Ah, what a strange predicament that I’m in now I think to myself, as I watch the hero-party begin to come down the staircase which is not that far down in the distance. I, the first me that is, doesn’t really want to fight the hero-party. We’ve kind of been over it, guy, so I guess I can spare you the details at this point. But this new me, Miika, he wants to fight them. My friend, no, his friend is counting on him. After all, we’re the only ones here. If I don’t fight with him, then who will?

It would be wrong of me not to take a last stand with my friend. But at the same time… now that the first me is a little more front and center, I don’t want to hurt the hero-party.

Well, maybe the hero, just a little. Just a tiny bit, just to see what it would feel like, but the others? The innocent, well meaning priestess? The carefree, cheery spirited monk? The naive, childish wizard? I don’t want to hurt them, not really. I don’t think I do at least? Not anymore.

  I think I remember too many looks at this point, too many hurt faces to want to cause more of them. Aren’t there enough already? My gaze meanders to Piotr, to the stretched, taut cloud of ash that makes up his hateful expression. It carries with it a purity that I do admire though, there is nothing but hatred there. Nothing but a dire, clean burning anger that runs so deep, that it defies death itself. Can I blame him? No. Can I blame them? Perhaps. I don’t know what their side of the story is, that would be the adult thing to say at least. But some part of me resents them still, despite the fact that the first me likes them in a way. That I kind of secretly wish I could be like them, just a little bit. I suppose there’s a conflict of sorts going on here.

  Fire is pure, but my thoughts are mud. Goo. They are black-water tainted and all I see through the spiritual ash of my soul is miasma. Is fog. Everything in my mind’s eye is unclear, save for the tiny cinder in my true heart, that burns for one purpose alone, to escape. To leave. To see some place brighter still, some place that burns not with fire and smoke, but with life and the passionate feelings brought about by the good things. By wholesome, true things that are warm and soft and I imagine to feel like the kiss of a warm breeze on a hot summer’s day.

  There is power to anger. To spite and resentment, a stronger power than any of those good feelings could ever bring to the world, I would argue at least. No ghost has ever been born out of love. No. Ghosts and spirits and zombies are made solely from anger, from regret, from rage and devastating emotions. Because those alone carry true power. No, the good feelings, the good emotions… they are something different. They are what make your life worth living while you are there, but they are worthless after that. Dust to the wind. Ash remains however, cinders remain. The marks of a fire, long since burnt out, remain. That is the power of destruction, no matter on which side. It remains, it taints. It stains with a paint that no water can ever wash away.

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  The fight begins, as they have finished their descent and encountered the first of the many hollow-armors that patrol the bridge. Metal rustles behind us as the rest, triggered by the first encounter, rush forward to build a defensive line. I look to Piotr, wondering what he will do? Wondering what I will do? He’s not really my friend, is he? He’s Miika’s. So what do I care about his revenge? What do I care about these burning feelings in Miika’s ethereal heart? They aren’t mine, are they? But all the while, as I think these things, I can’t help but feel that the ash of my fists is clumping tighter together, squeezing and pressing, as if I were digging my nails into my own skin. Not that I have either of those.

  A blast of fire rings out from before us, as the wizard sends several of them flying off in all directions, the metal armor that is held together by nothing but the whispers of the dead, is sent scattered apart as if it were nothing. An empty helmet lands at my feet and I look at it, as it looks at me. The metal rattles and the helm shakes and vibrates, clanking against the stone bridge as all of the armor pulls itself back together a second later. Pieces that flew off down over the side are carried back up by the haunting cinder-winds. It reminds me of the dead-light, the ash of the dead that pulls everything together. That returns the many suits of armor into whole states.

  But I notice it doesn’t discriminate, it doesn’t care who gets what arm, who gets what helmet and what boot. As if none of them were individuals anymore, but rather simply a collective that is strung together back into whole pieces like broken dolls being mended. All of them now carry each other's limbs, as if they were their own. It’s poetic in a sense, I suppose. And as they rise up back to their feet, their armors melted and scorched, they turn to face forward and to build a new line to stop the forward assaulting hero-party.

  All the while, as we watch the chaos unfold before us, I hear Piotr breathing louder and louder. He doesn’t need to breathe, but he does, simply perhaps out of some buried instinct that still remains and the hot air whistling around him becomes faster and more frantic, as I watch his eyes go wide at the familiar destruction unfolding before us. As I watch the memories of fire shine out through his glowing eyes. I can see that he is seeing that day play out before him again, as he watches the desecration. Another suit of armor is sent flying into a statue that crumbles apart and falls down into the abyss below.

He takes a step forward to join the fray and I, being the good friend that I am, take a step after to follow him towards the brink.

  Something shifts, a wind comes. A new wind. Not the warm embrace of heat-birthed breeze. But something cold. Something… dead… it blows past my back, blows past us as it creeps forward. As it oozes. As it crawls and encroaches and I turn around to look at the skull behind us, at the stairs leading down below. Piotr looks as well, the battle stops as the possessed armors look, as the hero-party looks. Everyone is watching as the slender, white tendrils begin to creep out from the hollowed sockets of the giant’s skull. As the dead-light itself creeps and crawls and slithers forward like strange, reaching tendrils. It feels so cold. So familiar, as it swirls around myself, around him and I shudder as my fire grows a little weaker from the winter touch.

We watch, as a horde of zombies from a floor below pours out onto the far side of the bridge, the dungeon-master having continued their forward push. Though I wonder, have they?

Or is this simply the work of the dead-light itself. The work of all things cold and dead. Of all things wet and rotting. The eyes of the giant’s skull seem to glow as the wormy strands of dead-light swirl around inside of the hollow sockets, as if they were pupils. As if they were watching us.