The summit of the structure appeared sooner than Amber had expected. No matter how far the wind guided her or how many sights she saw, the world always appeared smaller and smaller to her from the first glance above.

Is this how the gods see the world below?

She circled down slowly, descending in a cyclonic fashion. Her golden eyes carefully scanned the edges of the tall mountain. The peak was remarkably flat, with pale stone reflecting the edges of the bright moonlight. The center of the structure was hidden beyond the folds of billowing smoke. If she wished to perform a good study of the thing, she had to get closer.

A good Outrider always knows the land, her grandfather would always say.

She touched down on the southern edge, hundreds of feet directly above the village of Autumnvale. Her feet came to a scraping stop, and as soon as she was standing on the peak she felt a bizarre vibration dancing up her feet. Curiously, she walked slowly forward, parting the mists with her sweeping face. Even with the smog at its thickest, she couldn't smell a single thing. If she closed her eyes, she wouldn't know the difference, even if the night was as clear as spring water.

"Explain to me what freaky creatures would like about this," Amber murmured aloud. As soon as she said that, she felt her heart skip a beat, for she suddenly remembered the words of Raymond and Tobias. Her nose twitched as she gazed back and forth through the soupy mixture. Every sudden shadow and burst of air held malevolent weight to it.

Her nostrils flared. For better or for worse, the more anxious she felt, the more she was drawn forward into the mess. She marched boldly against the vapors, feeling the fissures in the mountaintop grow more and more complex beneath her. Then, as her pace took her nearly one hundred feet into the smoke, she saw black-against-black shapes. Blinking, she lowered her cranium and more closely scanned the rock. She realized she was coming upon a vent in the surface of the stone summit. Holding her breath, she listened carefully and heard—or thought she heard—a pattern, a venting stammer to the mist being funneled out of the top of the structure.

The stone surface suddenly flew against Amber's face. She was collapsing before she knew it. A breath of air escaped her lungs in a grunt. As soon as she attempted pulling herself back up, a wave of dizziness overwhelmed her. She clenched her eyes shut and reeled as the world spun all around her.

"Nnnngh... For the love of Barbatos..." She sputtered and clasped both hands over her her neck, towards her glowing Vision. "Not again! I j-just got done talking to the Shogun, for crying out loud..."

Amber lay on her side, curling her limbs up and shivering as she felt like she was plummeting hundreds of miles up and down all at once. Her eyes stopped rolling in the back of their sockets just long enough for her to open them and see the smoke billowing all around. She thought she saw brown things streaking by, like the edges of leather wings as quick as comets.

"Not... a good pl-place to be..." She hissed. The streaks doubled, tripled. She couldn't tell if they were just her imagination, but she wasn't about to wait around long enough to tell.

"Unnnngh... Dang, I hate this." She seethed. Slowly turning around, she crawled herself towards the edge of the summit. By the time she made it to the cliffside, the dizziness had left her. She wasn't about to fly any long distances in her condition, not until the nausea faded. Still, if she was going to be vulnerable anyplace, she'd rather be vulnerable where there were other people around.

With a defeated sigh, she stood up, flex her limbs, and calmly glided straight down towards the familiar brown shape of Autumnvale below.

The wooden streets of Autumnvale had cleared by the time Mike unloaded the last of several metal poles. He handed the stalks towards a group of neighborhood folks and fellow guards who walked towards the far corners of the suspended village with the items in their grasp. At marked places, the Ashengaters erected the poles and planted glowing mage crystal on top, its rocks a beacon against the never-ending smog. A dim silver glow bathed the fringes of the place. Slowly, the fog that had for so long seeped down the sides of the mountains began to clear, retreating from the burning mana of the delivered rocks that had been freshly raised.

A brief cheer echoed among the people within sight of the much awaited clearing. After sharing several proud, victorious glances, the guards of Autumnvale began their nightly patrol. Clad in leather cloaks with polearms fastened to their sides, they marched determinedly about the edges of the miners' high altitude home.

Mike exhaled long and hard. Under the scattering bands of fog-laden moonlight, he dropped down from the delivery wagon and began tying shut the canvas bags that had carried the enchanted crystals to the caravan's home.

No sooner had he started doing this when a shrieking red comet fell from the sky, slamming offensively into an alleyway full of loose barrels and garbage crates.

"Yiiiiaaaaaaaaaaaugh—Ungh!"

Mike twitched and glanced aside. There was a loud clatter of footsteps as half-a-dozen guards rushed over, brandishing their polearms in fright. "What is it?! The creatures?! Are we being attacked?"

