The man sitting inside the stalagmite had been there a very long time. The calcium rich rock forming slowly around him over tens of thousands of years, it was an unusually tall stalagmite for its age but that was just a result of having a base to build upon. He should have been dead, millenia without food was usually bad for a human being but this was something of a special circumstance.

He wasn’t allowed to die. Normally being told that would be meaningless, when told by a demon king in the heart of her own realm… he just counted himself fortunate that he was also being kept from feeling hunger and thirst whilst being spared the agonies of muscular atrophy, or at least he had once, there wasn’t much of a mind left now.

He didn’t know why he was here anymore, if he was being tortured, kept captive or had simply been forgotten about. He didn’t even know who he was, his only stimulus the slow drip onto his head that had led to his rocky prison.

Finally something new came along, the sound of cloven feet upon stone. The sound was coming from behind him but the rocky growth prevented him from turning his head.

With agonizing suspense the demon came into view, her face was reptilian and grey-scaled, as if all colour and life had been drained from her. She had no eyes to speak of, just sunken pits whilst her horns were a mismatched pair of onyx spirals, each with a wicked tip, one pointing forwards, the other outward to the left, and when she smiled it was to show several rows of razor sharp needle teeth, and that was all of her that was visible, the rest shrouded in magical darkness so complete that he couldn’t even be sure she was humanoid.

There wasn’t much danger of her smiling right now as the man in the rock stared at her without even a glint nor gleam of recognition in his steel grey eyes.

“Another failure.” She sighed, banishing the stone with a lazy wave of her hand as she thought aloud, “We’ll restore from your last success and work from there.”

Erebus nodded in acquiescence, “Of course master. I am sorry for failing.” The restoration of his mind seamless as his teacher stripped most of the memories of being trapped in the rock from him whilst returning those that had preceded it where they had been faded to nothing by time. It was one of the casual shows of power that still terrified him every time, the best mind mages of Reath would have taken years of careful alteration to achieve the same effect.

And there was always the chance that he was only being convinced these were his memories and someone else entirely was now sitting in his head. It was best not to dwell on it.

“You are the student. I am the master. The failure is mine.” She declared, “And we cannot afford more failures like that one, time presses.”

“How long was I in there? Reath-side I mean.” Erebus asked as he stretched, checking that his body hadn’t deteriorated, it hadn’t, the demoness would never have allowed it to, but it was also important to check lest he miss a test.

“Three days, two hours.” She told him, “You have now been missing three months. We will table your training against ennui for a later time. Go with Lana. Lana, the Dance of the Elementals into the Serendipitous Waltz into the Graviton Cascade, don’t be gentle.”

Erebus withheld a wince, the three combat forms were not easy, the Serendipitous Waltz in particular could prove quite painful while the Graviton Cascade was, whilst the epitome of magical combat, useless outside of demon worlds and other planes of reality where the laws of physics could be suborned.

He did not complain though, instead bowing to his master and his dance partner, “A question master, why was I kept in the rock so long? A hundred thousand years seems… excessive.”

“It is excessive, and it broke you.” She replied, taking her role of teacher with deathly seriousness, “I judge it the limit of how long the mightiest creatures of Reath could hold you in a temporal trap.”

“I would have died of old age long before that.” Erebus pointed out, suspecting she had forgotten the frailties of mortal flesh.

“No you wouldn’t. You may be killed but you will never be defeated, you’re too defiant to allow it. Now go train with Lana before I decide I will be your sparring partner.”

For a moment he contemplated defiance, then shuddered once and followed after the succubus.

*

It was with a struggle and a snarl that Erebus tore free of the memory, just in time to stop the blade descending towards his head. It was a snap reaction, the barrier of runes had been drilled into him through constant repetition and then honed further by regular ambushes whenever he slept, ate or was similarly off-guard.

The faeblade tore through it with a flash of sparks, but the barrier had slowed it enough for the mage to sidestep as he retook his bearings and took in his foe.

