Tallah's legs wobbled at the sight of that thing talking. She’d seen enough creatures across her life, and put enough nightmares down to fill a whole bestiary. But the mutant swaying on the cradle brought her up short.

Soul extraction via slow shattering and an entwining with something wholly alien. This was a perfect example of why soul magic was banned altogether, of the dangers it represented.

From Sil’s description of events, the girl had been slowly emptied out. This appearance reflected the state of whatever became of her consciousness as she joined with the creatures of Grefe. It was ghastly.

It was fascinating.

She might take grievous offence were Panacea to make a study of the thing. Part of her resonated with the girl’s plight, all too keenly aware that two ghosts were all that separated Tallah from a much similar fate.

Anna is attempting intrusion, Christina informed. She is curious of what you’re seeing.

“Let her see,” Tallah muttered. A small peace offering to the newest member of her inner cabal. The Vitalis was proving herself far more civil than expected, especially after slipping Christina’s grasp.

“Anna?” Sil asked at her side.

“Her.”

“Under control?”

“No. But safe, for now. She’s not resolved enough to cause me grief.”

Panacea floated up to the thing. “I feared the worst for what may have become of you. The worst I could envision would’ve been a mercy compared to this,” she spoke softly.

“This is what’s left of me,” the girl answered, voice heavy with accusation. Her words slurred as they formed in that inhuman mouth. “This is what you condemned me to.”

“I can make no apology. My best precautions failed in predicting this place and what they’ve built to keep me out.”

She reached out a hand and touched the girl’s forehead. It shied away.

“Do not touch me.”

“Shush now, daughter. I am here to help. Whatever’s been done to you, I am here to free you.” She reached out her other hand and cupped Erisa’s chin, holding her in place in spite of the protesting.

“Do not touch me!”

Tallah turned to see black and white spiders pouring in through the entrance. They crowded atop one another to go through, spilling inside the room but not venturing across the flowers. Instead they filled the walls, spreading like a cancer, body atop body rushing forward. They overran the strange glass and metal apparatus hanging shattered across the ceiling.

Bianca raised her into the air to hang between the mutant girl and the encroaching mass of claws and maws. She weaved a row of fire orbs arrayed in a half-circle aimed at the creatures, each orb kept about a finger’s width in diameter, hot enough that the closest flowers withered on their stalks.

The spiders froze.

“Let’s not do something we’ll all regret,” Tallah warned as a white one twitched. “I am tired and in a mood to burn something. Do not test me, girl.”

Her stores of illum were barely enough to put up a proper fight, given the earlier thrashing, and she would be next to useless if forced to physically defend herself. Erisa didn’t need to know that.

Can we please stop blustering our way forward? Christina whined at her. Every time we’re in crisis, you gamble. We’ve been losing a lot more than we’ve been gaining.

Tallah ignored her, eyes on the goddess.

Panacea’s hand pressed through the mutant’s forehead, straight down to the wrist, cracking bone as if it were egg shell. “I do not enjoy doing this, daughter Erisa, but I see no other way.”

Erisa shrieked and tried clawing at the arm. Her mutated fingers broke against white skin, marring it in streaking blood. Panacea’s grasp on the girl didn’t even flinch.

A soft blue flame danced atop her gore-slick fingers when she finally retracted her hand. The girl’s breathing became a torrent of gasps, the entire body convulsing into spasms as it died. Grey brain matter oozed out of the crater left behind in her forehead.

“There we go.” Panacea released the inert head and, with a motion of her fingers, snipped something invisible.

Pandemonium erupted.

Spiders screamed, black, white, and red. The mutant slumped back on its web, bright red blood coursing down its white body.

A white wall went up around their group, like a dome encasing them. Tallah dropped to the floor, cut off from her strength, her flames sputtering out.

“So much drama when one means to help.” Panacea cradled the blue flame at her chest, shielding it with her palms as if it were a candle’s flame ready to be blown away. “I have a mission for you three. Ort’s got my scent now, so I’ll have to be brief.”

“You’ve mentioned him before.” Tallah picked herself up and joined next to a wide-eyed Sil and an angry Vergil. Compared to how they looked, her normal anger now seemed quite serene.

“What did you—”

“Why did you—”

“Both of you, shush.” Panacea raised a finger. Sil and Vergil clamped their mouths shut as if punched. “Adults are talking.”

Tallah faced her. If the goddess wanted them dead, she could kill them as easily as she had the girl. Whatever new weave this was, it neutralised her channelling. For now, she had little option but to listen.

Prod at this. See why we can’t channel, she sent the thought to Christina.

Only silence answered.

“That won’t work in here,” Panacea explained. “This is for your ears only. You may share with your trio later, if you wish.”

“You’re hardly giving me an honest choice.”

“I’m giving you this.” She showed the blue flame, burning gently across her fingers. “Her real name was once Era Saral, born of mother Callimna Saral and father Revall of Low House Chron. You will know what to do with the information, I trust.”