"Nnnngh—I'm... dang it—I'm all right! Ooof..." Amber clumsily pulled her reeling, bruised body out of the alleyway. She stood, fuming, brushing flakes of wood and debris off her limbs. "Friggin' city of wood, I swear. Don't you guys—like—ever stop and think if it's worth all the splinters?"

The people all relaxed with a sigh. They chuckled, then smirked in the traveler's direction.

One of the guards that was part of the caravan gave Amber an amused glance, knowing how strong she was, but was reminded that she was still human. "You okay, little Outrider? You look a little loopy-eyed." To think this was the same girl that wrestled an electro hydra to save poor John.

"Hey! I'm cool—DAH!" Amber tripped over a barrel, winced, and slumped herself up against a wall of varnished oak. "Just having an argument with gravity. Isaac Newton is overhyped, if you ask me."

The guard people marched off, laughing amongst themselves.

"Hahahaha."

"What a quack!"

"Who would have thought girls like her were so ditzy!"

Amber rolled her eyes. She was about to burn them with a comeback when—

"Hey! Her ditziness saved all of your older brothers' sorry flanks!" Mike barked. "So would it kill you to be a little bit grateful?"

"Depends. Would it kill her to do a barrel roll?"

"Ha! Who ever heard of a dizzy flying Outrider?"

As they left, Mike sighed, hanging his head.

"Ya know..." Amber stealthily swallowed back a gulp of rising bile and maintained composure enough to smile. "I always figured that village people were full of it. But I didn't know that some of them have it for breakfast in the morning. Heheheh..."

"I'm sorry."

Amber squinted. "The heck are you sorry for? You're not the one who fell off the jerk train tonight."

"They wouldn't have continued poking fun at you if I didn't say anything," Mike mumbled, digging his feet into the street. "I... have that sort of a reputation around here."

"I don't get it, but whatever." Amber shrugged. She smiled at him anyway, appreciating the effort. "Thanks for sticking up to me, for what it's worth."

He scoffed. "You're lousy at expressing gratitude."

"Yeah, well, you're lousy at accepting it."

"Guess that makes us even." Mike wandered over. Reaching into his vest, he produced a canteen of water and handed it to Amber. "Here, it'll make you feel better."

Amber eagerly took the container. "And what makes you think I feel anything but awesome right now?" Her eagerness in gulping that canteen said otherwise.

"Were you purposefully aiming for the alleyway or did it just jump out at you?" Mike can't help but perked his brow.

"Hey! I've flown into tons of towns before! It's a hobby of mine! At least half of them were a lot bouncier than this one! What the heck kind of trees do you earth people chop to make this thing? Iron birch?"

She missed those wooden cottages at Springvale, at least they were not as solid as these. Sheesh.

Mike giggled. "Maybe the guards were right. Maybe you are ditzy." He glanced aside and ran a hand through his short blond hair. "We could sure use whatever you grew off of in this kind of a place."

"Is that so?" Amber gazed sideways at him. She slowly screwed the canteen shut. "Maybe then you wouldn't be doing double duty."

"Huh?"

"Last time I checked, everybody who was in Tobias' caravan has gone inside their homes to hang out with their families. Everybody but you." Feeling thirsty again, Amber uncapped the canteen, staring intently at the nervous figure before her.

Mike avoided her gaze, but those golden orbs still linger. "Huh..."

"Didn't you say you had friends in this place?" Amber remarked, raising the canteen to her lips. "Surely there's somebody you miss, someone you'd like to hang out with."

Mike took a deep breath, gazing solemnly at the wooden panels beneath them. "I'm fine. Besides, I like it when I'm doing work. I like it even better than sleeping."

"That's kind of weird, don't you think?"

"What's it matter to you?" Mike's voice cracked as he glared back at her.

Amber blinked, shrugged, and sipped from the canteen. After a liberal gulp, she exhaled and said, "I just don't like seeing lonely people."

"Why?"

"Because it makes me think of how sad it is," Amber murmured, "That a sane guy or girl would go through life doing stuff that they hate, trying to make themselves think otherwise."

Mike gulped and reached back for his canteen. "You presume too much."

"If you insist," Amber handed the canteen back, but at a low angle that forced Mike to catch her sharp gaze. "So when are you going to tell me your name?"

Mike blinked at her. "Huh?"

"Your name."

"You already know it!" Mike stammered, nervously taking the container from Amber while clearing his throat. "It's 'Mike.'"

"No, I mean your real name." Amber's burning eyes were stabbing.

Mike avoided the look yet again. "You're nuttier than you think, traveler. You know that?"

"I know a lot of things, but that's not the point." Amber spoke, "You may be able to fool a wagonload of dense, marble-headed men but you can't fool me. You and this 'tough as nails' routine comes across as waaaaay cheesy, especially when all you do is let these creeps walk all over you. So are you gonna tell me or what?"

