As the winged form flew closer and closer, Zalia could feel the aura begin to overpower Ro-ak’s power, penetrating both it and her own protections. It wouldn’t be enough to be debilitating as long as she remained within the small protected area but she feared for Ro-ak, who would now have two enemies to fight at once.

“Can you feel that? How could you not tell me about this!?” she mentally screamed towards the collective.

“Fight… on…” the reply came.

Zalia looked up and she could see the one remaining demon, the larger one of the three, was starting to move now. No longer was the power of the collective holding it still.

Her attention was drawn away as Boreal let out a low growl and the first of the ground creatures began their assault. She didn’t know how exactly they could tell where she was but with all the powerful creatures above, she didn’t doubt one would be able to see her and direct them.

Boreal ripped through two creatures as Zalia quickly dispatched more with arrows. She fought on desperately, trying to find some way out of their situation. If she acted quickly, her and Boreal could escape yet the chances of that plan working diminished with every passing moment. She didn’t want to leave the collective and Ro-ak behind yet this fight was so far out of her power.

“Zalia, they.. are.. trying.. to use my power. My power.. to rip open.. a portal. You must be ready,” Ro-ak said in her mind.

The force of the mental words struck her like a physical blow, as if in using his power to this degree, Ro was unable to project his thoughts in any less of a manner.

“Did you hear that? Be ready for the portal, come with us!” Zalia said to the collective.

She quickly dodged a slashing claw, bringing her sword down on the overextended arm as her legs shifted.

“Keep our memory, Zalia of the Druids. Do not forget us,” they replied, sadness lacing the thoughts.

“What?” she asked.

“It is time,” they replied.

“You told me that I would have nothing to fear…” Zalia trailed off.

She saw the demon begin flying down towards the cave.

Zalia rushed out of the protective area, stumbling a little at the strength of the aura outside the protective dome. She stepped into a tree, seeing for a moment through hundreds nearby. She could see countless creatures, possibly thousands, littering the woods, pouring through them like a disease. She stepped out near to the Grove, in time to see the demon, Silver ranked, slam through the entrance of the cave into the room beyond.

“No… “ Zalia whispered.

A memory entered her mind, a confusing jumble, something she couldn’t decipher. It was like a million memories compressed into one. She immediately shoved the entire thing into her gauntlet, a large misty flow leaving her eyes, travelling down her arm into the heirloom wrapped around her hand.

She stumbled towards the Grove, sword out, the pressure of the aura too strong for her to think. She could hear someone talking in her mind, a loud voice. Ro-ak.

She ignored it, tumbling through the entrance to see the room littered with the bodies of the collective.

The large demon, skin like cracked obsidian, held a small creature in its hand. Delphi.

The hand closed in a sharp movement. A crunch resounded.

Zalia was pulled from behind, a force ripping her out of the entrance. She spun wildly in the air, disoriented, further still as she was slammed into something hard and metallic. Something with blue eyes, missing a piece of metal on her shoulder, fur peeking through. Boreal. They were flying through the air, pulled by an invisible force towards a giant gash in the world, through which she could see the dunes of a desert.

“Prepare the world for what comes,” Ro-ak said.

Her last vision of Cormaine was a large god fighting a desperate battle with two, thousand-eyed monsters.

Everything blurred together, colours, sounds, smells, feelings. She was flung heavily through the air, the sound like the ripping of fabric yet loud as an explosion. She looked up dizzily at the tear in the world as it rippled, then closed. It ripped open again before promptly closing once more.

This time, it stayed closed.

She stood up shakily, brushing off the sand covering her armour. She looked around desperately and saw Boreal also standing shakily atop a nearby dune. The sky above was clear and blue, the air fresh. She took a deep breath, feeling a relief flood her body, her healing no longer needing to fight the corruption.

Despite all that, the first thing that left her was a sob as she fell back to her knees. Her body shook as she cried, the memory of Delphi crushed in a clawed hand sharp in her mind. She heard the patter of paws on sand as Boreal came up and curled around her, gently pushing her head into Zalia’s hands.

“They’re.. they’re gone,” she said between gasps of breath.

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They had known, known what would happen. They had seen it, done nothing about it, let that future happen because… because why?

She remembered the memory that had entered her mind but wasn’t ready to think about that just yet.

She knelt there for a time, crying. She couldn’t say for how long, only that the sun shining brightly in the sky was that much lower as to be noticeable when she uncurled from the position she had taken.

She hadn’t known the collective for long, yet they had been one of her few friends in the hell that was Cormaine. For that, she had felt closer to them than many she had met in her life. Now, they were dead, sacrificing themselves for a future for their world that she could not see.

She almost gave up to lay back down but the survivalist in her won out. She took the memory of the past hour and shoved the whole thing into her vault. She could feel it leave and was left with but a simple summary of what those memories had been. She knew Delphi was dead, a fight had happened yet the emotions and specifics of that were swept away. She could take time to process that later, for now she had to figure out if she was safe or not.

