After a swift retreat from a nigh unwinnable battle, the Opazyr found themselves sneaking through the west side of Ashen Canyon. The only thing that filled the air was a slight breeze whistling against the rocks and the occasional slosh of feet through shallow water. The silence was eerie after all that excitement. They were alone now, but for how long?

"Should we return to camp?" Veronica asked, her eyes practically glued to the flat tops above.

"Maybe," said Maria. "But things are way too heated right now. If we're going back, we're going back under the cover of darkness. We gotta wait until the little lady wakes up before we can do anything."

They continued to travel, keeping to the rightmost path that was available. Maria surmised that the pathway leading into the canyon was northbound. They had taken a hard right when they retreated from the battle, and by keeping themselves right bound they were assured that they were heading east. The river ran perpendicular to the path and the water carried them off to the left, meaning their camp was westbound. She was slowly starting to grasp the means to traverse the land. She just needed more landmarks to work with.

"Hey! Look over there," Anise called everyone's attention to a cave opening in the wall. Maria and Veronica looked at the cave, then at the unconscious Lucy in Anise's arms, and decided it would be best to at least give it a chance.

They came to the entrance with weapons drawn. It was a deep cave that spiraled down into an endless abyss. Maria sheathed one blade and held out her hand. Mana burst from her palm like fire and she held it out stretched like a torch. She used the constant output of magic as a light source to guide the way.

It was a long walk, twists and turns quickly ate away at the entrance light leaving only the harsh crimson glow of Maria's mana to fill the eyes.

"Do you think we can still complete our mission?" Asked Veronica.

Maria gave an uncertain huff. "Don't know. But I'm not too fond of failing my first job on Opazyr payroll. Lady Fia already doesn't like me."

Anise craned her neck back in confusion. "What did you do to get on her bad side?"

"I don't know, be poor? She looked at me like I was a piece of shit on the road."

"Well, I can see why." She murmured smugly.

Veronica stepped aside as a violent crack rang throughout the cave walls. Anise leaned against the wall, still holding onto Lucy with both hands. Her teeth were grit tight and she fought back tears as her head spun. Maria smacked her with the pommel of her scimitar.

"Did anyone ever tell you you're a real jackass!?" Maria barked.

"Did anyone ever tell you that you're an ogre-ish brute?" Whined Anise.

"Plenty of times." A satisfied smirk skittered across Maria's face. She waved her glowing hand closer to herself to illuminate her "ogre" like visage.

After waiting a brief moment for Anise to recover the trio set off for deeper depths. Veronica shimmied over to Maria and whispered in her ear. "I don't think you look like a brute..."

She thanked the soldier quietly. That was the last word shared between any of the trio for a long while.

After an indiscernible amount of time passed the group had finally made it to an opening. It was an endless expanse of abyss, with intricately engraved pillars holding up a ceiling that was far out of eyesight. Junk and debris lay strewn about the entrance. Maria was positive that the moment they wandered too deeply into the cavern they'd be completely lost. "Shit... I don't think this is gonna work out," she admitted.

The dark carvings engraved onto the pillars caught the herald's eye. She tapped Veronica on the shoulder and presented the unconscious Lucy. "Hold her for a minute. I need to check on something."

Veronica did as she was told while Anise approached the closest pillar.

"Bring the light closer, Ogre," Anise commanded.

Maria rolled her eyes and moved to give her the proper lighting. She could tell she was going to be hearing that a lot from now on. She was never going to win with that woman, and she just had to accept that. "Do you recognize the carvings?"

"I think I do..." She mumbled, half-lost in thought. She whispered the inscriptions to herself slowly. The words were incomprehensible to the others. She was speaking in another tongue entirely. "...This doesn't make any sense. This script is the same one found in Ancient texts about our goddess, Eyra. But this text was written by men. It's about their god Amal."

Veronica tilted her head. "So did this place belong to men? I thought they lived on a different continent?"

"They do. Men haven't lived on our continent for at least a millennium. But this place can't possibly be that old."

Maria stepped closer to get a better look despite not being able to read a single letter. "Does it have any useful information?"

"Give me a bit more time." Anise circled the pillar while Maria followed close behind. "It's like some sort of written record. They recorded names of their citizens and what they achieved and found most interesting." She crouched low to the ground, noticing a small square slit. "What's this?" She tried to fiddle with it and was able to slide the stone compartment open with some slight effort. Inside was a hole that ran deep into the support structure. Three prongs protruded out as if to hold something in place. "A holding compartment?"