Mike's face fell. The person's eyes closed sadly. Upon the next breath, the Ashengater's body deflated with a relaxed exhale, and the voice that came out was decidedly higher than Amber had ever heard it before.

"'Mika'," she muttered. "My name is 'Mika.'"

Amber snorted.

"Yeesh, no wonder you were hiding it," Amber said with a smirk. "If your real name was any more girly, you'd spit perfume every time you opened your mouth."

Mika frowned. "It isn't funny!"

"I didn't say it was!"

"Then why are you laughing?"

"Cuz I don't get it!" Amber stifled her chuckles long enough to look straight at the short-haired blond girl. "What's the big deal? What are you trying to prove? Lemme guess, girls aren't allowed to partake in delivery caravans?"

"As a matter of fact, no, we're not." Mika shifted uncomfortably in her leather gear. Her voice was higher and more relaxed, but the glaring frown was as trademark as ever. "I've come a long way getting to where I'm at now, and though I may be on the short end of the stick when it comes to peer respect—you're right—these bozos are too dense to know any better. So, I get to do what I want to do." That frown shifted into a glare. "And if you so much as think of spilling the beans to them—"

"Whoah whoah whoah!" Amber waved her hands. "Who in the hay said that I was gonna rat you out?"

Mika blinked at her. "I thought you were—"

"I was just curious, girl! I could have gone on without making you 'fess up if I wanted to. Where I come from, girls aren't told they can't do stuff because of who or what they are. If you ask me, I think it stinks that you have to go ass-over-elbow to do something you feel proud of."

"For what it's worth..." Mika grumbled.

Amber glanced at her curiously. "So... you don't enjoy working with the caravan?"

Mika's tone became hesitant. "Well, it is okay and all, but..."

"But what?" Amber pressed, curious as to what drove the girl to do what she must to leave with the caravan.

Mika sighed. "I'd rather do that than stick around here..."

"What's wrong about this town? Aside from all the splinters you must get from living here, it looks pretty boss."

"Maybe on the outside it does," Mika said with a grunt. "But a girls who lives here is stuck living her life inside."

"You're serious?" Amber sported an incredulous smirk. "I thought it funny all the dudes did all the mining. Why? Do the girls have to avoid sunlight as well?"

Kicking a small rock off the wooden platform and into the foggy abyss, Mika was rather slow to answer. "This place is old. It's built on tradition, and that tradition is old as well. A little too old if you ask me."

"Ever thought of just moving away?"

"And ditch all the people I know and love?!" Mika briefly sneered. "Heck no!" She sighed again and stared off into the mists beyond the crystals' glow. "Still, there are some who would like that..."

"How much is 'some'?"

Mika bit her lip. "More than Raymond knows, I'm willing to bet."

"I had a chat with Raymond?"

"Did you really?"

"Uhm... Okay. So I sat around and ate some fruit while he rambled on and on about boring stuff. But he struck me as a tender-hearted... uh... old guy. He really feels a lot for this town and the crap you guys have been through. I can't imagine him turning a blind eye to so many of his own citizens if all they wanted to do was get up and leave."

"You fly around a lot," Mika said to her. "You strike me as a person who is never in one place for too long."

Amber grunted, but did not deny it. "What's your point?"

"My point is, you don't understand old people!" Mika grumbled. "You have no idea just how clueless they are! There're a lot of Ashengaters in this town who would much rather leave all the mines, high altitudes, and nasty night creatures behind and go living in the southern coastal cities and the river towns that border Teyvat."

"Are you one of them?"

"What did I just tell you earlier?"

"That you had a really girly name."

"No, it—Unnngh..." Mika face-handed. "Mmmmngh... One of these days, something big is gonna happen, and this town that I love is gonna flip upside down from how crazy the people react to it."

"Raymond doesn't have many years left, does he?"

"I wouldn't be too concerned about Raymond," Mika muttered. "Conrad, on the other hand..."

"Raymond's son?" Amber raised an eyebrow. "What about him—"

Just at that moment, there was a shouting voice from the far end of the platform. "Up high! Up high! From the southwest!"

"They're coming!" Another panicked voice yelled frantically.

Mika gasped. "Oh jeez! Oh jeez!" Clearing her throat, she wrapped her leather hood back up and galloped off. "No more talk!" she exclaimed in a lower voice.

"I don't get it?!" Amber squawked after her. "Who's coming?"

She shot a panicked look back. "Who do you think?!"

Autumnvale was alive with the rattling cacophony of dozens of feet trampling over the wooden lattices. The windows of buildings briefly opened as families glanced out into the misty madness, only to slam them shut and barricade them desperately from the inside. Squeaking sounds filled the air as small metallic ballistas armed with razor-sharp barbs were wheeled out onto the outermost platforms. Clad in leather armor, several Ashengaters clung to their weapons and stared out into the mists from the protective glow of the silver mana crystals.