She looked around herself, rubbing at her bleary and sore eyes. She didn’t have much of an idea where she was but did remember that there was a large desert to the south of the Endarian kingdom. So, going by the assumption she was even on the same world as Endaria, she began travelling north.

“Come on Boreal, let’s go find home,” she said quietly, gently patting Boreal’s back.

The sun was sinking towards the horizon and as she began what might be a long journey. When she got back to Endaria, then, she would process everything.

Far above, she could see some type of winged creature flying about and decided to keep an eye out on them. She was certain they would be keeping an eye out on her, some sort of scavenging creature like a vulture maybe.

That night, she walked ever onwards. She could probably have kept on walking but decided after another three or four hours of walking over the endless dunes that some sleep would do her good. She summoned the vault, a sandstone archway growing out of the desert below, and stepped inside. The interior was the same as she remembered, though two new memories sat in misty swirls within their clear domes. Just looking at them brought a flash of two eyes looking at her as a large hand crushed down on them.

She quickly averted her gaze, moving past to sit in the little herb garden at the back of the vault. There, she lay down to sleep.

She woke up maybe an hour and a half later, though time was hard to tell. She was curled up with Boreal curled around her like a large, warm, breathing pillow. She let out a deep sigh, opening her eyes and staring at the ceiling. She watched the little lights floating about her Grove, following them with her eyes as they drifted. She steeled herself and sat up with a groan.

She had felt the connection to the other part of her Grove break when she had been thrown through the portal. Whether that was a result of damage done to it, her own subconscious or some other reason, she did not know. It didn’t matter, she would have broken the connection herself when she had found herself in a different world either way.

It occurred to her then that she probably could have flown the whole previous day, the speed would have been increased greatly. She had just been so wrung out and absent-minded that the thought hadn’t occurred to her.

So, the next few hours were spent flying over the dunes, somewhat low to the ground to avoid entering the air space of the creatures above. She let her mind go numb, simply enjoying the feeling of the clean air on her face and the moon far above, lighting the dunes in a dim light she could see perfectly by.

So her mind was jolted back to reality when her gaze was caught on a bright light amongst a stone outcropping jutting from the dunes. Atop the rocks was a little fire, shielded from the wind by an alcove formed from yet more stone, though it looked to be magically created, a tell being the way in which it looked like water turned stone rather than some natural formation.

There was a single figure sat by the firelight, hunched in a light cloak.

“Want to go check it out?” Zalia said to Boreal.

There was no reply.

“Boreal?” Zalia urged.

“Food?” Boreal replied, seeming confused.

Had she been lost in thought too?

“Want to go check out that fire over there?” Zalia repeated.

“New friend?” Boreal asked.

“Don’t be hasty now,” Zalia said.

Everyone always seemed to be either friend or food to her, though that one demon had been neither friend or food. Not tasty apparently.

Thoughts of the demon Boreal had killed brought the eventual flash of cracked obsidian skin, large clawed hands around a dear friend. A crunching sound.

Zalia shuddered, pushing her mind away from the memory. She was really not enjoying the ability to recall the stored memories in perfect clarity.

She dropped swiftly, deciding to land on the outcropping some distance away. In a move reminiscent of her first meeting with the Hidden, Zalia crept towards the campfire, wanting to get a closer look at the person.

They were a small human with dark skin wearing a light cloth wrap with a hood pulled up. They had the same light cloth covering the lower half of their face and a strange ethereal material wrapped around their eyes. Leaning against the stone behind them was a spear with a leather flask hanging from the grip. As Zalia approached, their eyes jumped up and they grabbed their spear, holding it firmly as they stood.

“Who goes there?” the woman called out, her voice rough but whispery like the sand.

? - Iron rank.

Decided she would definitely not be a threat, Zalia came out of the shadows with her hands up.

“Stay hidden for a moment,” she said to Boreal.

Boreal was definitely a lot more terrifying than Zalia was. Especially to someone who had probably never seen anything quite like Boreal before.

“I mean no harm,” Zalia said.

“How’d you get up here?” the woman asked, eyes narrowed.

Zalia could see something weird happening with the vibrations in the stone underneath the woman. Kind of like… sonar maybe?

Maybe she had some sort of tremorsense too.

“My own two legs,” Zalia said, deciding to keep her abilities a secret for now.

She supposed she did look very out of place, being in armour fashioned after the forest.

The woman looked at her a little nervously, probably having seen her rank.

“I promise I mean no harm, may I sit? I’m a bit lost and would love directions if you have them,” Zalia asked, letting some vulnerability through to help build trust.

The woman flicked the tip of her spear towards the stone opposite the fire from her and Zalia walked over, using her manipulation to make herself a more comfortable seat.

“So, what’s your name?” Zalia asked.