Lying flat on my back, I feel the muddy flood water soak into my clothes. As my senses return, I blink several times looking at the night sky. The rain has stopped, so thank Ea for small mercies. My body however feels like it's become a giant bruise, no thanks to the giant wave slamming into me just now. My trousers make squelching noises as I begin to get back to my feet and I feel the clammy coldness of mud coating my legs.

I really need to find a clean set of clothes as soon as possible. Otherwise I'll be feeling so itchy in the morning.

"My baaaaack." Ramon groans a short distance away from me. He's lying on the muddy ground as well, but Ramon had the misfortune of landing badly. His body is twisted at an unhealthy angle and from my knowledge of field medicine, I'm pretty sure his spine has been damaged.

"Ramon! Hang on, I'm coming!" I shout back at my friend, loping toward his position. Ramon blearily opens his eyes and fixes on me a glazed stare.

"Mac? Mac? I can't get up?" Ramon babbles, slurring his voice, "What's going on Mac?"

"Just relax." I grunt, getting on my knees and rolling Ramon to his stomach despite his protestations. I undo Ramon's gun belts and set them to the side so that I can examine the possible injury he may have suffered. With that done, my fingers trace their way along the arc of Ramon's spine, gently applying pressure to gauge Ramon's reaction.

"How's it feel?" I ask reassuringly, helping Ramon calm down.

"Agh! Its sore, damn you." Ramon hisses from under his breath.

"Feels tender?" I ask as he nods wearily in confirmation, "Try moving your limbs."

Ramon moves his arms and legs experimentally before speaking up again.

"I'm not paralyzed, its just that my back really hurts." he groans, "To the point I can't pick myself up."

"You're lucky. It could be much worse." I encourage Ramon, reaching for a vial of healing potion he keeps tied to his waist, "Drink half the bottle. Just half."

Ramon complies and begins sipping at the bottle that I put to his lips. Before he can take too much, I move the vial away, placing it nearby on the ground.

"Hey, that was helping." Ramon grumbles, hankering for another hit of pain relief.

"Just bear with it." I say, laying my hands back on Ramon's spine. Finding the unnatural bend in his back, I seize it and with a sharp yank, wrench Ramon's spine back into its regular position. There's a loud crack of protest from the bone and Ramon shrieks like a castrated donkey. Before the yelling can get out of hand, I place the vial of healing potion back on to Ramon's lips and he proceeds to chug the stuff down like a man dying of thirst.

"All done." I dust my hands off, getting back to my feet, "You should be fine now."

"What the hell?" Ramon grouses at me as he heaves himself into standing position, "The healing potion would have worked fine by itself. You didn't need to go wild on my back."

"Sure I didn't." I agree, "Not if you didn't mind having a bent spine for the rest of your life."

"What?" Ramon blurts out, mouth opening and closing dumbly.

"The potion would have repaired the damage." I point out, "Without moving your spine back to its original position. But like I said, that might not be a big deal to you."

"Very funny." Ramon scoffs as he puts his gun belts back on, "Back still feels numb though."

"Just let your body heal naturally. Healing potions are no substitute for that." I say as we begin walking down the shattered road leading out of Springvale, "You see the horses anywhere?"

"I don't think the horses survived." Ramon sighs, casting his eyes about, "I doubt anyone at ground level did when the earthquakes and tidal wave hit."

"Damn. Long walk ahead of us back to your swamp man kingdom then." I shrug, helping Ramon clamber over the steep inclines caused by the quake that ravaged Springvale just moments ago.

"So, you want to tell me what happened back there?" Ramon asks pointedly, "You call that glowing thing a Logos."

"Honestly, I have no idea what just went down." I frown helplessly, "Someone from the Order called those runes Logos though. Claimed that they were the Words of God. No idea how far its true."

"That Logos," Ramon muses, "Its powerful Mac. It levelled Springvale all by itself. And it seemed to have a will of its own. Though whether it has any connection to the Creator Gods is something else entirely."

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"There's anything though," I begin to speak worriedly, "That Logos, it did something to me. Awakened some kind of power?"

"That trick you used to help us survive the fall of the sky?" Ramon asks, not missing a beat.

"Right. How did you know?" I confirm as both of us take a diversion through the flattened potato fields in order to avoid the corpse choked road. The rising humidity from the flood water is not doing the scent of decaying meat rising from the dead bandits any favors.

"I've never seen a sword master pull off that trick before." Ramon says, "Its an obvious conclusion to make."

"I saw it once." I bite my lip, ignoring the uncomfortable sensation of walking with wet socks, "The Stabber. He could do it too."

Before Ramon can reply, an ominous sensation descends upon both of us, forcing us to pause in our steps. The atmosphere grows oppressive, as if neither of us are welcome in the wreckage of Springvale.

"We're being watched." Ramon whispers to me urgently.

