"How does she walk around like this?” Vergil talked only to fill the silent void and cover the sickening snap of bones underfoot. A riot of colours blinded him as illum flowed by, swirled and danced in the air. It was beautiful in a way, but made it hard to focus.

The mask sat uncomfortably on his face beneath the helmet, but he was loath to drop either one. Looking down at himself was more confusing than looking around, light wisps of illum wrapped around him so tight that they may as well have been skin.

How had Tallah not noticed those before? Or maybe that was normal for a blank? Sil and Tallah had appeared as knots of illum, drawing in more—

* Step lightly. Listen.

Vergil had grown accustomed to the ceaseless instructions Horvath laid out for him. Ever since the library, his vision had been filled with messages from the dead dwarf, eclipsing in full Argia’s status updates.

Now he could make out some of her messages among the rest.

* Connection established. Pinging source.

* Link confirmed.

* Accept data package?

Lovely.

Some system of the great ship was still kicking about. He’d been seeing these connection requests for a while now, from about halfway into the descent down the shaft. What exactly Argia connected to, he couldn’t imagine. Now wasn’t the time for distractions, especially some that could see him quite dead quite quickly.

But it took his mind off the blinding maze of colours and the promise of violence it carried.

And it almost shut up the strange fascination with the snap of bone underfoot. For now, looking back, nothing moved in the illum except the vague outlines of where he knew Tallah and Sil were. Something was happening there and he could hear Sil’s crying out in pain. His muscles bunched at the sound, heart racing with the knowledge that it had been his failure that led to this.

* None o’ that. Keep yer mind at yer task, sprig, or I set it right fer ye.

Lovely.

He accepted the connection. Nothing happened. Well, that was disappointing after ruminating on the decision for so long.

How far would Tallah need him to be for the ambush? He was already halfway down the mountain of bones, if the pools of illum beneath his feet were any indication. Soon he’d wade through the stuff and Tallah had warned him about the darker ones. Purples and reds? It was like tar down there.

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Anger replaced his excitement of seeing something that might have told him why all of this had happened. Why this impossible city had been built and what the piece of the SPRAWL might mean.

Was he on Athos 3, in some far distant future?

Or was he still in some experience?

Meeting Panacea had resolved nothing for him, raised more questions than it had answered, and left him dumber for it. Remembering Tallah smacking the goddess did bring a smile to his face. It turned into a cuss as his foot slipped under the bones and he found himself on his arse, sliding downward, bones clattering all around.

“Fuck!”

A moment later a scream tore through the air and illum above him ignited into white, phosphorous flames. For a moment he thought he’d gone blind. Then realisation hit that he’d shut his eyes against the glare.

Another scream tore through the air. He scrambled for purchase on the unstable hill collapsing beneath his weight and managed to turn and see… nothing. He’d expected that Erisa would cut a larger, more ominous figure in the illum. There was nothing but the echoes of Tallah and Sil’s presences.

Something happened. He crawled back up on hands and feet, gripping buried bones and feeling them shatter in hand.

Should he call out?

Was this a distraction? Part of the plan?

Something huge dropped from above and shook the mound of the dead like an earthquake. Bones rattled and screamed. Dust choked the air. Luna tightened into a ball on his back and shivered.

“Sister!” a gurgled voice called out and Vergil recognized Erisa even as he gazed upon the form perching atop the dead. “What have you done?! Murderer!”

It was… odd.

If Tallah and Sil were shadows in the illum flow, Erisa was as neatly defined as if Vergil gazed upon her in the full light of day.

“Mother…” Luna whimpered on his back. A tinge of despairing sadness came through the connection they shared. “She’s brought Mother with her.”

Erisa had ripped herself from the room. She was the giant spider, riding atop it like a grotesque half-rider melded with its mount, a cacophony of parts that couldn’t fit together. A pustule of hatred that slithered and jerked to motion as she strode down the bones towards Tallah and Sil.

