The arrow that struck Epim’s side and pierced nearly into his heart had delivered on him pain greater than what he had ever felt before. Unrestrained hostility, focused and with the intent to kill bored its way into him. It was unlike the Bloodsucker that tore at his throat from before. Before the beast attacked him on pure instinct, there was no intent beyond prey and predator.

The intentional act of the arrow in his side caused him to recede deep into himself, far from the outward source of aggression.

While his body was unresponsive, he found that he could still think. All around him was darkness, except for a dim twilight light that came from above him. A small orb rotated slowly above him, giving off that light. The darkness was not hot, nor was it cold. He was stuck in effective stasis, his limbs wouldn’t move, his eyes could not wander.

Memories came to him en masse, all of the past two days. He thought of his initial understanding of himself, of the conversation he had with Bart in the rain. Of his encounter with Bast, of the experiences in the castle he had up until he got shot by the arrow. These recollections all paled in comparison to his battle with the Mercenary.

He wondered if the Mercenary had felt what he had felt when the arrow plunged into his side. Did his scythe carry the same unrestrained hostility as the arrow in his side? Did he have any time for last thoughts?

At the time, he believed his actions were necessary. The Mercenary had intended to kill, his actions towards Epim were certainly without mercy. His disregard for Bart’s wellbeing also showed that he had little care for the sanctity of life.

If one intends to kill, being killed in return is not an uncommon phenomenon. Epim understood that in the core of his being.

His opinion on this matter hadn’t changed, especially now with the added context of the continued mercenary hunts for the feeble Bloodsuckers of the forest. Epim did not think he committed a sin of nature by taking the life, and he believed that none of his companions or those he met would have blamed him for his choice.

This was perhaps the crux of his inner turmoil, he didn’t understand why the memory felt so heavy in his heart. He thought back harder, at his own actions.

“There’s no value in asking your name.” “I hope someone remembers you.” These were the only words he had spoken to the Mercenary, and now he understood.

“Ah.” He said out loud, into the void that was his soul. He was contradictory, in his actions and beliefs.

In the black desert that he no longer remembers, he had encountered the Coward. While that memory was far gone, it still was a foundational piece of who he was. He had learned a lesson in that encounter, one that had been important to him at the time, but slipped beyond his grasp now. He did not remember the name he had been given by the Coward, he did not even remember the Coward himself. While the lesson and the encounter may have engraved itself within him, it was deep far beyond his understanding. He exists now only on the surface, unaware of how deep the dark in this place really went.

Not able to express where this feeling of inner conflict came from, nor able to move forward in his understanding because of his lack of memory, it is understandable that Epim felt himself begin to tear. All the while the twilight light began to recede, the conditions within the darkness began to change.

The contradiction was clear. He had expressed empathy towards the Mercenary, but he had rejected the chance for himself to understand it in the same encounter. He had reduced him to an obstacle, and in the last moment of the Mercenary's life he had elevated him back to an individual.

The orb of twilight light slowed further, the light began to fade ever so slowly. It had no reason to continue to illuminate the dark, as its companion Epim had begun to sink into the absolute that came with belief.

Without understanding the cause of contradiction, his only option was to commit to a choice. He had to choose between the opposing sides, his actions and his beliefs. This choice came to him naturally, he chose his actions. He had already chosen the path of blood, and as such he believed that it was the natural path.

The Mercenary was an obstacle, one that he was forced to slay. One of many, that he had to. The same as the feral bloodsuckers. They were nothing but roadblocks on his path, only defined by their obstruction.

Anything in his way going forward would be the same. He would walk forward unrelenting, uncaring for anything that got in his way.

The light dimmed further, and Epim felt himself grow cold. His perception in the dark world that was his soul dimmed, and he felt a great chill begin to run through him.

The twilight light dimmed, the darkness encroached upon him. And yet his paralysis lifted, enough for him to curl into a ball, in a meager attempt to keep the receding warmth in him still.