"But for what?" Asked Maria.

"It's impossible to tell. This place is so old. It could be anything!"

Maria held her torch hand closer to the compartment to get a better glimpse at it. Without warning, the compartment began to siphon her mana from her hand. Drinking in the energy with a greedy drone. Maria yanked her hand back! "What the hell?!"

They watched as her crimson mana flowed through the pillar and into the ceiling in a flash of crimson brilliance before spreading thin over the cave and disappearing.

"So, it uses mana as an energy source," Anise determined. "Who has the bag of crystals?"

Veronica shuffled over, presenting her flank with the small brown sack loosely attached. "I've got it."

Anise grabbed the sack and took hold of a crystal. She shuddered, unable to keep herself from making a disgusted face. "I hate holding these things."

She placed it into the compartment and closed the slot. The violent drone kicked up again as the crystal rattled around in the siphoning tube. It wasn't long before the delicate rock shattered and released its energy to the contraption. Pure white power filled the engravings and spread throughout the entire cave, its brilliance never fading.

The light from the engravings was blinding against the three pairs of eyes that had just started adjusting to the dark. Maria squinted hard, trying to get a grip on her senses quickly in case something went wrong.

As her eyes fully adjusted she slowly became more enlightened to her surroundings, and it was nothing short of awe-inspiring. The cavern was home to a massive encampment. Before them a gravel road wound throughout the structure. It weaved through small buildings, tents, and workshops. All were in just enough disarray to be considered ruins. But for how old it must have been she had to admit that everything was in good enough condition. The buildings, while starting to crumble, were still recognizable to her. The architecture was straightforward and unwelcoming. Each building looked the same with the only thing separating them apart was a strange assortment of random items that sat in the yards in front of the houses. (If you could even call the stone flatbed in front of every house a yard.)

Lucy grumbled and squirmed. The brilliant flash of lights assaulted her unconscious senses. She opened her eyes and attempted to roll out of a non-existent bed, but ended up rolling out of Veronica's arms and flat into her face. She rose from the ground in an instant, holding her nose in pain. "Huh? What? I'm alive?" Her head was on a swivel, trying to reap as much information as possible.

A hand rested on her shoulder. "You're not dead yet, Lady Lucy." Veronica knelt beside her, helping her to her feet. "We're... Well, I don't know where we are exactly. But we're safe."

"I see." She leaned on Veronica for support. "I can't believe I lost."

"Believe it," barked Maria. "It's gonna happen a lot more. Just be glad you're still kicking."

Anise was so engrossed in her surroundings that she let Lucy's awakening go uncommented. "I-I've never seen anything like this before..." She stumbled around, confused by everything she saw. A part of her wanted to conduct a thorough investigation, but another part of her was too unnerved to approach anything.

"I have," Maria asserted. She walked confidently up to the main road, with Veronica following close behind her. "There's no doubt in my mind. This place was home to Agamics."

"But men haven't lived here in a millennium," Veronica droned. Maria couldn't tell if she was trying to rebuttal her claim or if she was merely struggling to keep up with the situation.

"We thought men didn't live on this continent, but this place is fresh. It can't be any more than a century old, maybe two at best." Maria explained. The three followed her as she approached a stone building. "You see this? How unforgiving and bare-bones this place is? That's the key sign of male architecture. They're very narrow-minded, anything that doesn't fit their interest is usually treated with the bare minimum."

Anise opened the door to one of the several stone homes. She "I see what you mean. This whole place feels very... Drab. I've seen military camps more style than this."

"But it's functional..." noted Veronica. She scanned over the ruins, hunting around for signs of a well or some other form of irrigation. She spotted a circular ring of cobbled stone protruding out of the ground. She leaned over it, her ears quickly picking up on the sound of running water. "...Very functional. They even had running water."

"Ya don't say. Maybe we should settle here then. It's an actual shelter unlike what we have going on." Maria chirped. She sat herself against a stone house, making herself at home.

Anise stood over her, trying to give off an air of authority. "Don't you think those blue robes know about this place already? If we stay here we'll be flushed out eventually."

"That's bound to happen wherever we go. This is their turf, so they're bound to find us so long as we're here. Not to mention one of them was in control of Descended hounds, so they could easily track us when we're out in the open."

Lucy slowly pulled up next to the mercenary and sat down. She cupped her hands under her chin. She was deep in thought. "You mentioned that the other day, but that scythe wielder didn't have any Descended with her."

"Nor did any of them when they came to pin us down," added Anise. "It could have been that they don't have that many on hand. But the real mystery is how they're controlling these things in the first place."