For a moment, all was silent, save for the nervous breaths of multiple people forming an anxious chorus. Phalanx after phalanx of young men held their ground, doing their best not to quiver in their horseshoes. Mika was among them. She ran to a stop beside a ballista team and held her polearm up at the ready. Gulping, her eyes darted from underneath her hood as she looked for any sign of darting shadows from beyond the fog.

The moonlight gave the dense air an otherworldly quality. A dim blue aura bathed the elevated township, obscuring the night sky above and the deathly heights below. As the seconds wore into minutes, only the wind moved, and even that was the barest of alterations to the ever-frozen moment.

"False... f-false alarm," one man muttered. He stood back, sighing with relief as he leaned on the ballista controls. "Figures that some idiot got spooked and made the rest of the guards freak out."

"Shhh!" Mika hissed, struggling to keep her voice low. "For all we know, they could just be stalking us!"

"Oh please." He spun around and smirked at her. "Don't even pretend that the winged brutes are capable of patience—"

A brown shape hurled itself out of the seeping clouds and swept the man off his feet. His voice turned into a scream as several spindle-thin limbs hoisted him into the air, released, and sent him—flailing—through a wooden pile of crates. As the splinters flew, Mika found herself ducking more and more shadows. An entire swarm of leathery bodies were slicing their way through the mists and dipping into the streets and platforms of Autumnvale. The air filled with their horrible banshee cries, punctuated by the random shouts of people fighting back the sudden onslaught.

Mika squatted low, panting hard. She gazed up in time to see a man backing up, swinging his polearm high. He managed to knock one creature off-course, only for a second one to dive low and sweep him off his feet. He fell back through a series of barrels just as more leathery creatures took the entirety of Gold's eyesight.

"Unngh!" She shrieked, a little too high for her liking. She fell back from the horrid weight of something against her chest. Upon landing, she was looking up into a flat, angular face with no eyes and a horizontal slit of a mouth full of serrated biscupids. Long, spidery limbs stuck out of the thin body of the ray-like monstrosity. Mika smelled the scent of copper blood and bile; the creature was biting down at her.

Grunting, she lifted the length of her polearm in time to block the creature's lunge. Its thin, razor sharp teeth nibbled and tore into the body of the wooden weapon. With her mouth, she clamped onto the side of her polearm and yanked to the left. The creature was flung off by its grip. It smashed through a railing, impaled by a piece of plywood, and fell—shrieking—into the depths of the valley below.

Breathing hard, Mika stood up. She reeled from the sheer force of three creatures flying directly overhead. Struggling, she raised her hood for a good look. She saw the creatures flying straight for a silver crystal erected on a metal pole. They shrieked painfully from the proximity of the fog-clearing magic. Sacrificing their bodies, they joined together and hurled themselves into the burning light. They succeeded in knocking the crystal completely off the side of Autumnvale so that it fell ineffectually into the depths below. Immediately, the smoke and fog of the mountain filled the gap remaining.

Mika gnashed her teeth. She spun and saw several people engaged in fruitless battles all across the elevated urbanscape. One by one, while the defenders were established, groups of creatures were sweeping in to tackle the sources of magic.

The very thing that defends the town.

"Hey!" Mika shouted. "Hey!" She shouted again, desperately standing on her feet and waving two arms wildly. "Pay attention! Look! They're going after the crystals! Protect the crystals!"

"Nnnngh!" One guard was struggling with one of the giant, bat-like monstrosities just a few feet from her.

"Hey!" Mika ran towards him. "Let's work together! We gotta keep them away from—"

"Back to Tartarus, you friggin', flying rats!" The guard yanked a dagger out of a hand's sheathe and made a jab at the creature. A giant spidery-leg poked him in the eye. "Aaugh!" He fell back, and his foot got entangled in the controls of one of the ballistas. The launcher spun around, yanked to the side, and fell to the platform. As soon as it did, the giant barb was fired. It skated across the wooden floor, spraying sparks, and barreling towards Mika.

"Aaaugh!" Mika dove to the side just as the projectile flew into a wagon full of garbage. Half of the contents flew in a dense spray into the girl. She absorbed most of the blow, but the wave of junk was too much. She tripped, teetered, and plummeted hard into a length of wooden railing. With a sickening crack, the wooden fence gave way, and she fell.

Gasping, she flung her hands up and caught the edge of the platform. The sweating girl dangled—barely—from the edge of Autumnvale. Swirling mists and brown bodies spun around her. Below, a foggy crevice yawned hungrily like a glowing blue maw.

