The icy cold wind of the late autumn afternoon caused Ben’s black cloak to flutter; the long locks of black hair blown back to expose a moistened brow. The chill air bit into his face and exposed arm where the section of his gambeson had been torn, and Ben shivered in anticipation of what was to come. The faint sounds of giggling in the background had returned after his outburst at seeing Jor Vasylius, and was a constant hum in the back of his mind that he couldn’t entirely tune out.

A torrent of questions flooded his mind and threatened to distract him from the task at hand —Why was she here? She’d said she hadn’t left? Does that mean she was in Honeydew all this time? Among others.

“Stay close.” Ethel’s raspy voice tore Ben from his unending spiral of thoughts. “I have an artifact that can muffle our presence, provided that you two don’t stray too far from me.”

Ben felt June’s hand on his shoulder, and he turned to her with brows raised questioningly.

“Is this some kinda Champion thing?” she began before hesitating and withdrawing her hand. “I mean, you think this is a good idea?”

“I don’t know, but… I feel like it should work,” Ben said, his pause not seeming to inspire confidence from the albino Caster, who grimaced yet reluctantly nodded.

“All right… I’m not sure what’s going on.” She glanced at the gnarled Priestess who walked past the pair and out into the courtyard before shrugging. “We’ve come this far, and you haven’t let me down yet. Lead on, Benny.” She mocked a salute and winked with lips curled in a slight grin.

Ben’s eye twitched at June’s declaration of faith in his leadership. “Sure,” he said less confidently than he had intended to.

He gritted his teeth and walked through the massive black doors. Unease pooled in his stomach as he recalled all the poor, impulsive decisions he’d made since waking up in MoonVale. Am I doing the right thing? He thought. If only he’d listened to Deidre’s warning about Eric before their second meeting. If he’d asked more questions about Ann’s foresight, or if he hadn’t overestimated his abilities during the attack on Honeydew… The regrets of the past few months gnawed at him as he beheld the cloudy, darkening sky beyond the desecrated statue of Illephrre in the paved courtyard outside the temple.

Ben and June followed the gnarled old woman, maintaining a distance of no further than three paces from her. She led the pair down the steps to the destroyed stairway before the pavilion, atop which were several blackened craters and grey ash strewn about the snowy brush. The group paused as Ethel peered down at the domed ceiling. From their vantage point, the young man couldn’t see any of the several hundred terrors that swarmed them a few hours earlier.

“Looks like that legendary summon did some damage. I’m impressed,” June commented while nodding with pursed lips. The slight quiver in her voice betrayed her nervousness or fear at the thought of another encounter with the horrors, Ben thought.

“Yeah. Where are the bodies, though? I’m sure Ainsle and I got rid of a dozen, at least. You think they’re all dead?” Ben asked both women.

June shrugged, yet it was Ethel who spoke up. “There,” she pointed at the pavilion. “Focus. Their auras are faint by design. Sisters and pilgrims of the order turned into the stalking Faceless of Nachannu. A concept of the Champion of Ruin.” She turned her milky-white gaze to Ben. “Do you feel them?”

The young man closed his eyes to focus on the area roughly twenty paces below them. He felt goosebumps prickle his arms and back. A subtle cold radiated from the domed roof. He opened his eyes and nodded.

“I can,” he said before facing the old woman with a frown. “As I said earlier, I don’t know if I can do this. I feel… spent.”

Ethel grinned. “Did you call upon Subjugate today? Or were you leaning on Overwhelm all morning?”

Ben’s eyes widened. “You seem to know a lot about my Avatar.” He glanced at June, who stood behind him, as if hiding from the horrors below, while leaning to the side, eyes trained on the broken stairway.

“That I do,” said the old Priestess. “What is it then? I doubt you called the concept, as I don’t feel any of your subjects nearby.”

“I didn’t… I only used one of them.”

The wrinkled woman’s lips curled downward in a shrug. “Call upon it, then. You’ll find that your concepts have their separate containers —as she would put it— reservoirs or limits, independent from one another.” Her brows dropped slightly, and her sightless eyes drew into a line. “The second concept… I don’t feel it. You have the first and the third. Why would that be?” she trailed off.

“What do you mean? Should I have gotten one before Subjugate?”

“You’ve strayed far from your Path,” Ethel paused and appeared to nod to herself before muttering. “Of course, it makes sense now.”