"I know." I respond, pointing to a point in the potato field that is surrounded by shredded bandit corpses, "Look over there."

"What?" Ramon squints, focusing on where I'm pointing.

"Wait for it." I elaborate with bated breath. And right on cue, there's a dull blip of light coming from the jumbled up potato crop.

"The Logos?" Ramon exclaims in a hushed voice, "After all this destruction, its still active?"

"Seems that way." I agree, "No idea what the Logos is doing now, but let's keep a safe distance. I don't want to end up like those bandits."

"Seconded." Ramon heartily affirms as we make our way back to the road, picking our way past the corpses. Our feet crunch against the rubble left behind when the peaks of Granite Pass exploded.

"Its almost like the Logos hates us, Mac." Ramon continues as he gingerly avoids a waterlogged corpse, "I can almost feel it judging us somehow. Like we weren't meant to survive Springvale being destroyed."

"All the more reason to get out of here as quickly as possible." I assert, "I'm not eager to mess with anything that can cause a minor apocalypse."

And with that said, Ramon and I begin to make haste toward the exit of Springvale. The village behind us has been reduced to a flattened heap, with the wind sorrowfully moaning as it passes through the blasted plain. The whole area had been scoured clean by the quakes and flood. Not even the ghosts of the slain would be able to remain after such a thorough cleansing.

"Isn't that your pony?" I comment, spying a familiar looking carcass by the entrance of the village. Ramon's pony must have made a break for it when the disaster got underway, but met its end at the hands of the tidal wave coming in from Granite Pass.

"At least I can retrieve the stuff packed on my horse." Ramon mutters despondently, "Though all my clothes have probably been ruined."

As we trudge onward, I notice something odd about the pony's carcass. Its lying at a slanted angle, almost as if its on the edge of a cliff. The quakes must have caused another fissure in the road ahead, just at the border with Granite Pass.

"Shit." I curse as both of us draw up next to the carcass. My first guess was correct. There is a fissure in the road. But its more than that.

A large section of ground has simply been obliterated by the quakes, cutting Springvale off from the Granite Pass.

As Ramon and I stare at the massive gap, its clear that neither of us would be able to jump across, even under the best of circumstances. And with the only way out of Springvale being the Granite Pass, we are for all intents and purposes trapped here, until we find a way to overcome this abyss. That's not the most worrying thing about our situation though.

Because the fissure that is blocking our way out is all kinds of strange.

The fissure is clean, as if it had been formed by using a sharp knife. More importantly, there is literally nothing inside the fissure. No soil, roots or stones. All Ramon and I can see is an endless white void, somewhat resembling a piece of blank paper. Even stranger is the revelation we discover when we look into the fissure itself.

"No." Ramon staggers backward, rubbing his temples.

"I see it too." I state, "You're not dreaming."

The ground we are standing on does not extend all the way downward.

It is hovering within the white void.

And thanks to the fissure, I can also tell that this phenomenon applies to Granite Pass as well. The ground holding up Granite Pass is nothing more than a huge rectangular block, hovering in empty space.

"How?" Ramon queries, not really expecting an answer from me.

"Remember how we flew into the sky?" I swallow hard as my mind makes the connections, "Maybe that wasn't so strange after all?"

"We've always been floating." Ramon comes to the same conclusion, "Its just that no one noticed it."

"We ... we need to leave," I urgently shoot back, "I can sense the hostility from the Logos. That rune is incredibly pissed at us."

"Forbidden knowledge." Ramon babbles, "We've seen things mortals were never meant to know. The Creator Gods won't forgive us."

"Just calm down." I roll my eyes, "You said it yourself. The gods have been absent for ages. Help me gather the wreckage from the village. We should be able to build a bridge that will allow us to cross the void."

"Its no use, Mac." Ramon whispers nervously, as if he's afraid of being overheard, "The same thing is happening. Just like when the bandits fell from the sky."

"What same thing? You're not making sense." I furrow my brows, confronting Ramon.

"We've been trapped in a closed space." Ramon's eyes dart about frantically, "Something is actively preventing us from making our escape."

"You don't say." I snarl, picking up a length of scrap wood and staring at the sky, half expecting another wave of bandits to make landfall at any moment.

Then there's a flash of red coming from the potato fields and the Logos rises from its resting place, pulsing angrily.

"Get ready for anything." I growl and Ramon draws a pair of pistols, levelling them at the Logos.

The Logos begins to pulse rhythmically and green flames bleed off its surface. As the liquid fire drips to the ground, it begins to scorch the area clean, leaving nothing behind. The ground crumbles in the fire's wake, revealing more of that white void. And more and more flames ooze off the Logos, spreading the conflagration in every direction.

"Divine fire." Ramon moans in despair.

The flames dance hypnotically, winking slyly at me. But I'm not fooled. There's nothing divine about this.

There's nothing divine about dying.