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Maria sat upright, trying to put her full attention on that pressing question. Descended were monsters creatures that were born from despair and Mortal influence was a big factor in creating said trauma: ecological destruction, overhunting, improper domestication. All these things often lead to these monsters being born. As such they were incredibly violent towards humans. She found it hard to believe that anyone could control them. "Something is going on in these canyons that's much bigger than us. The Robed freaks, the Descended, the souls trapped within the very stone, and this male camp. There's way too much going on here to not be connected."

Lucy listened to her thoughts and grew anxious with every unknown she had listed. Her defeat had been a serious reality check, and her self-confidence was shaken. "Goddess above. What are we supposed to do? Those robed women, the Crypt Keepers, or whatever they called themselves, they're strong. I was never in control of that battle earlier. I was pathetic."

A swift elbow met Lucy's side. She nearly crumpled under the shocking force. She gasped, holding her side in agony and staring at Maria for an answer.

"Cut the shit," she hissed, "don't go feeling sorry for yourself because you lost once. That's not how knights should act. The only thing that should be on your mind is how you are going to get your revenge. And I'll tell you right now, the only correct answer is 'in blood'."

"In blood..." Her words resonated deeply in Lucy's soul. She had been made a fool of by some woman using an oversized farming tool. Her Opazyr DNA was howling at a chance for redemption. She could see the disappointed looks of her fellow knights as clear as day. She couldn't leave until she got her revenge. "You're right. I can't let myself be defined by such a loss! Next time I will win!"

Maria shot her a wolfish grin. "Damn right, you will. But first, you should thank the herald. Without her, you'd be due for a much longer recovery."

Anise dismissed the praise, turning away from them both. "It was nothing. It's not like I could let the lady just stay injured. What would Lady Fia think?"

A warm smile decorated Lucy's pale face. "Thank you, Anise. No matter the reason the simple fact remains that I owe you a great debt. I never let such a thing go unrequited."

"I'm honored you feel that way. You can repay me by not losing again."

"Now that that's settled, let's get back to the issues at hand." Maria snapped her fingers, bringing everyone's attention to her. "We've still got a supply issue to worry about. We were banking on those reinforcements to save us, but this place is quickly becoming a warzone. Even if they are still coming getting into contact might be difficult. We can't just sit at the entrance for them, and this place is such a maze that it would be hard-pressed to easily get into contact once they get in here."

"We smoked the meat we had from yesterday. But it won't last forever," commented Veronica.

"Exactly. We're strapped for rations. We can't fight a damn thing on an empty stomach," said Maria.

"Well, how about we look around here, maybe there's something we can salvage from the ruins?" Asked Lucy.

"You want to search for food in centuries-old ruins?" Maria gave the knight a look. It was a silent message that she thought Lucy was truly stupid.

Lucy twiddled her fingers and chuckled nervously. It only just dawned on her how fruitless of an idea it really was. "Y-yeah... You never know, right? Maybe the men who lived here had a weird preserving technique. I heard that Agamics were pretty good with magecraft."

Maria sighed and stood up. "Yeah, men are incredible with magecraft. It comes way more naturally to them than it does to us. I guess it wouldn't hurt to look."

It wasn't long before the group was tearing through the cavern, rummaging through room after room looking for anything that could be considered edible. They quickly fell into their natural pairs. Veronica stuck close to Maria, while the more noble ladies did their own search. However, try as they might, no matter how hard they combed through the stone buildings and piles of useless tools and objects, they never found a single morsel of food.

Veronica sighed in frustration, leaning on a cave wall. "No food, but this place is large. We could be searching all day."

Maria wiped some sweat from her brow. "Yeah. The size of this place is crazy. We've only searched the main part, but this place is littered With small offshoots. We should clear them out just to be safe. But I feel like if anything was inside of them it would have come out by now."

Both stood by each other, taking a break from the search and the general madness of the day. The stoic silence they shared was short-lived. Veronica just had one question that she was dying to have answered.

"Maria, how do you know so much about Agamics?"

"Oh, that? It's simple. I've been to their continent before. When I was working in another land, I ended up falling in with an influential Agamic. He was an eccentric guy and eventually convinced me to help him out in his homeland for good pay. I got to work amongst them for a bit. It was different from anything in female society. It was so... Loose. Everyone was so independent, only working together when they shared a common goal or could bargain for some help."

"So they didn't care about each other?"