A black knight, not the deadliest of foes Avalon had to offer, but not a lightweight either, any fae brave enough to openly defy the rulers of Arcadia was worthy of respect, that they still drew breath spoke to their strength and skill. If it had been a green knight, one of Avalon’s nigh immortal guardians, the necromancer would have been worried. As it was…

Erebus’s blast of kinetic force sent the sable plated fae bouncing across the grass, the final bounce leaving a small furrow as they came to a stop. “Put down your blade sir knight, I have no quarrel with thee.”

A mellifluous woman’s voice replied from behind the blank faced helm as they got mechanically to their feet and raised their blade once more, “Thou hast the scent of fae blood upon thy soul, that is quarrel enough for any scion of the Tuatha.”

“Be that as it may, the blood was spilled upon my home soil, not thine. It’s a foolish hunter who chases the fox into the den of the bear.” The necromancer rebutted, trying to keep the fae talking as he checked on the condition of his companions.

Alice was just staring blankly into space, doubtless caught in the same mental snare that had bewitched him, though the old woman was no more, instead appearing as Erebus remembered, and more importantly as Alice remembered herself.

Vibrant blonde hair, full lips and full cheeks spread wide in a rather dopey smile that probably had something to do with whatever memory she was being shown by the black knight’s mental assault. Her skin was supple and sun-kissed and her figure full, a far cry from the decrepit human raisin she would become in later life.

In that moment Erebus could have forgiven Avalon its deadly nature for allowing his friend to just be herself one last time, not the old husk craving death, nor the enraged beast of war she’d oft worked as, but the happy, carefree woman who’d lived every day as if it might be her last.

Of his other companions there was no sign, a source of no small concern though it at least widened his options. Alice could take pretty much any spell he could dish out so the risk of collateral damage had just gone down to zero. Still their absence nagged at him, the possibilities playing away at the back of his mind.

“I care not the why of it, only the what.” The black knight told him sharply, “My oaths compel me, I must slay thee.”

“Very well.” Erebus sighed, restraining the urge to rub at his eyes whilst cursing all honourbound fools and missing the irony entirely, “Then we are at an impasse. What is thy name sir knight and to whom should I commend thee?”

“Elora Evenstar. And commend me to none. And thine necromancer?”

“Erebus the Grey Walker. Likewise.” There was just time for recognition to glimmer in shock behind the slits of the helm when the magician struck.

“Fulmina. Pyros. Rend.” Three spells in half as many seconds, and that was just the verbal component as with a flicking gesture he accelerated a handful of pebbles from the ground up past the sound barrier while sending a cutting blade of air parallel to the horizontal at about chest height with the other hand.

Credit to Elora, her barrier held off the first spell, Fulmina, the near instant burst of lightning that sprung from Erebus to her, popping her magical shielding but not going any further than that. Her armour dissipated enough of the heat from Pyros that while painful it wouldn’t prove harmful.

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The airblade broke harmlessly on the black plated mail, missing any chinks in the armour though imparting enough momentum to at least disrupt her balance as the rocks slammed home, pocking and denting the armour but doing little more than bruising the fae lady beneath.

None of that mattered a damn in the face of Rend. It was as if two giant hands had grabbed the upper and lower halves of the knight and pulled, tearing her in twain at the waist. Even magic had its applications of brute force and power.

Panting slightly from the effort of so many spells at once, Erebus moved to kneel beside the dying woman so that he might hear her last words, making sure to kick her blade away as he did so.

With shaking hands she raised her visor, blood dribbling down from her mouth as she spoke, voice still ringing clear and beautiful, “I regret none of it.” The black knight declared to the air, tone one of surprised realisation, not really even looking at her killer, perhaps not even noticing him, “Those who never die, never live… the old witch was right.”

With that she was gone and Erebus felt the change in the air as time resumed its normal progress. It had been a subtle working and cleverly done, applied during the moments it had taken him to claw his way out of the remembrance spell. Even for a fae in their home land temporal manipulation was a hefty spell and it explained why Elora had gone after him with a blade, nearly all her magical strength had gone into preventing his allies from joining them.

Her armour was more than resilient enough to handle most battlemages but she hadn’t been counting on running into a supernatural heavyweight, or perhaps she simply hadn’t had a choice, a fae’s word was binding and as she’d said, her oaths compelled her.

