“I can feel her. There is nothing but hunger there.“ Kara whispered with her eyes rolling back into her head. She sat cross-legged at the wall and had just burned a bundle of herbs, the sharp smell still lingering in the air.

„Can you talk to her?“ I asked with impatience. “How does it work?“

“The cave spirit I summoned is up there, trying to make contact. But even then...She is trying to consume him. As I said, her being is nothing more but feeding, breeding, and a very small speck of the need for safety.“

“Can she consume your spirit?“ Asked Grim.

Kara shook her head. “No, it is an ancient law. She is indeed part spirit and as such bound to the rules. A pact is made and she has to listen if she wants it or not. She does not have to accept nor keep us safe afterwards, though, so beware.“

“Oh, I beware!“ I muttered while studying the darkness above and around us. It was still hard to fathom the enormous dimensions of the queen. She was endless. “She may be too big to actually harm us.“

“Do not tempt fate, you fool.“ Grim hissed. “Let’s just get this over with and run.“

“Let me try something.“ Kara now said, reorganizing the little ritual site before her. “[Spiritual Convergence], [Imbue Spirit], [Gift of the Clans: Snaketongue]“

She rocked back as if hit by a strong wind, and a subtle, white glow engulfed her eyes, while she raised them to the ceiling. Breathless, she uttered words in the language of the Wyldlings, pressed them out as if she had to force them through a physical barrier.

A moment, there was nothing to hear but the whispering and shuffling of her clothes, but then something gigantic, something endless screeched above us. The sound tore through the small amount of space left in the cavern not filled with the flesh of the Endless Queen. I could feel it ringing in my teeth.

“What have you done?“ I hissed.

“I have woken her up. She did not like that one bit.“ Kara mumbled, eyes rolling back and forth while she spread her arms wide. “Obey the law!“ she shouted, but more to herself than to the Endless Queen, really.

Another moment passed. Another moment we were not buried under the massive body or torn apart by the countless smaller insects around.

“Well...“ Kara breathed, “She is listening.“

Grim slapped the back of Kara’s back, grinning toothily. “Well done, lass! I knew you had it in you.“

I massaged my temples in the meantime, trying to concentrate on what had to happen next. “I know it is not as straight forward as that, but what we want is a pact: We get rid of the Weirderbeast and she gives us her blessing and the Elemental Key she is guarding. Nothing more, nothing less.“

“I know.“ Kara threw me that look again. The look that said: you do your job, I will do mine.

Again, we waited with bated breath as nothing seemed to happen.

“She is...honestly, she is the most simple spirit I have ever seen. No subtlety, nothing. Just feeding and breeding. Nothing else. She cannot grasp the concepts I am trying to convey. I will have to try something else. I can...try to empower her, make her smarter. Well, spirits tend to get smarter as they gain power, but there is no guarantee. Then again, I never tried to empower something as overwhelming as that. The other thing I could try is...forcing the pact.“ She shrugged as she saw our looks. “No [Shaman] truly negotiates with a spirit on equal footing. Smaller spirits can just be made to act with the wave of a hand. There is no discussing the consequences of their actions. They are getting paid, spiritually, but they do not really have a choice. The mightier the spirit, the harder it gets, until they are so powerful and almost sentient, that it resembles a true negotiation.“

“You think you could force her to accept?“

“Let us not pretend that I have experience with creatures such as this. I never could have imagined a creature that size...,“ she stopped again, getting lost in letting her eyes wander about the queen, “but her spirit is so...not weak, the hunger and desire to breed is strong, such a strong feeling. It is her world. But the part of her that is a spirit...an elemental guardian no less... should be more aware. Powerful spirits just are.“

“What does that mean for us?“ I asked. “Why is her spirit-self so...small?“

“That is what I am trying to explain. It is not. It is strong but in a simple way. Her spirit is a force of nature, but with no awareness. It can be manipulated. It just is. And before you ask, there is no telling as to what a being this strong would do with a moment of...clarity.“

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“She could tear the island asunder.“ I looked up to the queen in the cage of her own body. “Or even worse: Make smart decisions. No, We do not want her to be smart. You will have to try to force it.“

“Is it dangerous?“ Grim asked.

“What isn’t? But does the ocean care if you try to push it around?“

“So how do you force her then?“ I asked.

