The presence of the Witch remains overwhelming, but Yun Ka’s formation, mobile thanks to their newest beast of burden, reduces it considerably within its “domain”. The darkness of the tunnels, beaten back only by the light of the runes and the few illumination artifacts carried in spatial rings, is pervasive, constant, the dark extending out in every direction behind and in front of them.

Shapefixit picks most of their turns of movements, with the occasional split in the path or intersections being at least partially searched by Shi Cho. She asks leading questions, about the texture of the stone, the presence of ridges or (after some effort translating) “marbling”, and makes seemingly arbitrary choices. Throughout it all, Raika keeps her senses sharp, her nose fully opened, the Flesh adjusting step by step to the overwhelming smells- and providing clear markers where the scent shifts. She’s not sure that the Witch isn’t actively transforming the tunnels somehow, trying to track them. Considering she’s only spoken clearly to them after Raika used her “truespeak”, she’s willing to bet that the strange old monster can’t see them behind Yun Ka’s formation… but willing to bet doesn’t mean sure.

The first hour goes quickly. The next two, slower.

After six hours of walking in the dark, having turned to new tunnels only once or twice, the oppressive nature of the journey makes itself clear. Everyone is tired. Everyone is sore, or exhausted.

Except, interestingly, for Raika. With fresh flesh in her stomach, she has enough Qi to partially fuel her, and even without it, she still doesn’t feel tired. When necessary, she refreshes fatigued or damaged flesh with the Qi she’s devoured, and otherwise, she finds herself strangely suited to the environment. It’s cold still, the walls eagerly leeching body heat from her, but whether it’s due to her cursed skin or lack of meridians, there’s minimal drain on her Qi reserves. It’s possible, she assumes, that someone with enough control could do the same, keeping any and all Qi trapped in their body even if it were being tugged at, but it might take more talent (or a better mental state) than anyone here possesses to do so. It might explain Kaena’s resistance, too; their Qi is always out of their body, always in danger of dissipating, but perhaps the control over it they’ve had to learn grants them a greater durability against the tunnel’s hunger.

As time passes, Raika wonders about the world above. About the chaos and mess left behind. If she felt barely a day pass to the other’s four, it’s possible that, further away from the tunnels, things have progressed even slower. Or faster. Or in some other direction she doesn’t really get. She wonders how Li Shu and Qen Hou are doing. If Maen is alright, if they’ve hit it off together. If Taurus has come to the city thanks to all the chaos and loss of so many of his “research subjects”. She wonders how the sects are coping with losing so many of their cultivators, and even a few elders. Crippled by the Empire they may be, but pride is no easy burden to set aside.

It’s idle thought, useless down in the dark. All it does is distract. But she lets herself think on it anyways.

It brings up interesting thoughts. She feels them swirl, moving through her. The Mask doesn’t need them, the Flesh can’t touch them, but, left adrift in her mind, she feels the rest of her self moving through it, drinking it in in a way.

Down here in the dark, even separated into practicality and instinct alone, she’s still chosen to help Taran, rather than leaving him behind. She still hesitated to kill. She chose to confront Kaena, to speak to them about what they did, and… acknowledge it. It wasn’t damnation or distaste that guided the conversation. Raika had looked for the things that felt most right to say, and the words spoken had been of care. Of empathy. Of boundaries, yes, but not of judgment.

Maybe her memories are lost. Maybe she’ll only ever recover snippets of them. But it’s clear that her underlying self, the feelings that came with them, remain, and that gives her some hope of their recovery. There are pieces of her just… missing. Without the Mask or Flesh, it’s more than likely she’d have fallen apart, lost trying to recall the moments that feel they should be there. She knows they were cut away intentionally, that all that remained clear is what would feed Zhoulong’s lies… but knowing that their inverse exists, that there are good memories associated with herself, with her allies, isn’t the same as feeling them.

And yet… she’s made choices on those beliefs. That there are those who care for her. That she can trust. That empathy is deserved. Those ideals, those feelings, live on even without the exact thought that once created them.

So ultimately… it’s choice.

It’s a choice, to be hopeful. To decide to progress. Her memories of her time on the street or in the beast tide feel mostly untouched, but… the fact that they’re left intact for a reason, to manipulate her into the worst of her coping mechanisms and beliefs, means that they stand apart from her core. She learned from them, and perhaps, in isolation, after a longer period of possession, she might have learned different lessons from them, divorced from the good. Instead, she feels what came from them, the shape of the gaps in her memories and feelings, and knows that she learned something else.

She survived.

She survived, and came out stronger.

That part feels organic, assumed, tailored to be seen- but with that survival, with that strength, comes a sense of isolation, nearly total, nearly complete… and that feels wrong. That, too, feels tailored to be seen, but… unlike her survival and strength, it feels tailored to weaken her. Whether Zhoulong put the thoughts there, or if she spawned them herself, it still stands to reason that, in the cold light of logic and self-examination, it’s wrong.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

She’s not alone. There are people who care for her. People willing to struggle for her, willing to fight for her. Kaena bared their soul, begged to assist when they saw how badly she was doing. Taran… there is an affection there that doesn’t match the memories that remain, and she has chosen that there is more there. Yun Ka, she still feels little for, but…

The Mask keeps them walking. Keeps examining their surroundings and allies. The Flesh points to every direction where the Witch’s Qi grows thicker, denser, more vibrant, coinciding more often than not with Shapefixit’s wants.