That was certainly an interesting offering, coming from the Goddess of Healing of all creatures.

“You encourage me to take her soul?”

“Yes. Use it for your mission. It should serve you well. I have her seed here. The rest is only the sickness that’s grown around it. I trust you can get that under control.”

“And what do you want in return?”

Panacea smiled and swiped a finger around the white confine of her silent bubble.

“Her name is a gift. You would be doing her a kindness, and yourself a favour. I will expect you at my School after you are done here, if you survive my departure. Bring me a bag of seeds from these flowers, and a second of the dirt they grow in. I expect they can be safely stored in your rend.”

Sil made a muffled sounds as she tried to speak, waving her hands.

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“Release them,” Tallah said. “Let them speak.”

Panacea did and both Sil and Vergil gasped for breath, jaws unlocked.

“We don’t know where the School even is,” Sil said, exasperated. “I don’t know how to reach there.”

“You will. Once I clear up the channel to you, you will receive access to the information.”

“Why?” Vergil asked. “What do you want with… seeds and dirt?”

“Seems rather obvious. These flowers produce a regenerating agent that is better than whatever we can produce right now. I mean to study it. You will deliver it.”

“Or we may keep it for ourselves,” Tallah said, prodding the goddess’s patience.

She received a flat, unimpressed red stare. A perfect white eyebrow rose. “You may. But then I may visit my daughter again and not ask quite as politely, now that I have her tagged.” Panacea smiled, tight lipped. She was already becoming insubstantial, as if fading away. “We both know you will do this. You may grumble, but you’re no fool to miss this opportunity. I have given you a soul and ask for a small service that would benefit all of us. The only one standing to lose from our allegiance, is Ort. I believe you wouldn’t mind that.”

Her eyes swivelled to Vergil. “Boy, you are playing a role that I do not understand yet. If it were up to me, I would kill you and cut away the danger you represent.” She turned her eyes back to Tallah. “But this one’s made her feelings clear on the matter.”

Tallah felt her cheeks burning. Yes, she didn’t want Vergil dead. The boy was useful and had more backbone than many seasoned soldiers she’d ever fought alongside of. She didn’t need it getting to his head.

“Do we have a deal, sorceress?” Panacea stuck out her gory hand. “Shaken and sealed in blood?”

To Sil’s gasp of protest, Tallah took the proffered hand and shook it with a squelch.

“I will have a lot of questions demanding your answers by the time I get there. I expect answers.”

“You and I share a foe, Tallah Amni. Maybe even two, but you’re not ready for that knowledge. Serve my interest and I will serve yours.” She turned to Sil. “You are now Sil Iluna, registered as such. We will see about your other misdemeanours when I lay real eyes on you. I expect you to explain yourself.”

Tallah couldn’t miss the urgency in Panacea’s voice. She was being drawn away, her body flickering in and out of existence. Only the blue flame kept shining bright against her chest.

Sil’s face suggested she might have some very unpleasant words to share with her deity. Before she could speak, Panacea waggled a finger at her, “Cuss at me one more time, daughter, and I will mute you. I do not mean that figuratively. Am I clear?”

If Christina could’ve heard that, she likely would’ve done everything in her power to goad Sil into doing just that. Tallah was thankful for the ghosts’ silence.

Sil nodded and looked away from Panacea’s gaze.

“What now?” Vergil asked. He was making a very determined effort to look anywhere but at the corpse that shared the dome with them. “You’ve killed the girl. Taken her… her soul?”

Panacea raised her hand and the blue flame climbed up her fingers, almost playful. Tallah was reminded of stories of faer folk and the shapes they sometimes assumed, of flame sprites or minuscule dragons.

“This is a seed, boy,” the goddess said. “This is not a soul. It can become one, given time and nurture, but it is not yet one. I am taking it away from here and may seek to plant it anew. The rest I leave to you three. See that you do not disappoint.”

Her final words were to Sil, “Do not squander your name again, daughter. I will be watching.”

And with that, she was gone. Disappeared along with her bubble.

Red spiders and silk rained down onto them. The critters had been busy trying to wrap them into a cocoon, in an absolute panic now that the mutant girl lay dead.

Sil screamed.

Larger, blacker spiders filled up every space that wasn’t taken up by flowers, roiling like a sea of legs in a storm. Atop them sat the visage of Erisa, glaring balefully off the back of a white spider. Tallah met the girl’s eyes and understood that depth of fury staring back.

“She’s left. Again.” Tallah grinned. “That leaves you with us, Era.”

She’d hoped for a recognition of the name and the implication, a moment of panic. Era merely glared, face turned into a mask of impotent rage, nostrils flared, pupils dilated into pits of tar.

“You two, collect seeds and dirt,” Tallah instructed. The girl was too angry now to react, but that wasn’t likely to last. She would vent her frustration on the nearest victims possible. “Be quick about it.”

Tallah, I know where we are, Bianca said. I have considered our route and the last direction I saw of the pendant. We are off target massively, but I’m confident I could get us to it.