“It is a pact, a normal one, but you...only asks questions you get a clear yes on. If I force a spirit, I cannot go against its being.“

“Is that not the definition of forcing?“

“No, I am forcing the agreement on the spirit, not the terms. We can only bring her to accept things she strongly believes in. We could never get her to stop feeding for a second, for example. But we can...I don’t know...get her to eat something else first.“

Grim was now very nervously pacing around us. “This is so above and beyond everything I am familiar with...I am losing my mind.“

“We can do this.“ I said. “We just have to formulate the right things. Like...we want her to feed on the body of the Weirderbeast.“

The walls of the cavern shook as the Endless Queen screeched in rage, the moment Kara had translated my words. “Uh...,“ she said, “that would be...a strong agreement.“

“Alright,“ I tried collecting my thoughts, “we want her to give us the Elemental Key.“

“She is indifferent. She has no concept of possession or elements.“

“Then, for all we know, she should accept the trade. Force her.“ I nodded, having made up my mind.

“I agree.“ Kara said, taking a deep breath. “Here goes nothing.“

That day we forced a pact onto the Endless Queen. It was nothing grand. Just a young woman and some burning herbs wrestling with the mind of an insect so massive, we could not see the end of it. It worked because the Endless Queen was bound by the part of her that was spiritual. It worked because we hand-fed her a very good deal, something she naturally wanted anyway. We tricked her into giving up something that was precious to us, but not to her. Well, tricked might be the wrong word, seeing that it was not free in the slightest. There was a Weirderbeast between us and success, still.

I received the notification telling us that the system had accepted the pact and the quest. I had expected Kara to get it, but the quest still seemed to be tailor-made for me. Maybe it had been in the details that never got spoken aloud. Maybe Kara had dropped my name to be free of any unforeseen consequences. Which was fine, I could handle the aftermath.

What I could not handle was the Weirderbeast. Yet.

We all felt off, as we left the cave. We all had seen...and done things unthinkable. We all shared uncomfortable looks and awkward silence. There was the haunted gaze of Kara again. Which brought me back to a train of thought that had been pushed aside.

I could have done this alone.

I could have fought the fights alone. I could have climbed the cavern walls. I could have faced the queen and carved the key out of her body, if that is what it would have taken. Sure, my companions had been a great help, and I was not arrogant enough to think I would have come this far without them. But the physical challenges...I could have done.

I was not a mortal anymore.

And yet...and yet too weak to take on the Weirderbeast. A being strange and mighty enough to hold a colony of enormous and dangerous insects hostage and to threaten their very existence. A creature born out of chaos and the forces of life.

A creature I had no idea how to kill.

We had to fight our way out of the system of caverns. The creatures were too single-minded to know the difference between food and anything else. By now, we had them figured out and after confronting their kings, the soldiers and hunters were nothing else but something I had to keep busy to get my companions the experience they needed.

We were not the front the hive was invested in. On the other side, under the mountains and up to the forest, they were waging an eternal war against the Weirderbeast. We knew that now. Uncountable resources spend, lives thrown into the fray, ground to paste, and swallowed whole. And the Endless Queen was losing her troops faster than she could reproduce.

Every death fed the beast and weakened the Hive. There might have been an equilibrium at some point. Where the hunters and soldiers had carved enough flesh out of the beast to feed their queen, but that had changed. That had changed so much that the mindless strategy of the queen now only was good enough to feed the Weirderbeast comfortably. Time was running out on us.

“Would it help to wage war on the Weirderbeast ourselves?“ I asked into the silence of the ascending tunnel leading to the surface.

“What?“ Grim asked.

“What if we waged war, with everything we got, against the beast. Could we...whittle it down? Cut it to pieces?“

“Have you seen that thing?“ He asked wide-eyed. “What is an arrow to do against something like that?“

“Not one...thousands.“

“We do not have a thousand arrows.“

Kara kept silent for the most part, concentrating on finding her way in the sliver of light that our lantern produced.

“Think with me here. It is not about arrows. What else are we to do but to attack it with everything we got?“ My voice grew heated, in part because I was dancing on the edge of despair. Until now triumph about what we had achieved had won out but now...

“You mentioned the Mad King before.“ Kara finally said.

“Yes, I did. And I somehow do not think he will fight this battle for us.“

“No. He won‘t. But then again, he is called the Mad King for a reason. He holds the darkness at bay, does he not?“

“One reason more why he will not come out here...that is the point, is it not?“ I finally got her point. “He is the Twice-Born, and a mighty one, of a god of madness. He is mad. There is no telling what he will do, not now nor ever. He might just as well destroy us.“

“Raven,“ Kara said deep in thought, “we should make the trip to the Heart of the Wyld. Not only is it important to know what he knows, but there are also the young [Shamans] and [Seers] as well. The future of the Wyldlings, some say. Last time I was there, he was like he always had been. But that could have changed, could it not? They are in danger.“

“I can travel fast and be back in a week at most. A week I would not spend fighting the Weirderbeast.“

Grim nodded along now. “Then war it is. Let your knights fight in your stead, while you get us a way out of this mess.“