“What makes sense? Ethel, I don’t do well with riddles,” Ben said after a moment of silence.

The old Priestess turned her head toward the bottom of the ruined stairs. “They come. Call upon it now.”

Ben snapped his head to where the blind woman looked and saw a single terror at the foot of the steps. It stood motionless. Its long, spindly arms ending in cruel claws hung eerily still at its sides. Its head was tilted upward, a faceless visage staring at the trio above. The Champion of Illephrre felt his heart begin to beat rapidly, and the beast growled in his ears —the sound felt… closer, present, as opposed to its source coming from inside, that he was used to.

What- he began, intending to ask the entity within.

YOUR FEAR IS SICKENING. DO NOT DARE FLEE FROM THESE WEAKLINGS AGAIN.

Ben flinched at the admonitions of his Avatar. The beast had never been as articulate, he thought. It had initially brute-forced ideas or concepts into his mind to convey its intent and, later, used thoughts as words to communicate with him. Earlier, he had felt the entity’s anger toward him when the party had first encountered the Faceless, and he suspected it to be due to his immediate fear at the sight of the horrors.

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

What should I do? He asked after the disorienting moment had worn off.

BRING THEM UNDER YOUR HEEL. WREST CONTROL. SUBJUGATE THEM.

The light of understanding bloomed in the darkness. It was as if something that had always been present in the depths of his mind had suddenly aligned with his being. The familiar shifting of weight —like cogs in an elaborate contraption— turned and clicked into place. He opened his eyes.

“Ah, so this is how it’s supposed to work,” he said aloud.

“How what works?” asked June with wide eyes. Her shoulders trembled at the swarm that had slowly begun to amass in the pavilion.

Ben ignored his companion and began a slow, measured walk down the damaged steps.

“Ben! What are you doing?” called June, her voice shrilled with panic.

Ethel’s cackle echoed out in the snow-kissed mountain. “Watch, girl. The Champion of Domination walks the land once more.”

The sounds of his surroundings became a hum in his ears, and his vision warped to what felt like a tunnel. His periphery darkened, and the mass of silent terrors consumed his focus.

“Subjugate.”

He roared, and the cold, slow-billowing black flames of his Avatar wreathed his body. The Faceless moved as if they were one organism. Like a tide of nightmares, the creatures swarmed up the narrow remains of the lower staircase, seemingly enraged by the display of power. Ben’s pace didn’t slow as he descended to meet the oncoming promise of cruel, painful death. He held out a hand, even though he knew the gesture was meaningless —his will alone was enough— and touched the first creature that leapt at him.

Sharp claws missed their mark, and the terror halted as it landed on the step below him. The black flames briefly engulfed the creature’s tall, slender body before it spread out amongst the horde in a wave of power. A ripple of the concept pulsed out from the first, like fire on a piece of dried parchment; hundreds of Faceless stood motionless before the Champion.

Ben bit his lip and closed his eyes tightly as he felt a myriad of foreign senses assault his mind. In the darkness, he saw the warm, radiant light of his Keeper and the distant, light-blue light of Derek —yet superimposed upon the two auras were a night sky’s worth of dim, grey lights. Their presence was… muted. Not as substantial as his Keeper and his subject, he thought.

He opened his eyes and glanced at the pair of women at the apex of the stairs. June’s eyes were wide in terror, and her mouth hung agape; contrastingly, Ethel stood with gnarled knuckles on her hips —a smug grin upon her face. He released the power of his concept, and the flames enveloping his form were snuffed out. He regarded his companion for a moment and realized that she was relatively new to the horrors of Aetheria. She’d been willing to face her fears —to stare them in the eye, regardless of the debilitating effect they had on her— in fact, she’d been braver than he thought he’d have been given similar circumstances, and he found that he respected her that much more for it.

“June,” Ben called out to his companion, recognizing that she’d done enough and didn’t need to be pushed over the proverbial edge. “Don’t worry. They’re mine now.” He turned to walk up the steps, the swarm of Faceless slowly following.

The albino Caster shook her head in what he thought to be denial or disbelief. “Ben. What the actual fuck?”

“They won’t hurt you, trust me,” he attempted to assure the woman as he approached, yet she took several slow steps backward. Ben paused, and the legion behind him mirrored the act. With an expression of will, he commanded the horrors to return to the pavilion. “There. See?” he said with open palms.

June hesitated before pausing her retreat. Her shoulders were hunched as he approached.