Geometric constructs cut the air as a blast of fire erupted from the shadows. It… missed. The lance exploded against the far wall. Rocks cascaded down and disrupted the bones into an avalanche that threatened to bury him. It swept him off his feet to roll down with the dead in a clamour.

More fireballs followed, all of them seemingly aimed anywhere but at the great bulk of Erisa as she advanced on the two channellers. They smashed barriers to shards of illum, but did nothing to the monstrous girl. She, for a few moments, seemed as confused as Vergil felt.

What was Tallah doing?

Finally, a lance hit the creature in full. It punched through several barriers and exploded with a blast of overheated air that stole the breath from his lungs dozen of meters away and beneath the fighting area. Illum shone like the stars, shards of barriers disintegrating and reforming before his very eyes.

If it weren’t so trouser-wetting terrifying, he would’ve thought it all quite beautiful.

* Eyes up, sprig. Weapon out. Run and don’ stop ‘till ye can give it the axe’s kiss.

He gripped the axe in his right hand and helped himself back up towards the battle with his left. Tallah exchanged fire erratically, mainly to push back against Erisa’s blooming barriers. Even to him the creature seemed hesitant, its attacks wide, a threat rather than committing.

Tummy had taught him that he needed to commit. So had Tallah. So Horvath insisted now. What he saw in Erisa told him that Tallah’s plan was working. The girl feared harming Sil and only pushed the attack so much to gain ground. Fire was not really a danger to her.

Getting closer showed him shapes clinging to Erisa. They dropped off onto the bones and crept away, spreading to encircle his friends. Some fell, silver illum drawn from the bodies back to their mother. But most managed to disperse.

For her part, Tallah and Sil looked to be retreating down the slope, keeping away from Erisa, but not engaging either. Why? The more he tried to gain ground and follow the plan, the more Tallah—

A lighting bolt screamed through the air and hit the creature. Erisa howled in pain, the blast snaking past her defences in a way that defied imagination. Vergil’s mouth dropped open as a second bolt of lightning hit the creature and ignited the air into an explosion. Chunks tore off Erisa, warm offal showering him.

Now the girl attacked in earnest! So did her daughters, rushing from the darkness towards the point of attack.

Whatever Tallah tore off didn’t matter. Erisa screamed and barriers bloomed around her in a blinding display of geometry. Vergil turned in place and ran down the bones, slipping and rolling to keep away from that.

A girl barred his path. He crashed into her and they went down in a tangle of limbs and loose bones. He was first back up and flashed the axe at the thing. It dodged under the swing, turned and fled from him as if he were of no importance.

Barriers filled the air like an expanding ball of razors. Tallah’s bolts of lightning were the only things breaking through, but even those began to dim as Erisa’s assault intensified.

He reached the bottom of the slope and took off at a dead run towards the sprite, where he expected to find the channellers. Getting near Erisa was impossible! He’d failed his task, but Tallah wasn’t doing as was supposed. There was no way for him to approach Erisa now, covered in a shifting, twisting amalgamation of cutting edges. He had lost sight of the child as it disappeared into the storm of illum.

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Why had Tallah abandoned the plan?

“Vergil!”

He skidded to a halt, heart thumping in his chest, as he recognised Sil’s voice by his arm.

“Don’t put me under!” he said in a breath. “Something’s wrong with Tallah.”

“I bloody know.” Sil limped to him from the side, the sprite somewhere farther above. “She’s gone pyroclastic. Christina’s fighting in her stead, but I don’t know how much longer she can keep at it.”

“What’s pyroclastic?”

“Berserk.”

Sil’s outline shimmered in the illum, as if she faded in and out of existence. He was pretty certain that wasn’t how she was supposed to look.

“What do we do?” he asked, voice steady even as panic began to rise. He spun in place, eyes scanning for any of those creepy girls coming upon them.

Sil toppled. He was right by her and caught her arm. Felt blood on her hands, slick and warm.