And as she walks, she feels.

The end of the first day has them stop and rest, sleeping in shifts. Yun Ka volunteers to stay up all ‘night’, claiming plenty of other all-nighters in her past, but the Jade dims by the time morning comes and they begin to walk again.

There is unrest. Everyone is suspicious, afraid, hungry or simply worn down by the constant dark and claustrophobia.

Raika notices when the Unearthly Depths sect member walks off into one of the tunnels sometime during a break in their second day of walking. She doesn’t stop her.

She thinks, instead. She feels.

She has killed, down here. She knows she has other sins, can feel the weight of missing thoughts and how they shape her, but they feel… different. She killed with her own hands, willingly and actively, down here in the dark. She has, now, watched another choose death, and killed by inaction.

But… it’s arrogant, isn’t it? To assume she can control others’ actions, that she’s responsible for them. The Unearthly Depths cultivator decided to walk into the dark on her own. The radiant-shadow cultivator chose to pursue the death of another. Is it just? Fair? No. It can’t be. Death, and life, aren’t fair. Raika’s experienced more than enough blessings and curses both to believe that. She is responsible for her own choices, and Zhoulong left more than enough to inform her that many of them are bad… but not all. Maybe not even most. She is…

I Am Me. I Am Mine.

The words have weight again. Full and complete. The Truth of them burns.

She is only herself. She can only do what she can do. And yes, she Can Change, but… she doesn’t need to be perfect now. No one has asked that of her, save herself, and perhaps Zhoulong, to his own twisted standards.

There is more work, still. The thoughts are new and small, but they hover there, and they are hers. Her thoughts, seen through a more practical lens, seen through a lens of a lack of direct involvement. With so much of her memories and so many of her emotions broken, disconnected, she has a chance to look at them more honestly… and she finds she actually doesn’t dislike most of them.

It occurs to Raika, rather faintly, down in the winding tunnels of “god-flesh”, that… maybe she doesn’t hate herself. Not really.

The pain is still there. The fear, and the guilt, and the shame, floating free in her skull and bright as coals at night- but they are left there on purpose. And, contrarian that she is, maybe that means that she doesn’t need to listen to them so much. Maybe there is more.

A faint smell of tangerines cuts through the smell of blackest waters and stillness, and… she doesn’t look around. Doesn’t wonder. She will remember where it is from, or she will not, but in this moment she doesn’t have to. She just drinks in that little wisp of scent, and enjoys how it makes her feel.

It is, of course, around this time that Yun Ka’s formation starts to fail.

It happens just as they enter a new intersection, the same gravity-warping effect occurring in it such that they can’t even be sure the direction they came from was “forward” and not down or up or in a loop. There are less of them here than the great chamber used by the starving cultivators to kill “problem elements”, but there is one heading straight down like a well, three heading out in a star formation, and one above. And as they step down, as the gravity shifts, as the space twists itself around their path… Ax stumbles. Just a bit.

After thirty-odd hours awake in an energy-draining environment, Yun Ka almost slips off Ax’s shoulder, caught only at the last moment- and one of the rune-tablets taps against the wall of the tunnel. The touch is enough that its light flickers, and that’s enough that it sets of a chain, the green illumination bathing the tunnel sputtering violently.

And the scent changes.

The floor shifts, the “godflesh” warping like living tissue as Shapefixit chirps out a warning, her ears upright and almost doubling her height- but it’s not enough. The tunnel behind them closes, the others begin to spiral shut, flesh shifting, and parts of the space move directly, ignoring the physics of linearity to warp without touching stone or matter.

“Found you,” comes the whisper of that sibilant voice.

“Move!” Raika roars, legs already cutting into the stone as she dashes towards the group, as she grabs at them, as they’re divided one by one. Jin Rou looks at her- and grabs his sect members, falling towards one of the distortions, perhaps trusting his chances now the Witch knows where Raika and her group are.

“It was a good plan,” the Witch says, her voice strangely inhuman now, so much deeper into the dark, like the human affectations were just that- affectations. “Surprised me. You’ve got a good one in that little mechanist. She has a bit of a grasp on it. Another age, she might have made an excellent addition to my sisters.”

Raika grabs Shapefixit under her arm, keeping her close, leaping over to Shi Cho and dragging him towards Ax and the others-

There are only four tunnels left, two having vanished out of space entirely. One to their left. One to the right. One above, and one below, the same yawning well as before.

“The deal still stands,” she whispers, her voice carried on the blinking of eyes and the shifting of darkness. “Kill one and survive, and you live. But! I’ll add a new little gift.”

Shi Cho stirs up his energies, his swarm beginning to move towards the tunnels to explore them- but then they hear the skittering. The sounds of echoing steps, of panting breaths, of crawling things.

“If any of you make it to my chambers, you win! I’ll let you out! Except you, Raika. Don’t worry. I won’t kill you anyways. I pretty pinky-promise. Leave the cultivators, these little Imperials, and you live. Fight for them, and you live.

“But I’m afraid that they’ll have to earn it. Just a bit. You know how their type can be. You used to be one! If you’re not killing, what’s the point of living, right?

“So. Say hello to my lovelies. We’ve been waiting ever so long, down here in the dark.”

The sound of moving things from the dark pick up their pace, and from every direction save down, the shadows come alive, tumorous with eyes and sprinting into the chamber at them.