"Nnnngh!" Mika struggled to pull herself up. Her ears rang with the shouts of people and crashing wood. Something lit up her peripheral vision. She watched despondently as another mana crystal—pole and all—was being flung over the edge, lighting up the otherwise impermeable depths below. "Oh blessed gods, help me..."

Just as she said that, a pair of brown creatures touched down on the platform just above her. With drooling mouths, the eyeless things leered at the person and prepared to stab with their spindle-legs.

Mika' eyes narrowed as her face tensed.

In a blink, something had flattened the two screeching creatures into painful contortions. A pair of white glistening boots were mercilessly trampling them with the sickening crunch of bone and skin. They were kicked limply over the edge, so that they plunged past Mika.

"Wh-what?!" She breathed heedlessly, but the sickening crack of wood breaking hitched it. Then that breath turned into a scream as she slipped from the platform and fell to her death. "Aaaaaaah!"

She saw the world getting smaller, it felt almost like a fever dream.

The world stopped flying past her, for a pair of soft gloves was yanking her up by the hood of her outfit and back onto safe land. She teetered, until a certain Outrider held her steady. She looked up and blinked.

"Amber...?" The sudden gust of wind beneath them burst into life.

The wind around them felt so alive, guiding them upwards to the Cliffside town. "You really gotta watch out who you pray to." Amber winked at her.

As Mika was finally let go, she had the sudden feeling of the smooth surface of wood beneath her. "You came here... j-just to save me?!" She asked incredulously, staring at Amber while the Outrider herself was dusting off the mess.

"Pffft! As if!" Amber rolled her golden eyes. She turned and bravely faced the carnage, scraping her feet along the floor with emphasis. "I came here so I could look awesome—"

Just then, three shrieking creatures mercilessly tackled her.

"Daaah!"

Amber flew sideways across a platform, bounced off a building front, and skidded to a stop in the middle of a vacant market bazaar.

"Unnngh..." She winced, stirred, and then got up to her feet with a smirk. "Well, that wasn't so bad."

Two creatures dove down and walloped her upside the head.

"Ow!" Amber seethed. "Alright, ya melon fudges! Have it your way!" She jumped behind a stack of barrels, pivoted, and kicked them hard into the air.

Searching for the right items in her bag, she had a few Kunai knives that was gifted to her when she made a friend during her recovery at Inazuma.

As three more creatures came down to strike at Amber, they were pummeled in midair by her gifted projectiles. They fell onto the wooden platforms, twitching and thrashing, until a group of Ashengaters galloped over and opportunistically stabbed them to death with polearms.

"That's how you do it!" Amber shouted with a smile. "You can all thank me for dinner later!"

"Amber!" Mika shouted from a distance.

"What?" Amber turned around. "It's you guys who like eating meat, even if they are freaky—WHOAH!"

A rather large monster was flying straight into her. It plowed into her chest and shoved her through the lengths of Autumnvale's dozen homes, whizzing past several people in a heated battle with the attacking swarm. Amber gnashed her teeth and wrestled with the thing's spidery legs. Its thin slit of a mouth drooled and snapped at her, ultimately clamping onto the edge of her Vision. Amber let loose a pained growl as her eyes swam dizzily. With a snarl, she headbutted the monster off her Vision, flung her neck to the side, and struck hard onto its wing. The creature let out a banshee cry and spun from the weight of Amber's jaws. Soon, the two conjoined combatants smashed into the body of a wooden shed in the residential section of the village.

Dust and debris settled over the scene. The distant shouts of various people echoed through the mists. After several seconds of nothing...

The creature burst back out, then floundered on the ground. Its wing was bleeding and it struggled in futility to stand upright. One of its legs was missing. Just as it lurched towards the edge of the town...

Amber dove out of the shed with a dismembered leg in her grasp. She swung the thick, branch-like thing across the abomination's skull several times before stamping the creature's body with her uninjured feet and stabbing down. Amber shoved the spindle-like leg down the creature's throat like a hot pin through butter. With a sickening sound of gurgling breath, the monster choked on its own limb and fell to the floor.

"Damn!" Amber spat and rubbed her lips. "Smells like a burning air-ballon. I dunno how Tobias and the others do it." She paused, sniffing, making a face. "The heck smells so bad?"

Just a few feet away from her, John marched out of an apartment flat with a nightcap on. "I'm telling you, honey," he shouted into the house while walking out. "I've no idea what all the noise is! And I think it's a really stupid excuse for us to have stopped—" He paused, wide-eyed, upon seeing Amber and the mutilated creature. "Well then, there it goes."