“You’re still hurt?” he gasped out the question, panic rising into a full tempest now.

“Wound’s sealed. I’m fine.” Thunder echoed above and a flash of lightning turned the cavern to day. A stench of ozone and burnt dust filled the air.

Sil didn’t sound fine at all as she pushed herself up and pressed a hand to his chest.

“I require a Blessing of Cassandra,” she chanted out in a breath, voice urgent.

More illum wrapped around Vergil. An odd feeling of lightness got him straightening up, the axe all of a sudden as light as a feather in hand. There were updates from Argia and Horvath in his view, but he ignored them.

“She’s brought her children,” he said, still waiting for some of those to drop onto him. Shadows moved in the illum but he couldn’t know if they were attacked, or that was simply how a channelling battle was supposed to look.

“Follow the plan,” Sil said. “Will the dwarf cooperate?”

* Aye, aye, I be willin.

“He says he’s willing to help.”

“…says?” Sil shook away the revelation. “Doesn’t matter. Go. Go.”

Vergil expected the usual night to take him once Sil put her tether on him. He remained watching her even as illum connected them and Horvath’s strength flowed out of the helmet.

“Um?”

“Go!” Sil urged him. “Don’t gawk at me.”

“I’m not the dwarf,” Vergil answered, confused. Why didn’t the enchantment work?

* Containment status: Successful!

* Infection contained to memory cluster ###### error ######

* Haw! Yer on yer own, sprig. Yer head ghost’s got me.

“No!”

“What’s happened?” Sil asked, concern in her voice.

Up above, thunder and lightning rolled and echoed in the chasm as Tallah fought. Flashes of white light. Crashing darkness. Screams of pain and the constant boom of the dead exploding.

“Argia’s contained Horvath. He can’t take control.”

“Fine time she chose to be useful.” She groaned as she moved up the bones. “Stay behind me. You should be safe. We need to help.”

The illum storm Erisa unleashed did avoid Sil. Whenever one of the constructs got near, it splintered to threads unravelling in the air, as if the girl knew always where Sil was. Actually, as he followed behind Sil, he could see the thin line connecting her and Erisa, like the barest tether, there and not really.

“You’re connected to her.”

“She’s tugging on my guts. I hate it.”

Tallah crashed down from above, rolling down the mountain of the dead in an avalanche of bone dust. She exploded back up in a flash of woven illum that made her seem to teleport. No, she actually did. Thunder echoed maddeningly as the sorceress fought in a way he’d never seen before.

She was wreathed in lightning that moved and shimmered with her. It pinged off Erisa’s barriers and that gave her warning of where they formed.

Christina moved differently from Tallah, each thrown bolt precisely hitting Erisa, as if her barriers weren’t there. The girl was moving back, dodging on eight legs out of the way, kept nearly at bay by the barrage of blinding bolts.

“You finally show,” Christina yelled to him as she landed back.

An illum tether grabbed Vergil by the waist, lifted him up, and threw him flailing through the air at Erisa. “Make yourself useful. I need a breather.”

For a flicker of a moment Vergil thought he would die. He saw the cutting edges forming. They would section him in two. No. In four!

Alien reactions took over and he spun in the air, axe head slamming into the forming barrier. Solid enough to hook on. He spun in the air, tucked in his legs and slipped between the edges.

“Fuck—”

Everything moved slower and he saw the world in perfect geometric detail. Every line of power flowing out of the sorceresses. Half-formed barriers. Fully formed ones supporting the others. Like a scaffolding of illum ever growing, its source the girl.

Horvath wasn’t in control. But the old dwarf’s strength and reactions… Vergil was in control.

Without thinking, he allowed the dwarf’s reactions to take over. He rolled his knees to his chest, braced for impact, and rolled on empty air where the barrier formed. Getting feet under him, he pushed off the swaying construct and found himself running on empty air, following the line of power.

