It must have been a resonance, or a bad dream, or perhaps just the red flash. It woke Diedrich up, too much sweat covering his body, the only time when the clothes sticking to his body that way would bother him - because he hadn’t done it on purpose. He looked outside and the red pulsating light that covered Cran’Tal made his entire being uneasy. It took him barely twenty seconds to get geared up.

On the corridor, Suwi seemed similarly terrified. Perhaps roused by the same feeling. They nodded at each other in grim agreement and rushed outside.

The Tower of Elements shone with that eerie light that could in no conceivable way be a good omen. It wasn’t the warm and gentle glow it emanated before, but rather a shade dark as old blood, staining the world around it. Diedrich motioned to Suwi, who immediately knew to climb on his back as he augmented his speed to reach that location as swiftly as possible. The nepenthe seemed far more shaken than her friend came to expect, but he proceeded nevertheless.

Quite a few minutes later, upon reaching the tower and noticing its ingress fully closed, Diedrich looked stumped. He looked back at Suwi to ascertain if her expression showed any level of understanding, but instead he found her gaze was fixated elsewhere. Behind them.

Turning around, he himself tried to gauge what she found so oddly fixating. “What’s the matter? I don’t see anything wrong.”

“That’s precisely why. Do you see anybody on the streets?”

A chill ran down his spine. No, he didn’t. Not a single soul. Why were they the only ones awake? Had no one else noticed the flashing light? The implications began to haunt him to his very core. Suwi whispered softly: “It’s… There’s… No aetherflow. It’s as if the whole town went stiff. Dead.”

A few seconds later, while they both still analyzed the horizon hoping for even a minimal sign of life - be it movement or even godsdamned candlelight - an opening loudly erupted in the Tower. The duo’s faces darted towards the egress, and the three figures arising from it.

Palimpsest, the vermillion steward, carried Freya’s unconscious body, while the Shepherd accompanied them just a few steps behind.

Suwi hopped from Diedrich’s back and over to her companion, beside herself with worry, already employing her aethersight as a means of diagnosis. “What happened to her? She… Is overflowing with aether. Far, far too much of it, even for her!”

The nepenthe-like creature attempted to assuage her fears: “She is well. Needs only rest and time to accustom herself to guardianship.”

Diedrich’s eyes widened. “Guardianship…? Surely you don’t mean…” He stopped himself upon finally noticing the crimson staff glued to her hand. She grasped it tightly, even unconscious. “That’s… How..?”

The Shepherd offered no explanation. Palimpsest set the lady down on the floor and her friends approached, analyzing her body for any additional injury, which there seemed to be none. She began to rouse from sleep a few seconds later, which put their hearts at ease, accompanied by lighter expressions.

“Ow… Tell me that was just another bad dream?” She whispered to Suwi, who giggled nervously, glad to see her well enough to jest. The nepenthe embraced her friend, who was surprised by the act, but full glad. She gave a small squeeze in retribution. “You need to let us know when you do these things, selchite. We would have gladly followed.” The princess looked at Diedrich with sorrowful eyes, knowing his half-sermon was imbued with immense love. They both smiled at each other, and the embrace became tighter by the addition of yet another.

“Let’s get some rest, now. Suwi will be glad to sleep next to you tonight, I’m sure.” The prince said, beginning to help her stand. The witch had no objection. The Shepherd interjected: “Come back when you’re rested, child. I will gladly teach you more.” While disapproving of his methods and alleged connections, Freya nodded. The trio slowly left for the inn, leaving a now-stabilized Tower of Elements behind. That more gentle glow returned, which let them forget the unease for a few moments.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

However, just a few.

On the way to the inn, a dozen minutes on their path, Freya felt strange once more. That feeling of being watched - this time, coming from one of the buildings they had just crossed. She stopped, fixating her gaze on a dark window. The other two halted their movement silently, feeling a certain sense of unease themselves - perhaps stemming from the silence and lack of human presence they had witnessed before.

The princess chose to slowly step towards that building. She saw no one at the window, so perhaps just a peek wouldn’t hurt.

Just an inch away from the window, she could still see nothing inside. The moonlight on the street did not illuminate indoors.

Still, that sense of unease lingered. Like someone was in trouble.

She headed over to the door of that residence and knocked twice. Her friends silently questioned her behavior, but came a few steps closer to back her up in case of trouble.

There was no answer, so she knocked again just a tiny bit harder.

The door slid open from that slight impact alone. She looked back at her friends, who cautioned her against going inside, but did not stop her from doing so.

She followed that morbid curiosity lingering at the edge of her mind to the inside of the building. Her senses attempted to adjust, but like the delayed sense of taste despite that food already being in your mouth for a few seconds, all she could feel so far was the staleness of the air. In hindsight, perhaps a defense mechanism.

It was still pitch-black inside, so after a few cautious steps, she silently conjured a gentle light wisp at her fingertip. Extremely faint at first, but growing in intensity with every second.

And with every second, more of Freya’s body froze solid - except for her stomach, which churned with horror and disgust. Every hair on her body standing on end.

The other two dared not come in, in sprite or perhaps due to the odor stemming from inside. Their expressions morphed from semblances of worry into those of horror as they looked at each other, remembering that which they perceived on their approach to the tower only twenty minutes past. Still, they kept to the outside of the house, their every instinct fully against the idea of venturing inside. It would be for the best.

Never in a thousand lifetimes could Freya conjure in her mind (or worst nightmares) a more grotesque picture as the one she now witnessed. She could not tell where the people sitting at that table began and the house ended. Their forms were intact enough that she could tell those four figures were really people, but how much you could still call that ‘human’ was entirely debatable.

The amalgamations. The horrendous leaking - but why there? Dislocated joints, exposed bone, and things the mind would not dare attempt to explain or even make sense of. Perturbed sculptures of flesh and pus and so much worse. None of it made any sense, not that it should.

Would that these feelings could be described as disgust. Primal horror would be a better description. Horror at the very idea that one's form could be bent to such an unholy extent. The sound of wet slithering caused her to resume searching once more.

She instinctively and slowly followed the tendrils and fleshy bits around with her eyes and only now noticed she stood on a web of them. The panic and disgust caused her amber orbs to flare red, as all that excess Elements aether began to pour violently from her body in the form of gigantic gouts of living flame. It was the only possible answer her mind could elaborate in response to such eldritch abominations. Not quite flight or fight, but a frightening response that mixed both feelings - burn it all down.

It took only a second for the entire home to become a raging inferno, as if spontaneously combusting of its own accord. Suwi and Diedrich tried to approach, but found themselves entirely unable to due to the unbearable heat. Even shielding spells did naught to protect them from it - one single step indoors would mean certain carbonized death. They panicked, worried for their royal friend.

The handful screams amid the roar of the flames chilled them to the bone. Frozen solid. Terrified. Those screams were in no way human, but came uncannily close to being. Their worry grew further.

The smell was worse. If you could say the smell of burning firewood and lumber in a stove was pleasant, this was the furthest possible thing from it. It smelled of sulfur, decay, and such other descriptors the mind refuses to even formulate at a time such as this.

Only a minute later, the house had entirely burned to cinders. The smoke subsided a few seconds later. A naked Freya stood amid the wreckage, gripping that crimson crystalline staff to her breast, a catatonic expression on her face. Even her gear had not survived the rampage of the elements, which brought into question the fact that her skin seemed unblemished by the experience.

Diedrich quickly covered her with his coat, hurried to the inn on his arms, leaving that horrendous scene behind them. A scene nobody else seemed to bother to come see as the trio fled it.