"Watch it!" Amber shoved him—grunting—to the floor as several more creatures dove down. They knocked over a glowing crystal, spun back, and formed a circle around Amber and John.

The first of them made a lunge for the man, shrieking. John curled up into a ball and cried. Amber skidded in the way, absorbed the full dive of the creature, latched onto its wing with bare hands, spun all the way around, and flung the monster like a club into its partners.

The creatures flew everywhere like dying fish. As soon as they started thrashing about, another thick group of monsters flew down to take their place. Suddenly, a polearm was being thrust into the spine of one of them. Mika was rushing in, gripping the spear in her shaking hands and shoving it into the flesh of the invader. No sooner was she impaling the thing when its siblings viciously knocked her aside with their wings.

"Unngh!" Mika flew back, only to be caught in Amber's warm hands.

"Welcome to the dance-off," Amber mused, her face stained with sweat and dried blood.

"Not sure I wanted an invite," Mika stood on four feet, then sniffed. "What smells so bad?"

"Destiny."

"You're really full of it."

"Hahahaha..."

Mika gulped as she and Amber and John were being surrounded by winged cretins. "We're... We're all gonna die, aren't we?"

"Yeah. Isn't it cool?" She looked over. "Lemme borrow that." She grabbed Mika's polearm. With the use of her quick hands, she snapped the thing in half. "Here..." She tossed the barbed tip Mika's way. "You get the easy one."

"Jee, thanks."

"If for some reason you live through this and I don't," Amber's eyes briefly flickered red as her Vision glowed a little dimly from within. "Have somebody put my ashes into a bunch of fireworks. I heard that a famous man once had that done for him. Ever read Children and Loathing in Fontaine?"

"I've got bigger things to worry about than obscure books."

Amber perked her brow, even amongst the chaos she was bewildered. "Obscure? Do you know who you're talking to? Even I know this book." The only things she ever read were children's stories and the knights' handbooks, by force on the latter. That classical piece she had read on her way from home was an exception that changed her way of seeing the world.

The creatures produced a collective shriek as they closed in.

"Oh right. These things." Amber gripped her shattered half of the polearm and scraped her feet against the ground. "You ready to do this?"

"No." Mika replied, hesitant but brave.

John's only answer was a whimper.

"Good. Just stay behind me and try not to look more awesome. By the way, I like your hair."

Mika blinked. "What?"

"Raaaaugh!" Amber gave a warcry and leapt violently into the phalanx of leathery bodies.

Amber tackled one creature, flung it into another, headbutted a third, kicked a fourth, and sprinted murderously into a flank of charging monstrosities.

"Rrrrgh!" She ducked one creature's lunge, spun about, stabbed her half of the polearm into a second, then hoisted its twitching body so that it slammed across two more. As soon as she threw the wooden splinter out of her hands, she spun and punched all of the tumbling creatures over the edge of the platform. "Hah!" She reared her fist victoriously. "How's that for a slice of pain—Ow!" She hissed as a monster leapt up and stabbed her backside with several spidery legs. "Aaaahhhh!"

"Amber!" Mika shouted. She stared with wild eyes while driving back a circle of drooling creatures.

"I'm alright!" Amber grunted and struggled under the creature. She was flung forward by its weight into a heavy wall of leathery attackers. "Wait! Scratch that! I'm not alright! Ohhhhhh that hurts. Ow! Ow ow ow ow ow ow!" Seething, she clamped her hands onto the platform, and spread her glider wide to hop. "Nnnngh-Gaaaah!" With a loud yell, Amber spun mid-jump, summoning the wrath of the wind around her.

The one attacker was flung off her back while several more reeled from the spinning impact of the winds the spun with her. It was all she could do, though, as with a heavy sensation on her body, she landed back on the ground.

Amber panted, limped, and leaned against a loose stack of barrels. As she dealt with the throbbing pain, she tiredly gazed at an angry line of creatures diving down at her. Just then, she made a face. Amber's nostrils flared a few times as she sniffed the air.

Before the monsters could land a single blow, a very angry man was charging in and tossing a wooden crate full of rusted horseshoes at the lot of them.

"Grrrr!" John knocked several of them into the walls of the cacophonous battle scene, no longer whimpering away in a corner. "I didn't march all the way here to spend my first night at home playing piñata with scum-sucking abyss-spawn in the middle of the night!"

"You ever thought of breathing on them?" Amber wheezed.

"Guys!" Mika rushed up, leaning on her polearm and pointing up at another incoming swarm with her hand. "There's more of them coming!"

John glared at her. "What's with your voice, kid? Did one of them bite you where the sun doesn't shine?"

Growling, Mika didn't bother changing the pitch in her retort. "What do those things look like? Your wife?"

"Hahahaha!" Amber guffawed.