Part of him wondered if it was possible to survive like this.

The rest whooped, adrenaline offering him wings.

There was the girl, inhuman face looking shocked atop the monstrous spider. She expanded her barriers, tried to wreathe herself in a ball of protection. Not fast enough!

He pushed off the final wall and launched himself at her.

A bolt of lightning shattered the barrier Erisa was building to protect against him. He buried the axe’s smile right in the girl face, splitting it in two with his entire weight behind the strike. She screamed in gurgling agony, thrashed and swiped at him.

Always get close to a channeller, Tallah’s voice instructed. Doesn’t matter how. Once close, be like a mad dog on a hunt. Clamp down and hold on for dear life.

Vergil held on to the axe for dear life as Erisa tried to shake him off. He grabbed whatever part he could reach and trusted Christina had a plan.

Any moment now! Clawed fingers scratched across his armour in a cacophony of screeches.

Tallah appeared in a flash atop Erisa’s shoulders, one arm wreathed in a swirl of power Vergil couldn’t understand, the other grabbing hold of his axe. She discharged the spell into the back of the girl’s head.

“I need—”

Christina didn’t finish the sentence as Erisa threw both of them off with strength that seemed impossible.

Vergil dropped heavily onto the bones. Felt his own ribs cracking under the impact, all air driven out of him. Not that he’d had time to breathe much.

Someone dragged him away. Then another one.

“What in the Goddess’s teats is going on?” Sil’s voice, straining with effort.

“I’ve no idea. Can’t fight more. If I cast the Punishment, my usefulness will be at an end.”

“Where are the other two?”

“Sorting out Tallah I hope. They’re all quiet.”

Vergil groaned and dug his heels in. The two women released his shoulders as he got back to his feet. Pain from the impact ebbed away as adrenaline cushioned it.

Shapes began appearing on the edges of his vision, creeping out of the storm.

“Why didn’t you finish her?” He spat a glob of blood. Another tooth was loose in his mouth. “You could’ve finished her.”

“I could’ve blasted you, boy. Tallah would flay my hide if I had.”

Erisa smashed against the walls, screamed in blood-curdling agony, and fought herself. Something of Christina’s attack had definitely worked in some way, though it did nothing like the experiments on him had suggested. He’d understood Tallah’s plan. Get the monster to shut down, hit it hard point-blank.

Instead, the spider beneath Erisa had come alive.

“Mother lives!” Luna screeched in pleasure. “Mother endures! She fights for us.”

Mother was not doing well. From beneath, it was like watching two great monsters, conjoined at the waist, tear at each other. The chasm filled with echoing snarls and screams.

“I say we’d best get—”

Vergil shot past Christina and lashed out with a kick. It caught one of the girls squarely in the chest and sent her reeling down. Another tried to rush past him, making a line for Sil.

Both the healer and Tallah lashed out with their own kicks at this one, sending it sprawling. More came, silent as ghosts.

“We need to disengage and regroup,” Christina urged. Lightning from her fingers blasted through three of the girls at once. It ignited on the dust into an explosion that rocked the mountain. She staggered backward and Vergil caught her before she fell.

“Not down there,” he said urgently as he and Sil pulled the sorceress away. “Tallah said to keep away from black illum.”

“Black? It’s that bad?”

Sil stumbled and nearly dragged them all down, groaning and clutching at her belly. “Can’t… walk…” Her voice strained and she shivered violently. “She’s squeezing my insides.”

“Sister!” Erisa howled.

Christina shook free of their help and ignited lightning on her arm. Vergil bent and picked Sil up, running down the slope.

“You will make me human.” Sounds of tearing flesh and snapping bones filled the black, followed by inhuman cries of pain. “You can’t deny me!”

Vergil threw a final glance back. The last thing he saw before the illum storm engulfed Erisa, was Mother’s dismemberment and the girl ripping herself from the corpse left behind.

For their sake, he hoped the mist of illum hid them well.