"Yeah, I guess you could say that. They don't really have a reason to. Women do what we do because we're creatures bound by love. We need each other, we yearn for each other. Men aren't like that. They have an asexual reproductive process, so things like lust and love are harder for them to comprehend."

"So what do they have?"

"It's kind of hard to explain. I don't really understand it even after working with them, but I would say men have comradery and familiarity, but no sense of friendship."

"I don't get it. How can they have comradery but not friendship? Those are the same thing."

"Not quite. You've been a soldier all your life, so I can see how you'd think that. But take me and Lucy. We're comrades, but we ain't friends. Comradery is surface level. It's built upon a common goal and little else. If you don't hang out with someone outside of a job, that's not a friend, that's a comrade. That's what men have. They work together, but they don't live together. Each one is living for themselves, and not shit else."

"That sounds... Awful."

"I don't know, they seem to make it work. They were incredibly kind and relaxed. I would have been tempted to stay if they weren't so reclusive."

"You don't seem very social. Maybe you would have fit right in."

"Very funny."

They sat around for a while before the sound of stomping feet perked up their senses. Lucy's heavy footsteps echoed throughout the ruins. She came to a sliding stop, her steel greaves grinding against the stone. "Hey! You guys! We found something!"

She led them down one of the many branching paths, it twisted and slopped unnaturally, forcing them to climb, slide, drop, and jump to get across. The engravings became less decorative, giving way to walls of endless scripts. Even without being able to read them, Maria could discern the differences in handwriting. The closer she looked at the writing on the wall, the more she swore that she was hearing something, but she couldn't place her finger on it. She was so distracted by the noises and scribbles that she barrelled into the knight the moment she came to a stop.

"Hey! Are you ok?" Lucy grunted. She barely kept them both from toppling over.

"Huh? Oh! My bad. I was... distracted, no, enthralled," Explained Maria. She stared down the walls with suspicious eyes. "There's something off about this place."

Anise knocked on a piece of metal, snapping everyone's attention to her. She stood In front of a metal gate. Large metal rods barred the door in place. The door itself had one long passage of text scratched into its face. The words faded more and more with each word. Whoever wrote them was weak, possibly even dying.

"I'll keep it brief. We found this door, and I suspect there's something sealed inside."

"What makes you think that?" Questioned Maria.

The herald slapped her hand against the cold metal, smiling from the chance to show off her expertise. "These passages on the walls and the door are a bunch of journals. I believe they are addressed to the person behind the door."

She pointed to the passage scratched into the doorway and read it aloud. "Oh brother of mine, I am all that remains. I have laid the others to rest proper, but there's no strength left in my veins. That fowl demon wench has marked the end of our clan. Her power grows stronger with every passing day, and our home is irreversibly corrupted by her hands. These last ten years have been leading to this very moment. A relentless effort to persist in you. So sleep well, and gather your strength, and when the time arrives you will be reborn as something greater. I cannot say whether you will be man or monster, but it matters not. So long as you kill the demon..."

Anise crossed her arms and leaned on the door. "And that's where it ends. There's a little more, but it's all illegible. Everything engraved into this place is one big memoir. It seems like everyone had stuff they wanted to say to whoever's locked inside."

"So these Agamics seek revenge, but against what?" Asked Veronica. "Assuming this demon turned the land into the Ashen Canyon, what happened to it? Was it a Descended?"

Maria shook her head, "In the beginning, the author said it was a 'demon wench'. I think that it was one of ours who did it to them. A Conjugate must have wiped them out."

"But warping the land? I've never heard of any woman in history with power like that!" Lucy refuted. "The only woman I've ever heard with that kind of power would have to be the goddess Eyra, but she's never set foot on this planet. There's no way an event like that could go under history's nose."

Anise nodded along. "It could have been a powerful miracle incantation, although I can't even think of a chant that would be capable of doing this. Even the most powerful incantation under The goddess Eyra only invokes land fertility and healing. It could be a lesser god, but I doubt an incantation could summon that much power from them."

Maria strutted up to the door, standing before the pale gray slab of steel. "Why don't we open it up and ask the man inside?" She placed one hand on one of the many hefty bars keeping the door locked.

She could feel the shock and disbelief being piled onto her. Anise gripped her wrist with a tight hold. "Are you crazy?! What if he's hostile, we don't know what kind of firepower that thing has at its disposal."

Maria grit her teeth. Being grabbed by Anise struck a nerve deep within her. "Get your hands off me. Or do you want to lose the ability to pay proper respect during your prayers?"