Ben nodded at Ethel before placing a hand on the Evoker’s shoulder. “I’ve got you. You’re safe with me. With us.”

The albino woman’s lip quivered for a heartbeat before she wrinkled her nose and appeared to force a relaxed posture. She met his gaze with a frown, yet Ben saw the hint of apprehension in her bearing as her nostrils flared ever so slightly before she spoke. “Okay. Okay,” she said, her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. “I’m okay.” She raised a pale hand to touch his own as she nodded, more to herself than the young man. “Bring them. I need to… I need to get over it.”

“You sure?” he asked with brows raised.

June nodded with a clenched jaw and a slow exhale from her nose. He removed his bruised hand from her shoulder and offered it to her. She regarded him for a beat and took his hand in her own. Ben smiled, hoping his companion would find comfort in the gesture before summoning the horde. Her hand clenched his tightly as the mass of spindly flesh flowed up the steps. The Faceless silently, yet rapidly, passed the trio and began climbing the mountain toward the temple's entrance.

After a few moments, several hundred terrors were gone from sight once more. June let out a slow breath held in anxiousness. She tilted her head toward the young man, her hand still gripping his. “Remind me never to fuck with you.”

Ben chuckled. “After what you did down there,” he flicked his chin toward the furrow in the ground and the chunk of missing steps. “I should probably say the same.”

June giggled and paused awkwardly after glancing at the bruised hand she held in a death grip. She let go and bashfully fidgeted with her hair. “Yeah, I’ll blow you to pieces. Don’t get on my bad side either,” she snorted; the sarcasm wasn’t lost on Ben, who grinned in response.

“Well, thanks for watching my back while I figured this out,” he patted the albino Caster on her shoulder before turning to Ethel, who had remained silent and unsettlingly motionless the entire time. “Should we head back?”

“Yes,” she said with a smile, and the trio began their climb back to the temple.

Upon their arrival in the large courtyard before the entrance, the group saw the temple carved into the mountain, entirely covered by pale flesh. The Faceless blocked out the smooth black stone of the cathedral-like structure with their numbers —fleshy, spindly forms clung to the surface. June gasped as they passed through the gap between the massive black doors into the entrance chamber. The horde poured inside, scuttling along walls to wait up against the ceiling and atop the large rafters.

“June, could you head on back to the others?” he asked the albino Caster, who raised a brow at the request. “If Ann says that woman is fine without her aid, tell her to get ready; I’ll come and get the two of you in a bit. We’re going to have a look inside the nave.”

The Evoker mocked a salute, pointedly avoiding looking at the creatures on the ceiling, and left toward the sickbay.

Ben turned toward the woman, about to wind the large lever to close the massive doors. “I could do that?” he offered, to which the old woman refused with a dismissive flick of her wrist. Ben shrugged as she huffed and strained to close the doors. After the task was done, he cleared his throat to speak, yet the old woman raised a hand to stall his question.

“You have questions,” she began, to which Ben begrudgingly nodded. “I cannot tell you the name of your second concept, as it may render its acquisition impossible.”

Ben frowned and considered the woman. He recalled his companions saying something similar in the past. “Fine. What can you tell me?”

Ethel remained silent for a moment, her seemingly frail body deathly still. “You shouldn’t have come. It’s too soon.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? It looks like we came too late, judging by the state of the temple.”

The old woman sighed, and Ben thought he heard the weight of time on her breath. “You were to gather your strength, to learn to wield the power you have. You should’ve sought guidance from the raven-”

Ben interrupted with a raised hand. “I suppose the raven you’re talking about is that woman we have confined in that magic circle?”

“Possibly,” she said, her sightless gaze grew distant. “Though she lacks the touch of Lilitia.”

“You mean her Avatar? She lost it when we fled from the Tear in MoonVale. But-” he paused and frowned. “I think she has another one.”

“Yes, I feel it too. Is it the doing of the twisted hand of Ruin? Or is it due to your refusal to walk the preordained path?”

Silence occupied the space between the pair for a few heartbeats, punctured only by the sounds of his companion’s footsteps and conversation approaching from the hallway. Ethel’s white eyes met his gaze, and she spoke in a whisper that creaked like a rusty hinge.

“What have you done?” she asked, brows raised in worry.

Ben felt his breath catch in his throat. His mouth went dry. Ethel leaned closer, and her whisper became quieter.

“Why does the One without a name have their strings in her?”