It was Natalya that laid a hand on his shoulder, “We need to get moving.” There was a pause as she too stared at the dead woman, “Did she deserve it?”

“Probably not.” Erebus admitted as he got to his feet, “Farewell Elora Evenstar.” With a grunt of effort he lifted out a deep chunk of soil, there was no danger of mana depletion in Avalon, as long as his body could take the strain he could cast spells until he burst like a fuse. With great care he levitated Elora into the unmarked grave and lowered the soil back down.

It hadn’t been a fair fight. Few fights were. In other circumstances Elora could very well have ended him. If she’d been just a few feet closer to the portal. If they’d had this fight in Forest Von Mori, the site of his last defeat, she’d have likely bisected him or forced him to use so much life force (that strange energy healers and necromancers called vitae) that he’d have been left more decrepit than Alice.

If he hadn’t healed his wounds he’d never have been able to let loose with so many spells. hells above and below he probably couldn’t have even walked into Arcadia, the ambient mana would have dispersed the spells stopping him from just bleeding to death internally. He’d needed that fight, it confirmed to him that he was back to form, not some wounded warrior just deathseeking.

Turning back to the others he saw the rest of the group had stepped through the portal. Lana was unaffected by Avalon, or rather she was already her ideal self, pride demons being what they were.

Natalya was similarly unaffected though he could see from the clenching of her jaw that it was taking some effort not to be swept away in the better-than-real illusion that Avalon offered all who visited it. Holly was totally unaffected, which he’d expected, and neither was Alec, which he hadn’t. The bond between the two was clearly growing strong and well.

Sato and Amara hadn’t been as lucky. The precognizant magician’s skin was a maze of eyes, the watery orbs flitting from object to object as he struggled not to be simply overwhelmed by the sensory input.

Amara’s transformation was even more startling, the vampire’s robe was missing, the woman’s sable skin now pale as paper and slightly translucent. She was a massive hairless gangly limbed thing, her maw ringed by a lamprey’s teeth and her eyes deep black orbs that held all the compassion and love of a dental drill. She crawled on all fours and her claws left deep furrows in the ground, and, perhaps most noticeably, she was on fire, the flames licking harmlessly up her as they crackled in the morning air.

Erebus had seen similar creatures, minus the fire, the really old vampires, the smart, the cunning, the swift, that had survived against all odds since before the gods fell. Strigoi, he’d heard them called, in whispers by fools who didn’t know enough to pretend they didn’t exist at all. He was fairly sure two slept in Seruatis though he’d likely never know for sure.

He didn’t blame Alec and Holly for backing away from her in fear, from their perspective they’d turned around staring in wonder at Avalon’s beauty and boom monster. He was also rather proud of them that all they did was move out of reach, their time in Seruatis tempering their reactions, they’d met plenty of monsters and were on good terms with several.

“Okay nobody panic.” The necromancer declared, not exactly the best choice of words if you were trying to prevent a panic ironically. He’d forgotten to warn them about the shift, fool that he was, so used to being able to just ignore it that he hadn’t even considered what would happen to a vampire brought through to Arcadia. “It’s just Amara. You okay ‘Mar?”

“My skin itches and I can’t scratch it without turning myself into sashimi. Oh and I’ve apparently had my best robe stolen. I’ve had better days if I’m honest.” The strigoi hissed, though there was still enough of Amara’s usual voice for it to be recognisable.

“Yeah I should have warned you about this. Avalon shows you… well it’s hard to properly explain it but the best description I can give you is that it shows your higher self, the you at the apex of your path. In your case it’s dragged you forwards by several epochs.” Erebus explained, “Now can anyone see a footpath or trail? We don’t want to go wandering off.”

*

Now that Holly knew she wasn’t going to be hideously savaged she tuned the necromancer out, Alec would fill her in later and if she was about to do anything truly dumb she’d feel his panic spike well before she could go through with it.

With all this talk of finding a path she realized she had a chance, here and now, to be genuinely useful, to pull her weight in a way these monsters and magicians could not match.

Much as she had done in their trek to Seruatis she could commune with the spirits of this land for directions, sure the faelands had a reputation for being tricksy but no plant from the smallest seed of grass to the very mightiest of redwoods would say no to a dryad in need. It helped that this was what she’d already wanted to do.

