Miles woke to a world on its head.

Well, more than usual. The cry of seagulls and the chitter of a dolphin soothed him awake, mind racing to recall the events before his loss of consciousness as he gazed "up" at the beach. He was still hopelessly entangled by the rope coiled about the tree, though there was no sign of the mass of bone that had previously been smooshed painfully up against his soft tissues. Nothing had eaten him during the night, which was nice. The dolphin splashing in the shallows even looked positively friendly as it gazed up at him.

The dolphin spasmed suddenly, thrashing in the water as the surf churned blood red around it. A moment later a crab, almost as big as a mobian, tore through the dolphin, giant claws snapping in a spray of its victim's blood.

Right, now he remembered.

Everything about this world was horrible.

The crab skittered towards him, leaping with surprising force towards his spot stuck in the boughs but fell short with a clatter. Miles watched it launch itself two more times trying to reach him before scuttling away back to the water.

"They pursue you because you do not belong, Harbinger."

Miles twisted to face the familiar baritone. Nigel Carter stared up at him from atop a small outcropping of rock, except there was none of the tortured old man left.

Only Mister Skin. Gone was his tattered shawl, gone was the grey and squalor. All that remained in this man with his pristine red suit and fashionable red hat was power and certainty not quite of this world.

"I thought I killed you." Miles tested his body. Broken bones had given way to bruises, that they were even that injured after so long was a testament to how badly he had been hurt.

"Indeed?" Mister Skin just chuckled, his eyes the same blue as the ocean beyond as he pulled out a small pocket mirror and held it up towards Miles. The fox's own puzzled reflection, caked in blood and bound in rope stared back at him.

The man crushed the mirror in his hand with a smile, blood drizzling onto the sand in a rain of glass.

"How do you feel now, Harbinger?"

Miles swallowed drily, snapping one of the ropes binding him. Mister Skin's smile broadened.

"So you already understand."

Miles nodded, slipping free of another rope and wrapping his tails around the trunk of the tree, not taking his eyes off the ancient thing before him.

If the world was a piece of paper, and people just pictures dancing across the page, what would they make of a dark shape that fell across their path? To them it was something vast and all encompassing, enough to change the world with its very presence.

But to the unseen artist, whose hand had crossed over the page by chance, was it anything at all? A shadow, a reflection. He could destroy a thousand of those skeletal giants and Skin wouldn't care. He existed beyond a level that Miles could even interact with.

Was the corruption the same way? Was it the simple influence of Skin, or something else, that changed the world into a rotten visage of itself? Was it even intentional? Or just a side effect of them drawing close enough to feed?

"You needn't look so fearful, Harbinger." Skin waved a finger, a black flamed skull swept into a crab, shattering it into a pile of chitin. "I have merely come to indulge my own... curiosity, after all. My task in this place is long done."

"I'm… I'm not scared. Just cautious." Another rope. He was free now, hanging off his tails. They ached, but they'd fly.

"Indeed." Skin snorted. "Then perhaps caution is fitting? I have long seen my answer, however. You are simply you, after all."

"Wha-"

"Your spoils, Harbinger." Skin pulled a sack from nowhere and tossed it to the sand at the base of the tree. "And as special advice, perhaps you should seek out the one who sent you here?"

When Miles glanced back up from the bag, Skin had already disappeared.

"I look forward to meeting you again in your native land very soon, Harbinger."

Miles slapped his hands across his own mouth as he dropped from the tree, landing head first into the sand with a powdery thump.

Still alive. Skin had left. And he was still alive.

He rolled rightway up, tugging away the bandage that still bound his legs together as he glanced at the bag beside him. From here he could see a skeletal face emblazoned across the pale fabric. Rewards for an amusing performance? "Remains", as he'd been collecting from the other creatures in this place? One last, deadly trick?

Well if it was that last one, Skin had presumably had plenty of time to kill him while he dangled comatose from the tree. At least half a day, given the sun. Possibly many times that. Miles reached out, untangling the drawstring on the bag and letting its contents tumble out before him. An ornate golden bar as big as he was - and far bigger than the bag it came in - a book, a skull, and a skeletal hand.

No, wait. A glove. The same side as the one he'd lost, decorated in bone around a thin black material that could barely be seen in between. Miles held it aloft a moment before pulling it on, making a fist a few times as he felt the strange fabric settle comfortably over the short fur of his hand.

Fit like a- well, glove. He absorbed the gold into his hammerspace, prepared for a strain that never happened. Was it that light? Was hammerspace working differently here?

Strange either way. He shrugged. If he took his time here a crab would eat him. Plenty of time to experiment when he-

The skull vanished in a burst of violet flame the moment he touched it with his newly gloved hand. Miles felt it slide into his hammerspace against his volition, nestling in the corners of his being like the time stone that had infused with him before.

A shadow fell over him from above. A familiar skull with floating limbs looming behind him. He launched himself to the side, whirling to face the… perfectly normal sized skull that drifted passively above him, two glittering blue stars shining from the depths of its eye sockets as it stared at him.

Expectantly?

Miles waved, and the skull, with two disembodied hands just like its predecessor, waved back, taking no particular movements as it waited before him.

The skull? Miles focused on the sensation of the thing within him, trying to exert some kind of will upon the apparition to no avail. It simply followed him as he moved away. The only time it had responded was when he'd waved… with the bone glove. Miles waved his hand again, gesturing broadly with his hand up to the tree above. The skull drifted upwards, returning a few moments later with a length of rope in hand that it dropped at his feet, bobbing in the air before him once more.

"Uh… Thanks. I guess." Miles spaced the rope with a thought. Some kind of drone and control unit? If not in the same mechanical sense then at least some mystical analogue.

So was that a manual? Miles reached down to pluck the book from the ground. He could use an extra pair of hands, even if it was creepy, and the same skull motif was on the cover of the book. He tugged at it, feeling an odd resistance as he forced the stiff cover open, reading the words within.

And wished he hadn't. He lurched back, clutching his eyes with a whimper. The book tumbled to the sand, falling open easily now, its pages blank.

The words had already found a new home, after all. His lips were already sounding them out. Faster and faster, feeling cold black pressure in his head that built up to a raging crescendo as that gut wrenching truth scoured him from within and he understood what lurked in the angles of the letters... and forgot just as quickly as his mind adapted around the trauma like it had so many others, leaving only the dull horror of repression behind, the feeling of the attention he'd just earned.

Miles swung his arm out and a blazing skull erupted from his fingers, a lesser copy of the one Skin had thrown minutes before, and he felt the familiar emptiness in his soul to power it. The same mechanism behind the spark rod and the blackshard, only this time he'd inscribed that in himself, invited something cold and alien to make its home in him instead of within the covers that safely bound it.

Miles shook his head numbly, plucking the now empty book from the ground as he straightened. A dark, deep chuckle slipped from his lips as he whisked it too away to hammerspace.

It was going to have to get in the queue. Time Stones, the crystal heart, the things inside the walls, spooky skull drone… His mind was already contested territory What was one more?

Miles stood, brushing sand from his fur as he started running towards the catacombs, his new skeletal companion hurtling along behind him.

He was going to need a lot more arrows if he was going to travel back across the desert.