Tallah surveyed the scene and couldn’t make sense of it. Aside from her sister’s wraith perching atop the mound of bodies to glare at her, the rest was pure insanity.

“A burial chamber?” Ludwig came closer to the edge of the pit and looked down. “Oh mercy…”

Yes, that was the girl’s visage strewn about all over the place. Hard to miss as the face was everywhere and in all forms of destruction and malignancy.

Thankfully, so was Sil’s illum trail. Tallah was in the centre of it and could see exactly where it went. A big splash of it pooled right here, as if the healer had stood in place and done… something. No sign of a weave or anything of the sort, if she didn’t count the chaos in the pit, lingering above the bodies.

“Empress’s mercy, what madness is this?” Ludwig cringed back from the many dead eyes staring out of the pit.

Were some bloody bits tongues?

Ludwig took a step back from her when she regarded him.

“I’m not going to hit you. Relax. I’m as confused as you. There’s some strange weave hanging over the bodies and I have no idea what to make of it.”

We do know what that looks likes. Christina intruded into her thoughts to steal a glimpse off the Ikosmenia. That is soul magic there. It’s not that much different from what we do to make a soul gem. See the patterns? The layers? It’s different from ours, but the underlying principles look the same.

Well, that was maddeningly worrying.

And there had been some… battle here? Spiders lay atop spiders, each with claws inside others, ripped apart or stabbed to bloody ruins. As strong as the Hammer was, this was definitely not his work. Spiders had just killed each other here for some reason. Survivors moaned in nooks and crannies, non-combatants that looked too mutated to even put up a fight.

“We’re moving on. Sil was here. And went that way.” She pointed to the far end of the cavern, to a side tunnel where spider bodies formed a mountain of chitin and still twitching limbs.

“But… what about this? Why is her face here? Why are they like this?”

“Hysterics later. We’ll find out eventually. This isn’t the girl.” She showed him his pendant. It tugged towards a wall, so the girl was still further out. Given the sight, she wasn’t quite certain she wanted to find the wretch, whatever had become of her. Only her scholar’s curiosity wanted to know more.

As she rounded the platform, one of the corpses sprung up at her. A black thing, gnarled and bleeding, leapt to its feet and dashed a straight line to her. It was a matter of luck that she caught its claws on the edge of her sword but the strength of it, now that she wasn’t infused at all, drove her down to the floor in a flurry of snapping jaws and punching claw-tipped feet.

Ludwig slammed into the thing from the side, trying to bat it away with his walking staff to no effect.

Bloody thing was terrifyingly strong! A moment of panic brought illum into her chest, and the next released it as a heat lance to cut the spider in two. It screeched atop her, a sound that no creature like it should’ve ever been able to make. Hot ichor splashed her from neck down.

“Blast.” She pushed the spasming thing off her and crawled to her feet. More rose, pushing aside bodies to reach out and attack. “Now I’ve put my foot in it.”

She pulled in strength and the strange illum Sil trailed hit her like a fist to the head. So thick and so powerful, it filled her to bursting and the limiters went white-hot on her arms. Two fireballs turned the whole central pit into an inferno. Two more blasted apart the corpse pile blocking the way forward.

“Go, old man.”

The next spider she immolated burst into ashes with the violence of her attack, something she wasn’t normally able to do without some serious concentration first. The tips of her gloves singed from the heat. Now she had to focus to restrain her output. Already she could see tremors in the weave, not of her making.

“That’s thing’s coming. Go through that door there. I’ll catch up.” She hauled him forward by the scruff of his coat and nearly threw him away from her.

Spiders hesitated. She set them aflame. They didn’t have time to scream. It was already too much power and too much heat. No aerum to fall back on so she had to hold her breath and her eyes stung with the smoke.

One way to get away cleanly.

She set her stance, outstretched her arms, and focused, back turned to the tunnel where she meant to go. A deep breath burned in her lungs but she held it in while weaving something far more complex and demanding than simple lances.

Rhine intruded. Too close. Too wide of a grin. The weave nearly slipped her grasp and bit back. Christina manifested to block the view, two ghostly outlines intermingling into formless mist.

Whatever you’re doing, finish it fast. This thing’s starting to push back against me.

This wasn’t something she often got to use outside of an open field. But it was the only thing she could think of that could make that beast lose her scent.

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A razing strike. She sent her anchors to each corner of the room, as far as she could reach them. And then sent fire down the illum lines, a net of heat that incinerated everything in an expanding cone of destruction.

Leolind’s Immolation set the air aflame and raced out through every corridor, slit or gap that the weave could squeeze through. It dressed the world in white, phosphorescent fire that shook the very city with its violence.

She cast it and fed it until nothing but ashes remained of the corpses, of the webs, of everything that would be caught in the way of her strike. And it still wasn’t enough to consume all the power she’d drawn it. The weave was wild and self-replicating, that in the end it wouldn’t be easily traced to an origin point. It should muddle up the monster’s vision while she forced herself to release the rest of her strange reserve.

You’ve overdone it, Bianca warned as parts of the ceiling caved in and fell in chunks from above. Best get out while I hold—

“Don’t pull in power!”