He had begun to close himself off to the outside world. It was better if he were to act without scrutiny, or perhaps it is better to say that he would act in a much more precise way. He would approach the world with what he now believed to be natural, without questioning the source of his pain further.He would commit, to that bloody path his actions had pushed him to.

It was at this moment that Alucire had made his way into his soul. Epim’s perception had grown so dimmed that he had taken no notice of the man, he had simply grown too cold to focus on anything else.

Alucire’s intrusion into his soul came at a fortuitous time, for any later and a transformation would have occurred in Epim, one that would change him the same as his encounters in the black desert did.

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“There’s nothing here, how unexpected. I thought it would be filled with wonder, with all that you’ve seen. I suppose that is the error of the observer, always expecting the world to conform to their sight.”

Alucire’s words traveled through the endless dark, his voice heavy but kind. And in those words were warmth, warmth that burrowed its way into the dark. It did not dispel the cold in a direct way, it did not spurn the light to move. It simply found its way through, and seemed to settle itself into its empty surroundings.

Epim looked up, his brown eyes dull. The man in front of him was another obstacle, or at least, he should have been. They had come to the castle with the intention of finding the truth of the decay of the Bewitching Woods.

The man in front of him was the source, the cause of the pain the woods and the Bloodsuckers had felt. He was the perfect example of an obstruction, and yet he did not kill him to remove him from his path. He searched for meaning within his actions, he seeked to understand beyond anything else.

This too, was contradictory towards his actions with the Mercenary. But instead of this contradiction causing him pain, it seemed obvious to him that it was the case. It seemed natural for him to seek the answer. Because Alucire never showed him aggression, he had not forced Epim into action against him. And further still, the answers he would get were not for his own sake, but for Bart’s, and the Bloodsuckers of the village.

Gradually the light began to spin faster, the twilight glow began to supersede the darkness. Epim found the cold leaving his body. He found that he was able to stand again. And he did, now looking Alucire into the eyes.

The man was regal as always, and the weakness Epim had seen in his physical form before was nowhere to be seen now. All that stood in front of him was the picturesque version of a man, one who could stand despite the long years of pain he had put himself through.

“Hello. How did you get here? Where is here?.” Epim spoke slowly, regaining his composure. He had not answered the contradiction in his heart, but the existence of another person allowed him to consolidate his form. His perception grew outwards, no longer settled on just the pains of his heart.

Alucire laughed briefly. “This place is your soul. Here I thought that you kept it open intentionally, but now I’m led to believe that it’s open and you’ve never learned to close it!”

Epim tilted his head, not fully understanding.

Alucire took a seat in the twilight, hand on his chin. “What am I to do, I came here intending to give you some advice and set you on your way, but you seem to be ignorant of your true nature.”

“My true… nature?” Epim thought back to his crisis of self, wondering if Alucire had seen through him with the golden eyes of his. “Wait, my soul?” The concept was familiar to him, at least conceptually.

“Yes. I found my way in through your ring. You're dying right now, that arrow delivered you a great deal of pain did it not?”

“More than you would think.” He thought of his inner turmoil, and yet the words that came out of his mouth seemed fake. He felt that Alucire could see through him, that he could understand the pain he was going through.

Epim did not seem overly worried over his own impending death, something Alucire immediately took notice of. He seemed keenly curious about Alucire, but not about himself.

“Ah, what to do, what to do. I don’t have much time, and neither do you. Someone was approaching fast from the dungeon’s entrance. And although time’s a bit slower here, I don’t think I can teach you everything you would need.” Alucire was right, his body seemed to be fading away slowly, blending with the dark.

“Teach me? I’m sorry but I don’t think I can learn much from you. I’m still quite angry at how you treated the Bloodsuckers, you know.” While Epim said he was angry, his gaze carried not a hint of repulsion or detest.

“Stay angry at me if you wish, boy. Those words of yours annoy me, I thought you were more open minded than that. Well, not that it matters. Your anger won’t do much good, given that all you have to be angry at is a corpse.”

“What do you mean, a corpse? I thought I was the one dying.”