Good. Ludwig was likely heading in the same direction and avoided detection with the Ikosmenia. Tallah would spare him some consideration once they were out of this latest sticky situation. Sil and Vergil bent to their task, running around the beds of flowers to collect what was demanded.

“Bring me my sister.” Era spoke through gritted teeth. “Eat the other two.”

She probably didn’t need the words, but Tallah appreciated nonetheless the showmanship of the declaration. The spiders hesitated for a moment before coming down among the flowers but, once moving, they descended like the foam of a crashing wave.

Tallah set her feet into the soft earth and prepared to meet the onslaught. A dip into illum filled her up to near-bursting, Panacea’s power still lingering. If she could harness this and use it on the usual… oh, what power she could command.

“Christi.” She asked for power and received it just as the first spiders closed the small gap separating them. An opening lightning attack speared the first wave on white jagged lines of power. It arched away from her fingers, jumping between bodies to an accompaniment of very human cries.

They screamed with Era’s voice, frustration mixed in with anger and pain. Some died. Most kept advancing. So did Tallah. She met the tide with blade and arching lightning, pulling them all to her while the others collected.

Our goal? Christina asked, already feeding her the proper forms for controlling the tempest. In her diminished state she couldn’t offer real, quick help, but could help Tallah wield the power.

“We kill. We gather. We run.”

Tallah aimed a pulse of power towards their contested exit. More black bodies crammed in the entryway, trying to gain a foothold inside. They burned and burst to flood the entrance in entrails and ichor.

Distantly, she registered Luna’s cries mingled in with other tiny voices in a panic. They were trampling the flowers, crushing them underfoot to release deep scents of lemons, rose and mint. They cleared the many aches of exertion and opened her up to power the same way ink nettle did.

The mere scent coming off the flowers healed?! No wonder some of the creatures got back up so easily.

“Ready.” Sil called from somewhere behind just as Tallah unleashed a hail of fireflies, aiming for eyes and joints. A fusillade of pops and screams followed. Some spiders fell, more encroached grimly, already trampling the remains of their brethren.

Erisa watched from above, eyes set on Sil, her white mount as still as a statue.

“Be ready to run,” Tallah called. “Try and go above. I’ll burn us a path.”

“Left shoulder,” Sil called.

Tallah raised her hand and neatly caught the aerum vial. The serum went down easily and her heart steadied.

Right then. Time to change tacks.

“I’m sorry, Luna,” she said as if the spider could hear.

She extended an arm and aimed with two fingers at the exit doorway. Rhine stood again in her line of sight, farther than before, glaring daggers just like Era. Tallah grinned. Panacea had banished the thing quite easily. She wasn’t going insane, not yet. Whatever the apparition was, it wasn’t of her making and that was enough to steel her resolve against its hatred.

She loosed a heat lance and compressed it into a narrow beam. It cut a swathe through the creatures. Chitin split apart. Ichor overheated and exploded into steam. More died as she swung her hand. Fire followed the stampeding spiders.

She dove under the first swipe of claws, cut with her sword, released the power and began weaving in earnest. Wherever fire burned, she layered strength atop it, orbs of power drawing in the heat, Bianca’s tethers connecting all in a single net.

Another dodge and a backward step sent her stumbling over a corpse. A tide of bodies buried her as scything claws punched down at her chest.

One stab drew blood and the sudden pain nearly tore her grasp from the weave.

Blood burst from the wound and speared the spider atop her, tendrils of it exploding outward to gouge chunks out of the others. As sudden as it happened, it drew back and the wound sealed tenderly.

Keep your wits, whore. We’ve a score to settle, Anna’s voice sneered in the back of her head. You dying here, to this chit’s measly brood, is one humiliation too many.

“Shut up,” she groaned. Bianca pushed her up and heaved back the spiders.

A flash in her peripheral vision revealed Sil running on empty air, Vergil at her side, crossing above the flood of chitinous creeps. Some jumped on them but the boy was quick with an axe, smashing eyes with a deftness that left her momentarily stunned. They were making a beeline to the exit.

Tallah had enough orbs floating above smouldering corpses, twisting the smoke around their heat. Bianca connected the last of them together.

A snap of her fingers ignited the web. A kinetic push sent the blast outward through the exit, burning everything in its path.

Erisa screamed. Luna screamed. What sounded like a thousand spiders all screamed in maddening, distorted mix of pain and outrage as flames consumed them. The flowers, trampled to mulch, ignited to turn the room into an inferno.

Sil and Vergil, shielding their faces against the heat, burst out through the scorching fire into fresh rain falling outside. Tallah followed, stumbling from the exhaustion of so much illum expended.

Her flames had guttered out halfway down the tunnel heading into the forest. Two spiders waited on the edge of the steaming remains of her weave, the largest she’d seen so far, hunched low, twitching in spasming motions. Erisa’s visage ruptured out through their shells, the top half of the mutated girl forming atop both beasts.

Their glares met through the falling rain.