From the very moment she’d seen the sheer lustre of the grass she’d wanted to just stand in it, to work her toes into the dirt and pretend to be a tree once more as she communed with the world.

With a carefree smile the dryad allowed herself to relax and just listen to the voice of the world.

The silence was deafening. There was nothing there, it wasn’t even that the plants lacked spirits like herself, they lacked awareness, alive perhaps but not living by any definition she would put claim to. They were just there.

“Are you okay Hol?” Alec asked her, knowing she wasn’t though he didn’t know why. His hand on her elbow as he gently guided her after the others members of the eclectic crew who had apparently just picked a direction and gone with it, Erebus at the front.

“Y-yes, it’s nothing.” She assured him, not truly sure why she was lying.

“Understood.” The teen replied without even a hint of hurt, this wasn’t the first time they’d done this dance, he knew she’d open up in her own time. “Need some space?”

“Yeah.”

And that was that, Alec increasing his pace to talk with Natalya, the teen hoping to wheedle some war stories out of the elder necromancer, preferably ones with Erebus doing something embarrassing.

“You saw it.” The words startled Holly, especially because the person saying them quietly in her ear was apparently leading them whilst holding an animated conversation with Alice, who was enjoyed her renewed youthful vigour to the point she was practically skipping.

“It’s all so empty.” She admitted, “It all seems so wondrous and yet this entire place, it’s hollow.”

“I’m told it was wondrous once.” And Holly could practically hear the shrug in that pause, “I wish you could have just enjoyed it but Von Mori rather put that possibility to bed.”

“She did?” The dryad not exactly surprised, the avatar of the forest, who could only be loosely described as her mother, was a being of immense power, but she wasn’t chatty.

“Damn near tore a chunk out of Arcadia. Some of the fae lords had been enslaving dryads of her forest, catching them in promises and then enforcing them. Admittedly the dryads thought they were humans to be lured to their deaths but Von Mori didn’t particularly care. This was way back, between the Second and Third Paladin-Necromancer war.”

“What did she do?” The wide-eyed dryad asked, trying hard not to seem overeager.

“She tore a hole into Avalon, and the woods of Avalon walked with her. That’s why there’s no spirits of the land anymore, the Fae do not want a repeat of their own home in open rebellion. She walked into Arcadia and demanded of the King of Autumn that the dryads who’d been kidnapped be released. He, of course, refused, a promise is a promise.”

“And then what happened?”

“Let’s just say there’s a reason that the Court of Autumn only has a Lord now. But one of the consequences is that dryads are no longer bound by fae glamour, anything to avoid an encore.”

“She was amazing.” Holly breathed, “I mean I knew she was, but I never knew what she’d actually done.”

“She was amazing.” Erebus agreed before adding with a voice like adamantine, “and will be again.”

Holly didn’t know what to say to that, so settled on the age old method of changing the subject, just a little, “So if I can’t be affected then why does Amara still look all monstery?”

“Because it’s not you that has to be convinced. And like all fae glamour it’s a little bit illusion and a little bit real, think of it as a shell built around the person it’s effecting, something that better reflects their self image.” Erebus sighed, “’Mar never really has come to terms with her vampirism, though I’ll confess I didn’t know it was that bad.”

“What does Sato see himself as then? Because that looks rather painful.”

“All seeing, all knowing.” Erebus explained simply. “Damn. I hate to do this Holly, but could I ask you a favour. It’s a big one I’m afraid.”

Holly paused, torn between a thoughtfulness and a scowl, the mere idea that she could do something to help Erebus with his power unbound seemed ludicrous, and, more importantly, dangerous. “That depends on what it is.”

“Just… try and look out for Sato and Amara.” The necromancer realized he’d need to elaborate a little, “Seeing yourself as a monster isn’t a good thing, especially here. People who do that have a tendency to die heroically, just try to make them think about things before they throw themselves in front of a fireball.”

“Why Sato though?”

“Noone is all-seeing, and we’re in a land infamous for its illusions, which you are immune to. Make sure he doesn’t do something stupid like walk off a cliff thinking there’s a bridge.”

Holly nodded, “I can do that.”