We arrived at the North Sea delta just as the sun began to dip below the horizon, painting the sky in hues of orange and purple. The makeshift boat, crafted from hexacite-infused wood, had served us well on our journey down the river. But as we approached the vast expanse of the sea, my heart sank.

In the distance, I could make out the silhouette of our barge, beached on the shore. A lone figure moved methodically across its deck, systematically tearing it apart, searching for something within the wooden beams. Even from afar, I could see the impossible speed the raider moved with and the ease with which he threw wooden bits aside. This man was undoubtedly one of the Gygr's champions.

The poor horses ran from the barge as the man obliterated it, leaving only the witchglass-reinforced sleigh intact.

My gaze shifted to the churning waters of the sea. Three more figures hovered in the air, their forms wreathed in crackling lightning. They seemed to be focused on something in the water, unleashing attacks that sent shockwaves across the ocean with each deafening boom.

"We need to get closer," I whispered, squinting at the distant battle.

The kitten mewed softly in agreement. I pulled the invisi-cloak tighter around us both, activating the pearl as I guided our small, makeshift craft towards the shore, careful to stay hidden behind the rocky outcroppings that dotted the coastline.

The flying heroes were engaged in a fierce battle with what appeared to be Teya in her iron-clad canine rider form.

My heart raced as I watched Teya fend off the attacks, her watery hands swatting at the heroes and hurling massive chunks of ice their way. But even from here, I could see that she was outnumbered and outmatched.

Suddenly, the Gygr’s minions struck her from all sides with blood swords and the sky above the battle darkened. One of the heroes raised his left hand up, and a bolt of lightning suddenly streaked down from the clouds. It struck Teya with a blinding flash and a thunderous boom that crackled across the desolate landscape.

For a moment, everything seemed to stand still. Then with the awful slowness of my accelerated heart, I watched as Teya's massive, smouldering form began to sink beneath the waves.

I watched as the heroes fished a barrel from the ocean and emptied it on the beach.

To my growing dismay, three figures slowly began to reconstitute from the spilled blood, including Bobliss. The damned Immovable Man was back, though he looked a tad thinner than before.

The heroes gathered around, speaking to something on the beach that I couldn't see. Their loud voices carried on the wind. I strained to hear, catching fragments about vengeance, which was presumably going to be pointed at me.

Suddenly, through my Astralscope, I spotted something silver-blue shimmering in the waves - a ghostly figure of a girl.

Teya! She was alive, her essence persisting in her megalith even after the catastrophic destruction of the armor.

"Grrrrttt inssss-ideee slllegggtttfff!" Stormy mewled.

Without hesitation, before I could even say anything, the kitten leapt from my shoulder and raced towards the water's edge, mewing urgently. As I finally understood what Teya wanted, I sprinted towards the sleigh that was still attached to the remnants of our barge.

As the barge-dismantling hero turned, distracted by Stormy's commotion, a massive watery hand erupted from the sea and smashed him into the icy beach. I reached the sleigh and quickly sliced through the ropes binding it to the barge with the Knell-blade.

I flung open the door, and Stormy bounded inside in a flash of black fur. I dove in after her, slamming the door shut just as another watery hand gripped the sleigh.

With a violent jerk, we were torn away from the barge. Water rushed around us as Teya dragged the sleigh box beneath the waves. My heart pounded as we plunged into the depths of the North Sea, leaving the bewildered heroes behind on the shore.

“This is a rather unexpected submarine experience,” I swallowed, watching as the sleigh interior creaked and leaked a bit from the door joints. “Sure hope that the witchglass reinforced magic wood and whatever the heck those windows are made from will hold.”

“Mrrrawl,” Stormy buried herself in my neck.

I watched as Teya's somewhat sliced up iron-clad dog form bounced in front of the sleigh on three paws, a ghostly projection of her human form waving at us as we were carried deeper and deeper across the ocean floor. Underwater current, filled with glittering Chronacist crystals, propelled us forward at an astonishing speed.

Considering the limited air supply in the sleigh, I forced my body to stop breathing, hoping to conserve more oxygen for Stormy. The kitten huddled close to me, her minute body trembling slightly from the cold and the stress of our underwater journey.

Time seemed to stretch on endlessly as we traveled through the dark depths. Just as I began to worry about the sleigh imploding on itself , I felt us being pulled upward. With a sudden splash, we emerged from the waves into what appeared to be a pitch-black space.

I fumbled in the darkness for a moment before managing to light a torch. With Stormy perched on my shoulder, I cautiously stepped out of the sleigh, holding the flame aloft to illuminate our surroundings.

I discovered that we were in a wide cavern of black hexagonal basalt columns that reminded me of Iceland.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

The walls glistened with moisture, reflecting the torchlight in mesmerizing patterns. There was no visible access to the outside world, giving the impression that we were completely cut off from the surface.

Teya's ghostly form hovered above the water.

Through Stormy, she communicated, "Mrrr-rroes grrr-vvverrnnn urrrp. Nrrro chrraa-ssseee."

I nodded, understanding that the heroes had given up on pursuing us.

"Well done, Teya," I said, relaxing. “I don't know what I'd do without your help. They were getting close to dismantling the sleigh.”

With Stormy still on my shoulder, I began to explore the cavern. The beauty of the place was undeniable - stalactites came down from the ceiling like frozen, black, orderly, hexagon-shaped waterfalls.

As I walked, I noticed a faint breeze coming from dark cracks in the cavern ceiling. It wasn't much, but it was reassuring to know that was fresh air for Stormy.

