She pointed her rapier in the air. A bolt of lightning struck the sword, charging it for her. The lamia then pointed the thin blade at her enemy.

“For using the memories of the deceased, for trying to reduce us to ash,” Rose said. “I shall punish you. Electric Thorns!” The lightning from her sword and the storm had struck the lesser elemental and turned the already ashen entity into an inert pile.

Rose and Charlotte turned towards the elemental. With resolve, they, Azalea, and Hydrangea rushed to help their friends.

✦✦✦

While the rain slowly puts out the fires of the burning ruins, and a veil of steam envelops them. The elemental remains unaffected by it. Her fires evaporate the drops of water that touch her. Her fires burn with the last memories of her victims. Even with Charlotte’s increasing the gravity to ensure more water fell on the ground, the deluge did little to wash away the fire, smoke, and ash that took the shape of Emily.

Strelizia and Lily tried to attack the elemental, but she repelled them with a swing of her bladed arms. They are pushed into the remains of a building several meters away. Nina tried her bardsong eyes, and her silk to stop them, but even with the rain, her thread was still unable to touch the creature without being set on fire, her spinnerets were too singed to function. Tim and Emily fared the best against the latter’s twisted reflection, but even they do not know what its weaknesses were.

Voices echoed through the increasingly wet and flooded ruins of Rosenkreuz. Each echo a pained memory of fire consuming their bodies and incineration. Pauline, Euryale, Stheno, Pearl, Kaitlyn, and the other residents were heard among them.

Rose’s prior attack on the elemental she fought had caused the clods above to thunder. Lightning bolts struck the ruins and made new fires from them. Hydrangea, Clover, and Raine try to put out these fires before they can empower the elemental. Strelitzia and Azalea used their powers to create mud to further quell the fires.

Anemone and Lily tried to bind the monster. Lily by creating a light that could cast a shadow, and Anemone by firing an arrow into it to bind it. That proved fruitless as the seemingly immaterial entity remained unbounded. Anemone knew this was the first time she faced an elemental and the first time she had found herself within a cataclysm, she struggled to find out what to do against this ethereal foe.

The battle rages for hours, and everyone is becoming exhausted, yet the elemental still stands in this war of attrition. The monster sees her counterpart has grown tired and concentrates a larger amount of fire mana above it, aimed squarely at Emily.

Emily tried to move, but the mud beneath her had captured her legs, and she barely had the energy to pull them out. Tim tried to rush to her, but he too was tired and able to reach her in time. Nina couldn’t pull her out with her threads because of her signed abdomen, Charlotte couldn’t conjure an Apurgy glyph to allow Emily to float out of the mud and the Coloraturas were similarly unable to reach her in time.

Rose looked at the storm clouds. The bolts of lightning danced above her as charged particles erupted from the sky. She recalled how she and Raine first fought the Strega, using their affinities in tandem to enhance each other’s strength and speed. That was all they knew about elemental reactions. The lamia looked at the fire elemental and its project. She had an idea, a risky idea.

“Emily!” Rose called out as she drew her rapier. A bolt of lightning struck the ground in front of Emily. The raindrops carried the current to her avatara body. The elemental’s projectile was blocked by the current and Emily was washed in fire and lightning mana at once.

Thoughts raced through the young girl’s mind. Memories of the life she leads in Titania up to this point. Memories that were both hers and her counterpart’s. In the ash and smoke, she saw herself fight the core of Tarantuopolis, then the demonic piper that bound Hamlin’s children to her, then the Strega that was once Kaitlyn, then the Baron Roberts. She then heard the sounds of an explosion, a noise she thought came from the point where the cataclysm happened. She wondered how she had destroyed herself and the surrounding era, and what had led to it. Her mind turns back to the Piper and the Pyrosphere she obtained from it. For some reason that red orb had lingered on her mind. A second bolt struck Emily’s directly, becoming the first one called by Rose. She pointed one of her swords up reflexively and had it absorb all the mana from it.

The elemental charged another attack, aiming to take down Emily once and for all. The others were unable to intercept or save Emily from it. The project engulfed Emily. Tim cried out for her as she was engulfed in fiery conflagration.