She was having trouble releasing it as she ran after Ludwig. As sticky as cold honey. The more she released of it, the more it stuck to her, like it was alive. It took an effort of will and more concentration than she thought possible to finally purge all of it from her veins.

Ludwig’s torch burned ahead in the pitch black of the tunnel, a splotch of light brighter than the others she was seeing. No light crystals here, just a winding hole in the rock that stretched away to a point of black far beyond the reach of the torchlight.

“There’s a fork here,” Ludwig said as she caught up and exhaled smoke. Ash coated her clothes and it was caked on her mask and chin, blown back by the initial incinerating burst.

“We go left. Trail goes that way.” It was difficult to breathe and getting harder.

He nodded and dipped into the trail of thick illum, his own emanation almost invisible now in the stream.

I’m curious what’s happening to the hen. I’ve never seen this kind of power, and to think of it coming off of someone… It’s impossible.

A mystery for later. For now she took one look back. Smoke flooded into the tunnel, funnelled forward by gusts of fresh air. The remains of Leolind’s Incineration were chaotic, to say the least, and she saw nothing to link them to it. Even the trail had been consumed.

Ludwig walked ahead. It was impossible to take the fore position in the narrow place. If they ran into spiders, she could do very little for him aside from stabbing him in the back to quicken his death.

We need to rest. Christina sounded slightly panicked. You are hanging on on spite and grit. Any more of this and we will be useless come a proving moment.

She’d felt fine until this moment, but now the rush faded. Bone-deep weariness set in and she stumbled with the shock, leaning on the wall for support.

“Wait,” she called. Ludwig stopped a few steps ahead and looked back.

Her feet were leaden and her chest hurt. Every muscle screamed in protest. That much power, drawn in and released in that way, took a toll and this was near to burnout effect. She breathed in, held, breathed out, waited. If she could bring her heart rate to levels that wouldn’t make a rabbit’s seem relaxed, that would help a lot.

She took the Ikosmenia off for a moment to give herself a break from the chaos around, and to breathe a bit better. There was ever more smoke flooding the narrow tunnel.

“Are you well? Were you hurt?”

“No.” She gulped down a greedy mouthful of cloudy air. “Whatever you do, don’t infuse for now. We’re in a stream of strange illum. It’s… it’s hard to describe.”

Even now, the power tried… it tried to get into her. She had to forcefully close herself to it, push it away and refuse its temptations. It was like a living thing that tried to find purchase in her, circling her like a shark drawn to blood.

Was it something of the beast out there? No, it hadn’t looked like this. That was something weird, all its own strangeness.

“Let’s find a place to lay down for a spell or two. My head’s swimming.”

“There’s a draft forward,” he said, showing her the tilt of the flame. “We should be coming out somewhere. I don’t think it wise to rest in here.”

In that, they were in agreement. With the mask back on, she let him lead the way while she followed, a hand on the wall for support.

It was a ways to go. Some places required crawling. Others were wide enough that she could take the forward position and the torch in spite of Ludwig’s protestations. Sil’s trail wasn’t dispersing here. Rather, it flowed, moving in multicoloured sheets in the same direction they were. It might’ve been her overtaxed imagination and the impending smoke suffocation, but the trail looked to be nipping at her hands, searching for ways in.

Ultimately, they emerged into a lit stairway. Again, the power pooled in one place someway down the stairs. Sil had rested here as well? Or… no, not rested. If the trail wouldn’t have continued down, she would’ve swore the healer had exploded. Her illum trail looked inflated and ridged with spikes that were still rigid in the air.

“What happened here?” She couldn’t keep the wonder from her voice as she reached a hand and passed it through a shard of illum. “Something very strange is happening to Sil, and I don’t know if it’s a good sign.” Was it getting thicker somehow? It didn’t seem corrupt or evil, in spite of how it kept clinging to her. It vaguely resembled the illum swirling through the maze, but that was painful to touch.

This…

No, she pulled back her fingers and refused the contact it offered. Alive. How?

We need to rest, Tallah. You’re spent. Can’t you feel it?

She could. Whatever using that power had done to her, it was much worse the second time around than the first. Her vision swam and became murky even with the Ikosmenia, and her hands and feet were numb and riveted with pinpricks of pain. No, she couldn’t go on like this. And she couldn’t rest next to this stagnating pool of power.

Some way down, the air changed and, in the small space between two statues, they found a nook that allowed for at least some concealment.

“I’ll take a break and need you to keep watch, old man.” Not the best idea, all things considered, but Bianca would also maintain a semblance of vigilance. “I need to gather some strength before we head further.” A quick dip into her rend brought out a jar of honey that was the first thing on hand. It would do as a quick meal.

“Rest. I can still guard. No worries,” Ludwig assured. He extinguished the torch and sat down on his backpack, opposite herself.

Sleeping took her the moment she set her own pack down and lay against the wall. Such tiredness she hadn’t felt since coming out of the Anna battle and this was worse in so many ways.

Even as she closed her eyes, she knew the dream waited. And Rhine waited within in, glaring murder at her, mouth a hard line of disappointment.

Something felt wrong.