I reached the end of the cavern and turned around.

Teya remained in the water, hovering above her torn-up, half-submerged iron-clad dog form, one paw of which clutched her precious megalith, water swirling around the rock. The sight was oddly touching.

"This will do well as our new hideaway, thank you for finding it," I said, my voice echoing slightly in the vast space. "We should be safe in here, at least until our food runs out."

Stormy sighed.

“Hey, no fretting… Maybe there’s fish in the North Sea that Teya or I can catch for you?” I offered.

“Mrrrrrr,” Stormy perked up slightly at that.

“Guess I’ll have to make you a new body,” I said, looking over the damaged dog and the missing rider.

“Alll-rrrmosss-tt dddied,” Stormy mewled for Teya as her illusory lips moved.

I sent Stomy an annoyed glance, holding her responsible for Teya’s condition. I wondered if the kitten even gave a damn about Teya, whether the river spirit mattered at all in Stormy’s feline perspective of the world.

“How’s your megalith?” I asked Teya, noting the constantly churning water around the rock she was holding. “Hey, uh, why are you circling it with water like that?”

“Bbbr-aa-dd,” Teya replied with a sad expression and my heart sank. “I…. th-hiiieeeink… itsss… cccc-omm-ingg… aprrrrtt.”

I walked closer to her, casting torchlight against the water.

There were dark, deep, partially melted cracks running along the entire surface of the large rock, intersecting the runes. Teya was holding it together with the pressure of a water spiral, but it was definitely broken, coming apart as lightning-fissures cracked with an unnerving twinkling sound.

I suddenly noticed that her magical Avatar looked faded, flickered at the edges as if it too was fraying away, dissolving.

“Shit,” I said.

“I… hrrad a vrrryyy... rrrlong rrlfffffeee,” Stormy slowly mewled for Teya. “At… leesttrr… I… mraaadde… a frennddd… at… trrhe… rr-end.”

My heartbeat intensified.

“I’m really sorry about leaving you alone like that against all of those heroes,” I said, my voice choking. “Stormy wanted me to steal this damn thing from Uncle George and I…”

I showed Teya the black snowflake, unclipping it from the chain on my side. The river spirit’s eyes went wide at it.

“I knnnnoowrrr thhhssss sssymblrrrr,” Stormy mewled.

“What?” I blinked at Teya. “You know what this is? How?”

Through Stormy's meows, Teya explained that this exact snowflake was painted on one of the panels inside Captain Haley's skyship. She had seen it countless times as a child, always wondering about its significance. Her grandfather never told her what it meant though.

My mind raced with the implications. Could this artifact somehow be connected to Teya's ancestors from Werth? To the very ship that brought humans to this world? How and why did the Gygr have it?

As I pondered these questions and arrived at no answers, frustration welled up inside me. I turned to Stormy, unable to contain my annoyance any longer.

"Why did you make me leave Teya alone to face so many of those god-damn heroes?" I demanded. "Look at what happened to her megalith, damn it! It’s cracked in like twenty places! We.. we’re going to lose her if she decays any further!”

Stormy's ears flattened against her head for a moment. She mewed something softly and padded into the sleigh, vanishing inside, but I was feeling too frustrated to try and decipher her cat-speak at the moment.

I paced back and forth along the cavern's edge, the torch casting flickering shadows on the damp walls.

The situation felt hopeless.

Teya's megalith was barely holding together, and I had no idea how to help her. All my knowledge, all my experiments, and yet I felt utterly powerless in the face of this crisis. My witchy magic was simply incompatible with hers, my water could not heal her. At best I could… temporary preserve her rock, encase her in my liquefied domain.

I bent down closer to the water, peering at the damage with the Astralscope. There was something inside of the cracks, eerie red lightning dancing within the crystallized glass fissures, seemingly still attacking the megalith from within, converting more of it into glassified substance. Damn it all! This was some kind of a curse, a bleeding wound, courtesy of one of those flying heroes!

"There has to be something we can do," I muttered, more to myself than to Teya. But as I wracked my brain for solutions, I came up empty. The complexities of Teya's existence, the Werth tech that bound her human mind to the crystalline megalith - it was all beyond my current understanding.

I tapped my fingers on the snowflake, willing it to turn on, to explain to me how it functioned. I pressed it against Teya’s megalith.

Nothing.

I had no idea how to use the damn crystal I stole from the Gygr. No idea what it did, other than the fact that it made some kind of vortexes that perhaps created Jotuns.

I looked up at Teya's ghostly form hovering above the water, her expression that of resigned sorrow. The sight of her fading away, flickering on and off as her megalith and Avatar slowly decayed away was unbearable.

I had to find a way to save her, had to figure out how to help her, no matter what it took!

I ran into the sleigh at full sprint and saw that Stormy was sitting next to the pile of Cali's artifacts.

“Stormy!” I barked. “How do we save Teya? What do I do?! You can see the future, you guided me to this moment! Tell me what to do, damn it!”

The kitten simply stared at me with weary violet eyes, not saying anything.

“This isn't time to act like a dumb kitten!” I barked. “Teya is dying! That lighting strike damaged her megalith and…”

Stormy yawned. I growled, pulled out the Codex and slammed it open on the ground in front of the kitten.

“How can I save her?” I demanded.

“Mrbrrr,” Stormy replied, lazily sliding a paw over to [Maybe].

Right, specificity, damn it.

“Can I save Teya’s megalith?!” I pushed the question out of myself, gritting my teeth.

The kitten's paw slowly and painfully glided through the air settling itself on the word [NO].