Anise reluctantly let go, moving her hand to grip the steel latch. "What's running through that uneducated head of yours?"

"Desperation. This situation has become a real pain. The Robed freaks have us outnumbered. The Purlikins are clearly moving against us, and something tells me those reinforcements aren't coming. Whether they don't care about us or got handled by the wizards doesn't matter. The point is that we're in trouble."

"Then why don't we just retreat? This mission is beyond us now. There's no point in doing something that risky!"

Maria threw her hands up and groaned. "Fine... But it's not my call to leave. There's only one person who can give a retreat order." She turned to face Lucy. Her charcoal eyes taunted the young knight. Did she want to give up? Was she going to run home and relinquish the job to a better knight?

Lucy was hesitant, flashes of her loss struck her like a hammer. Then another moment forced its way into her mind. She was in the ornate throne room of Lady Fia. Standing beside her was her mother, who had been a long-standing knight of exceptional caliber. She was made to sit and listen as Fia and her mother talked about sending her to the Ashen Canyon. Fia kept questioning Lucy about her abilities over and over, but every time it was her mother who answered. It was her mother who had advocated she be sent on this supposedly simple mission. Sure they had lost a retrieval unit but this was still an easy job on paper.

Yet here she was surrounded by babysitters. Every woman here had the primary duty of maintaining her well-being. She was supposed to be the best out of all of them. The strongest, most valiant person in the room. Yet when she looked into Maria's eyes she felt weak. When she looked at Veronica's strong form she felt undisciplined. And when she heard Anise speak she felt ignorant. She was pathetic, and she would feel even worse standing before Fia to report an utter failure.

"I... I can't leave. I promised Lady Fia that I would secure this canyon. My mother vouched for me as well. I can't bring myself to tarnish her good word. So I will stay, and if it comes to it I will die covered in ash before I return home in defeat!" She placed her hand over her chest plate. A feeling of dread washed over her. Her fingers instinctively picked at the deep gash in her armor where she took the fatal blow.

"Even when born amongst pearls, we shine. We speak better, think better, act better, and fight better. We are flawless and priceless, carved by the goddess with meticulous detail. From our hair that's white as snow to our eyes that define the very concept of red, we set the example for what a woman should be. With our weapons, we will crush all who would threaten our love and our peace, for they are merely rocks to be ground into a gravel road on our path to greatness."

Lucy gently grabbed Maria's hand and placed it over her chest plate. "That is our creed. We cannot leave until all the unsightly boulders have been turned into the finest road. I want Lady Fia to be able to walk along that road and pick crystals like berries."

Maria couldn't hold back her smug, toothy grin. Her head rolled over to serve Anise a maliciously calculated side-eye. "There you have it. We ain't going anywhere. Of course, if you want to run by yourself, go ahead. Although I can't imagine that the Opazyr would be very happy that a member of the Hoary Church bailed on a joint operation. I wonder how badly that would strain relations?"

The herald held her tongue, then her breath. She folded her hands tightly to lock them down. She desperately wanted violence, and Maria knew that. She also knew that she wouldn't act on it.

"Now that we've all made our deathbeds. I'd like to gamble a little bit." Maria threw open heavy metal bars with a deep grunt. They creaked and groaned as they settled into the upright position, locking themselves into place.

The door, free from its bindings, began to whine and wheeze. Stale air rushed out of every crevice along with an overwhelming sense of magical power. It opened with a slow, deafening creak that was only worsened by the enclosed nature of the cave. It was dark inside, the bright lights that radiated off the cave ceiling made no effort to cross the door's threshold. It was an unnatural, unyielding abyss.

The uneven pattern of stumbling bare feet crept towards the entrance. The group watched with breath bated while the steps slowly grew closer.

A hand grabbed the metal frame, violently gripping it with desperate fingers. Slowly a face emerged from the darkness that was foreign to all but Maria. The strong features, the broad jawline, and the sharp bulb protruding from the throat were a clear decoration of origin. This was an Agamic, a man, and by the look of ornate wooden staff that came lurching out of the dark as a support crutch, he was also a Wizard.

Sharp, silvery eyes scanned over every one of the women that stood before him. His eyes locked onto Maria, who was the only one who looked at him with certainty.

"I've been awoken early... With four Conjugates standing before me," his eyes bounced from wall to wall, cautiously analyzing his circumstances, "And not a brother in sight..." He chuckled, but his laughter was somewhat hollow. "So, who's going to take up the mantle of explaining yourselves? I'm deathly curious, and depending on what you say your deaths could be very close."