John slapped her backside. "Don't encourage him, Amber!"

"Owwwwww..." Amber winced and hissed towards the mists. "I am so killing you right after I kill them."

He scoffed, as he readied his stance. "Get in line behind my wife."

"I mean it, guys! What are we going to do?" Mika's eyes were frantic, as they were before, but more so fearing the looming shadow towards them.

As Amber made an audible crack on her spine, she smugly replied. "Get in line behind his wife."

"No, about the creatures!"

Flexing her arms, Amber readied her stance too. "You ask any more redundant questions, then I'd say we toss you at them."

"Some help you are, Outrider."

"Fine... FINE!" Amber stepped ahead of the two, wincing. "Okay, here's the plan. John, you start a fire. Mika—er, Mike, you get another polearm to make a tourch—"

"A torch?!" John gasped.

"You fool, we're in a city made of wood!" Mika added.

"Oh, right." Amber's golden eyes blinked at the incoming swarm. "Guess we're dead, then."

Shrieking, the final band of attacking monsters dove low, their legs and fangs slicing through the air. Mika and John ducked, covering their heads in fright. Frowning, Amber shadowed them. She summoned all her strength and stretched her arms up ominously to face the aerial charge.

"Let's see what you got, ya gutless flying bagpipes!"

No sooner had she shouted this, but a huge wave of arrows and barbs flew from the center of town and impaled half of the creatures in midair. The remaining monsters squawked in surprise and banked off to the side.

Amber, Mika, and John flashed a look to their right. A solid line of Autumnvale miners had arrived at the scene with crossbows and barb-launchers in mid-discharge. Standing beside them was Raymond's son, Conrad, and he was shouting at the top of his lungs.

"Send them back into the mists!"

The miners shouted a battle cry and let loose another volley. Several more creatures plummeted bloodily to the platforms as the remaining few who could still fly darted off for the moonlit haze of night.

Finally, the chaos and noise of the evening dwindled, only to be followed by a loud roar of cheering folks. The citizens of Autumnvale celebrated their brief victory, before eventually gathering around Conrad to assist in tending to the wounded.

"This is getting out of hand," Conrad muttered to his fellow workers. He wiped sweat and soot off his brow as he frowned into the foggy distance surrounding the village. "If my workers and I had gotten word of this just a little bit later, we wouldn't have come in time to provide backup. I don't know how much more of these attacks our village can stand. Father has to be convinced to change things..."

Several weary people around him murmured and nodded in approval.

"Let's form a triage for the wounded." Conrad glanced Amber's way. He squinted. "Outsider," he spoke in a solid tone.

"Outrider." Amber groaned, as her body felt heavier. She fought the sensation, and stared back at the approaching man.

"Your assistance is appreciated, but I fear we'll need more than just a single woman's timely intervention if we are to stave off these monsters once and for all."

"Hey. More than happy to help. Nice crossbows, by the way."

"Yes, they most certainly are." Conrad sniffed the air. "Blast. Is it enough that they attack us so heartlessly but we must deal with the stench of their decaying carcasses as well?"

Amber waved her hand. "Nah, that's just John here."

"I beg your pardon?"

"That's it." John bumped his way past Amber and limped down the street, groaning, "I'm going home."

"Heh..." Amber smiled and reeled dizzily. "All in... a day's work..."

"Amber..." Mika walked up to her and murmured mutedly, "I think you need to sit down."

"Why? Sitting down is for pansies."

"I mean it! I think you've got a lot of blood loss?"

"The heck are you talking about?" Amber blinked. Something warm and wet dribbled down her face. Her eyes shot up in time to catch a thin curtain of crimson trickling down her outfit from multiple bite and stab wounds. "Oh, hey. Check that out."

She then collapsed in a dry heap, unconscious.

Mika could only gasp.

"Amber?"

She played with the soft flower bed around her. They bounced between her hands in the glistening morning sun. The wind's gentle breeze tickling her nose.

Her eyes wide open on blue canvas above, the white stark colors gently shifting like a swirling creature laying on the surface of calm waters.

The wind clashed against her brown hair, warning her of another presence. Above the flower bed she was taking a nap in, Amber saw a figure approaching. With her golden eyes, she squinted to see not one, but multiple colors in the distance. Blue, purple, white, and red.

For the first time in a while, she smiled truthfully. The corners of her lips ached in joy.

Getting up from her comfy spot, Amber stood straight and waved towards the approaching figures. Their bodies splotched in a vestige of a rainbow, and the image was made even more beautiful with the endless sea of flowers around them.

Waving and yelling in joy, the Outrider always kept the smile alive as she continued to wave her arms around.