Emily then thought about the elemental. She wondered why was it fire specifically. She had never used any fire mana since she obtained the Pyrosphere, and couldn’t use it beforehand. She had avoided it out of fear of reminding Charlotte and Carla of what happened, right? She then looked back to her memories of what happened after Pruflas was repelled. Where she absorbed both the Pyrosphere and the pipe. She realized that it was through that that the children of Hamlin became bound to her even though she tried to find a way to undo that, she became aware that there was a part of her that didn’t want to think it was her fault. That was the real reason she drew not from flame.

She then realized something. What if the cataclysm happened because she avoided using the powers of the Pyrosphere? What if her desire to avoid being confronted by her mistakes led to one so dire it destroyed everything? The sword that had absorbed the lightning mana became enchanted and shone with a magenta glow, her other sword remained unaspected. Yet there was a large amount of fire mana around her. At that moment, Emily had an idea. With her other sword in hand, she absorbed the fire magic around her.

✦✦✦

The conflagration had faded, and Emily emerged unseated but changed. Her purple eyes gazed at her counterpart. Her equally purple hair flicked like a flame. Her left sword gleamed with the magenta hue of lightning, her right, ignited by a searing crimson shimmer. She made a lunge toward the elemental and made a flurry of slashes almost too fast to see. Lightning and Fire arced in her wake.

The elemental recoiled after the initial barrage of attacks. The first time since near the battle began that she was fazed. Emily drew more power from the Electrosphere and Pyrosphere within her and danced toward the elemental.

Blades clashed, and swords clanged against each other. The energized avatara flights with the elemental in her image. The warped entity was pushed back by a combination of Emily’s fire and lightning slashes, her bardsong and attacks made faster than her opponent could see. Halcyon’s heavenly weeping finally had an effect on the elemental. Buts of charred metal crack off as Emily made elaborated and swift movements on the elemental, finishing with Thudnerclaps in tandem with Rings of Fire.

The entity was eventually left on its last legs, and Emily was still standing. The tables were turned and Emily combined her swords into a chakram and spun it as she ran towards the elemental.

“Celestial Flames!” she cried as put all her strength into throwing the chakram. The ring landed on the elemental and stayed in place. Lightning struck the elemental from above, while fire erupted from the chakram beneath it. The elemental tried to break out of the conflagration, but her attempts only backfired on it. Her attempts to break out only cause her to burn out faster.

The chakram returned to Emily who saw that the elemental took on a new shape. One that bore a closer resemblance to Emily than before, only charred and signed, and turning into ash in the wind. Emily hugged what was left of her doppelganger and said “Be at peace, me. It’s all over now.”

The elemental looked at Emily’s face and felt something she had never felt in a long time. Warmth. The shadow smiled for the first time in decades as she disintegrated into ash.

The storm clouds began to clear. Stella’s rays once against showed what was left of Rosenkreuz and the surrounding forest. The cataclysm had been stopped.

The group of twelve then saw a woman, clad in red and black, clap slowly as she walked towards them.

“Well done. Þat was an impressive feat,” the Administrator said.

“Who are you?” Emily said.

“She is an [Administrator], [Claudia, the Trickster].”

Emily heard Elizabeth speak in her head again. “Claudia?” she asked.

“My, she certainly caught on quick,” Claudia said.

Tim pointed his Qiang at the entity. “What is your game, Trickster?”

“Now is þat any way to treat the woman that helped get your little cultivating journey authorized? I have you know it wasn’t easy getting [Obsidian]’s blessing here,” Claudia said in a somewhat jovial tone.

Azalea swam toward Claudia in a mix of confusion and awe. “You sure look different from what the scriptures depicted. Are you sure you’re really the Trickster?”

“Þat’s the fun part,” Claudia said. “You can’t, my little disciple.”

Emily sensed a divine aura coming from Claudia, similar to what she felt in their last encounter. She is certain that she is at least an Administrator.