Alucire explained very briefly the current situation, of his own sacrifice. Epim’s eyes went wide at the thought of it all.

“You’d give up your life so easily?”

“Not easily. And it’s funny of you to say that, given your words were the ones that convinced me to set on my current path of action. Are you really so ignorant that you don’t understand the weight of your own speech?”

“I’m ignorant about a lot of things, actually.”

Alucire sighs. “Well I suppose understanding that is the first step. I was rebuked by a mere infant, I suppose that goes to show the height of the folly of Miede’s and I’s action..”

Standing back up, Alucire looks throughout the darkness. His eyes land on the spinning ball of twilight. “Although you’re ignorant to the nature of it all, I suppose teaching you the fundamentals aren;t impossible. Tell me, can you draw on that power that lies above you?”

Epim looks up to the twilight light, thinking hard. “Well, I can summon my scythe. It looks quite familiar to our surroundings, actually.” Within Epim’s hands the twilight scythe appears instinctively.

Alucire looks him up and down, and then examines the scythe carefully. “Not exactly the best… The form’s all off, it’s inconsistent. It’d work when you need it to, but you really don’t have the best control, do you. That forms probably all you can manage, right?”

“...What? I thought…” Epim thought back to the creation of his scythe, and how he called upon it in the same way every time. “You mean there’s more to it?”

Alucire’s eyes opened in shock, before his hand came up to his face. Epim could see through it, his body now almost completely faded away.

“An infant wasn’t right either. You’re green. It’d be one thing if you couldn’t do it, but it’s a completely other thing to not even understand it. Very well, in this case, the only thing possible is force.”

“What do you mean-” Before Epim could get his question out, Alucire’s hand had sunk into his chest, through his chest. Although he was fading quickly and seemed ephemeral, the reality of the strike in his chest was real.

“Learn from the feeling, and replicate it. I don’t know how capable you are, but as long as that little light spins, you can do it. You’re capable of great things.” The words seem tender, but all Epim can focus on is the intense pain radiating through his body. It was much more severe than the arrow in his physical side, it was as if his body was being torn apart inside out.

He felt muscle being destroyed, tendons snapping, sinew of all kinds shredding itself. He felt himself foundationally collapsing, and then, nothing. He felt an absence of everything, a return to a blank slate.

Then, slowly, he didn’t feel his muscle repair itself, he felt the birth of new muscle. He felt the twisting and winding of new tendons connecting him, he felt the heat of blood pumping through every vein, it was as if he was being born anew.

The last thing he saw was Alucire’s in front of him, his body fading away at last. His eyes looked caring, a tinge of regret being palpable in his expression. Alucire’s final gift to Epim was a transmittance of what he could see, through the veil of the darkness that clouded Epim’s soul.

“I found myself in your words, because they spoke of the reality that not only I was in, but the world outside me. I can’t say I know who you are, or why you yourself have come to this castle of mine. Our actions, our words, they leave us wanting to choose a path, to commit ourselves in the face of uncertainty. Do not make the mistake I did. The world is vast, there is more to it than we can possibly believe. Young hero, as you open your eyes, please think of yourself as no more and no less than the wind. With cause, you will blow a great storm. Without cause, you will be a simple breeze. And in turmoil, you will become a great hurricane, unable to retain its form for long. Find that you exist the same as any other, in the great flow of all things. There is no need to commit yourself, just as the wind does, you can take any form you wish.”

Epim felt his eyes snap open, the cold stone floor of the dungeon made itself known to him. He was back, his physical body having regained its senses. The wound on his side had closed, it had expelled the arrow on its own.

The first thing his eyes see are Duncire, and Bart who were both undergoing their transformations. He sensed an incoming hostility approaching, and a great danger from above. His memories from his time within the confines of his own soul were fresh, and Alucire’s parting words were fresher.

The face of the mercenary flashed in his head, and he knew then the source of his contradiction. “I wonder what his name was.” His first thoughts were spoken aloud, as he was reborn into the world.