And yet, as she called out to the figures, her heart stopped. The flowers were gone. The sky was no longer a lake, but a shadow-less pond.

Pain echoed on her neck. It was burning. Her waving stopped, her voice cracked and yelled no more. Amber clutched her neck, but there was nothing there, just the sensation of sizzling pain.

"Amber…"

With hope in her eyes, she looked up, and expecting to see her friends. Instead, what she saw were grey. More grey, and the colors disappeared.

Amber can hear her heart beating loudly, and she can no longer find her voice.

The sensation expanded, as her throat felt like fire was ready to burst. Tears glistened her eyes, as she saw the last colors of the world fading away. Her friends were nowhere to be found, the flowers were gone, and the sky around her darkened.

As Amber desperately gazed beneath her, her hands were no longer alive, just grey. Her uniform's vibrant red was no longer there, just grey. Her skin, was just grey.

Even tears falling from her cheek were no longer vibrant, just splotches of grey, like dirty mud.

All that remains are the flame within her, just the fire that kept burning. There was no anger, no passion. Just the fire.

Amber felt her last breath shimmer, as she choked on the fire that burned her. Her knees clamping the dark reflection beneath, as Amber felt the cinders wither her body away.

She no longer felt alive.

"Amber...?"

Amber was no more.

"Amber…!"

Just the flame. It was the only thing that remained.

"Amber!"

"Nnnngh—Gaah!" Amber's eyes flew wide open, and they weren't hers.

Mika gasped. In the light of a dim candle, she pressed the Outrider until she was lying back down on her cot. "Calm down! You were out for—like—ten hours—"

"Scrkk... Burning... It burns..." Amber gnashed her teeth and thrashed about the tiny wooden room. "Nngh... What's... What's wrong with my—" She flung her hand up to her throat. She gasped. Her neck was bare.

"Where?! Where is it?!" She snapped, her tone wispy with pure venom.

"You looked so uncomfortable in your sleep. I took the liberty of removing the pendant—"

"Are you fuckin' crazy?!" Amber sat up, snarling like a beast. "Where is it?! What did you do with it?!"

"I-I—"

"Tell me!"

Mika pointed nervously. "It's right there on the end table—"

Amber lunged for it. She knocked a stool and a stack of bandages over in her effort. Panting heavily, she grabbed the glowing Vision and flung it over her head, fumbling to clasp it in the back.

"Here, allow me—" Mika reached.

"I got it!" Amber snapped. Seething, she concentrated and finally fitted the item on. Once she felt its familiar weight, she let out a huge breath of relief and slumped back against the nearby wall. She sweated, trying to calm herself down as the liquid seconds dripped by her pale face.

Mika fidgeted, fighting back a slew of shivers. Biting her lip, she bravely murmured, "Your eyes. They were... different, just a moment ago."

"I don't know what you're talking about..."

"They were red, but a different kind of red. Glowing, burning and shrinking—"

"You saw nothing."

"But—"

"You didn't see anything!" Amber snarled. "I know I kid about a lot of stuff, but I sure as heck ain't kidding about this!"

The tiny room echoed slightly with that outburst. Soon everything quieted until all Amber could hear was the panting sound of her own voice. With a groan, she sat up and ran a hand through her messy brown hair, pausing to revel in the flat feel of her brow.

"Look, I'm sorry. You've obviously done a lot to take care of me since—Owww..." She winced slightly as she ran a hand over a series of bandages plastered to her spine. "Ahem. So, like, thank you and all. But there's something you must know in case I'm crazy enough to hang out in this shindig any longer." She gulped and stared Mika directly in the face, all the while tugging on the edges of her ruby-studded flames on her Vision. "This must never... EVER be taken off of me. You got it? I don't care how many crazy frickin' bats from nightmareville decide to stab me, this thing stays on my neck at all times. Do you understand?"

Mika hung her head.

Amber stared at her. For a moment, she thought she saw a flash of purple color in the corner of her eyes. So she clenched them shut, seethed, and reopened them... satisfied to see everything returning back to its dismal, Autumnvale normality.

"Seriously. Thanks for everything. It's just that... well... I can be in a worse state than being gnawed at by flying suitcases. And, for that matter, I—" She paused in the middle of her awkward speech, her nose twitching on the scent of something tense in the air. "What... What's all the commotion about?"

Mika gazed out the tiny shack's door. Several people were hurriedly marching past the frame, collectively heading towards the loud and crowded center of town.

"Well?" Amber raised an eyebrow. "Patron god of crossdressers, got your tongue?"

"Mmmm..." Mika meekly stirred before saying, "It's about Conrad."

"What about him?"

"You've been out a long time, and he's called together an emergency meeting."

NEXT UPDATE ON FRIDAY/SATURDAY.