On the fifth day on the road, Ral felt it first. His stomach turned as his senses were washed with external feelings of dismay, as if he was moments away from putting his head on a chopping block. Rask felt it moments after and he immediately took out a small reference map. They had bought one when they passed a small farming village two days back, one they simply passed as they had no space or patience for visitors - they held people forced from their homes after a gate opened in their town or village.

“There’s no indication of settlement,” Rask said.

“Let’s go anyway.” Ral forced the runes on his staff to listen to him, sharpening the metal tip to a deadly dagger. He had gotten better by practicing all day, materializing the sharp edge over and over again, trying to make it sharper and pointier. Now, in a time of distress, it seemed to form it easily, the sharp edge reflecting his aggravation.

They didn’t need to travel too far in the forest. A spot had been cleared for a small, modest cabin to stand next to a tiny garden with vegetables and herbs. The plots were dug up and ruined as an Unseeing crouched in a grotesque, disordered array of limbs and too-white flesh and feasted on what looked like a woman’s body.

The sounds of the monster’s red mouth crunching on bones made Ral’s skin crawl. He shuddered and the motion seemed to alert the Unseeing. It raised its head and turned its eyeless face to him, too white skin stained with blood of the gutted corpse under it.

“It has plating,” Rask muttered. “Be careful.”

Indeed the singular Unseeing had strange raised parts over where its pectorals would be. It was also a too-white color but it looked like bleached bone. Indeed, as it launched itself forward to the two men, Ral shoved his staff right at the monster’s heart, only to have the sharp edge glance off the plating.

Rask shouted something as Ral twisted to try to stab it again. It moved unnaturally fast, suddenly appearing on the side of a tree to their left and crashing down to Ral, screaming with its red mouth, long teeth gnashing. The staff kept the snapping jaws at bay. The freerunner smashed down the metal tipped staff - the monster screamed and turned their attention at the older man.

Ral quickly disengaged the staff, forcing the wood to disappear and the metal tips to clasp together. Suddenly without the staff, the Unseeing staggered down towards Ral. He viciously shifted, gripping the cylinder of metal in his hands and forcing the sharpest blade he could form in that state. He managed to stab the monster with what was essentially a long knife. It slipped between the plating and sank deep into soft flesh.

Ral kicked the Unseeing off him, stabbed further and twisted the blade. It screamed. Then it fell limp on the ground.

“Sun have mercy,” Rask muttered.

Ral quickly took out the makeshift blade, urging it back to its normal cylindrical form. It was slippery with blood. His eyes then fell on the woman on the ground not five paces from him. There was so much blood around them.

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He realized Rask had gone straight into the little cabin so he followed. Inside, a fire still burned at the hearth. What looked like the remains of a meal half eaten sat on the table.

A small body lay limp in front of the fire. On the ceiling of the cabin directly above it burned a circle of dark fire. Not a single rune existed in the cabin, not even to control the fire. This was exactly what Rask had been describing: Gates that open by themselves.

Swallowing, Ral stared down at the body of the child; their solute was used to open the Gate, no doubt. He was unable to stop his eyes from wandering over the small cabin again. A half done charcoal drawing was set at the table, depicting a man, a woman and a child. Sun’s mercy they were just a family of three. The woman disemboweled in the garden the mother, this small corpse was what remained of the child and the Unseeing was presumably the father.

“Just end this madness,” Rask whispered. The freerunner read him like a book again. Ral had to focus again and again to find the solute. He gripped it in the Great Solvent, then opened his eyes again. The kid couldn’t have been older than six summers old.

He couldn’t... He glanced down to find his hand still clutching the metal cylinder of his collapsed staff, the blood now drying. The kid’s father’s blood. If he left the Gate open, someone else may come by and turn.

Ral gritted his teeth and crushed the small solute. The Gate dissipated.

The next moment he was conscious of where he was, he was sitting on a rock by a small stream. Ral didn’t have the heart to look to see if he could see the little cabin from where he sat. Instead he stared down at his blood stained hands still clutching the metal cylinder. If hands existed in the Great Solvent as well, his would be stained there as well.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Rask said as if hearing his thoughts. “You did what you had to, Ralos.”

Ral didn’t answer; he simply stood to wash his hands and weapon at the stream. Then they continued on their path.

Ral couldn’t sleep that night. It was already difficult to sleep with nary a mat to curl up on - he also found himself unaccustomed to the dampness that constantly seeped into his clothing from the ground. That night he found himself a large enough boulder and stared up at the clear night sky.

A large clear moon drifted across a sea of stars. It would have been a sight his father would have held a feast over. Moon watching was a Caelisian past-time. But despite his past and his surroundings, looking at the night sky only reminded him of Mikol and the Somas.

This was like another milyssk jor. He was expected to come to some sort of decision at the end of this test. Was there ever a milyssk jor like the one he was just made to go through? What words of wisdom would Mikol or Bette say to him? Back then he had the stark impression he didn’t think of things thoroughly enough: now he’s in the opinion he thinks too much. He snorted at the irony. Did the milyssk jor finally work the way it was supposed to?

My spirit melds into form by a force unseen, he could hear Mikol whisper through the dark. Now that he thought about it, it sounded suspiciously similar to the saying Rask taught him: We must follow where the Solvent flows. Perhaps different in certain ways, but the meaning to Ral is the same. Things change and all must change with it.

Perhaps Gaians and Yscians were not so different after all. Ral rested an arm over his eye, letting the ugly grief squeeze at his heart.

Sun-curse it, why did things have to be this way?