“I can assure you of one þing at least,” Claudia said. “You have awakened to [Albeido]. But I understand if you find þat hard to believe. You will wake up in your world of monumentality and leave this one behind. None here shall know of what had occurred on þat day. Þis world will be the first of many you will travel to on your journey.”

“Before we leave,” Tim said sternly. “I must ask, is this the future?”

“It is a future,” Claudia said. “Weþer it is yours will depend on you and you alone.”

Emily turned and saw a figure in the distance. She recognized his sword and shield and was relieved that Heathcliff survived. She turned back to Claudia.

“We will meet again,” Claudia said. “You won’t know where, but you will know when. When þe stage of [Cirtinas] is here, you will find out þen. Toodles.”

The elderly Heathcliff saw Emily and her group. She smiled as she knew their presence here and the sky clearing up meant that they had stopped the cataclysm. She saw them vanish in a flash of light and returned to the remands of his house to prepare to move on to new things in life. Just as he did when he decided to become a Dungeon Master.

✦✦✦

Within the Black Box, Elizabeth observed the Pyrosphere. Its mana radiation had been reduced to manageable levels. She breathed a sigh of relief.

The eleven Sleepshells began to open and Tim and the children emerged, tied from the experience.

“Man, why do I feel so burned out,” Azalea said as she rubbed her eyes. Before she remembered what had happened.

“Was that…a dream?” Charlotte said.

“If it was, then that would be quite a breakthrough in scrying,” Atsuko cheekily said.

“I’m going to go,” Tim said. “I have a lot to meditate—” He suddenly noticed that Emily’s furnace had changed. It now gleamed with a silver glow. A small flame is lit at its center.

“Huh?” Emily also noticed her furnace had changed. “Did you clean the furnace?”

“No,” Elizabeth said. “We were too busy trying to contact you. The [Furnace] had changed when you defeated the [Elemental].”

Tim looked at the silver furnace. And noticed a similar power welled up inside of him. “I have more to meditate on as I was saying,” Tim said. “The Foundation still needs to be established.”

“Shouldn’t you try to get some rest first, cher?” Heathcliff said.

“From the looks of things, we might’ve had enough for now, “Tim said. “Besides, there is a lot for us to reflect on.”

Emily learned from Atsuko and Elizabeth that they were able to use the Kaguya Parallel Mirror to contact them and that Emily, Tim, and the children were seemingly thrust into a parallel universe.

Later in the day, after the rest of the Black Box were alerted about the Pyrosphere buildup being neutralized and the awakening of Emily and the others, Carla went to her home to relax. She eventually went into the kitchen and saw Charlotte operating an oven to steam some vegetables.

“Charlotte?” Carla said with shock. “You’re using the stove?”

The younger alraune nodded, before looking at the fire again. Steam had come out from the pan as she moved the sliced carrots around. She used a gravity glyph to ensure the carrots did not fly off the pan as she moved it.

Meanwhile Rose gathered the other seven Coloraturas around as she declared a renewed resolve. Knowing that the eight Witches could become Strega, they become committed to both avoiding that and to trying to save the Strega from themselves when they encounter them.

Later Emily was reminded of the Farrow visitors. She worked with Richard to create a suitable disguise.

“You want to raid yourself?” Elizabeth asked with apprehension.

Emily nodded. “I want to see how much we grew in such a time, and maybe that is a good way to find out.”

“Heh,” Sarah said. “I’m going with you! Got around to finishing this bad girl.” She said as she displayed a new hammer. “Might make for some excellent loot if things go well,” she said with a chuckle.

Richard sighed at his sister before turning back to the avatara. Emily had used her shapeshifting powers to assume several forms while Richard offered ideas on how she should look to ensure people do not connect her to her normal avatara form.

“Did you get any new upgrades? “Sarah said.

“Sure did!” Emily said. “I wanted to try to keep up nowadays.”

Emily eventually settled on a certain look and thanked the Smiths for everything they had done for her.

“Here’s to the next endeavor,” Sarah said.

Meanwhile, Heathcliff decided to take a blank book and pen down his thoughts. He asked Elizabeth and Emily to help him remember their earlier adventures. “Gotta keep some records,” he thought. “Ya never know when they’ll come in handy…”