Wolverine and Spider-Man RPG Isekai Chapter 24: The Manor of Time, a Marvel + Dungeons and Dragons Crossover fanfic

WOLVERINE AND SPIDER-MAN RPG ISEKAI EPISODE 24 : THE MANOR OF TIME

Memories of rage and terror flashed at the back of Wolverine's mind.

They were too fast to see but not to feel. His heart started to pound of its own accord, his veins tightened, his blood electrified.

Clenching a fist, he forced it all back down. Clear mind, clear focus. This would all be over soon. There was work to be done.

In the howl of a frigid wind and under a clouded sky, the Far Marvels stood straddled atop their reindeer. In the valley before them lay Old Plieya.

An expanse of forgotten stone and entombed brick, the village stretched on for miles. It lay like a gathered nest of bones for the castle resting at its center, serving as its final defense against intrepid travelers.

With no words exchanged, Wolverine prompted his reindeer to begin the long descent into town.

She refused to move.

With snorts and stomps his mount spurned his command, and it wasn't just his. Moaning in white clouds, all the deer refused to take another step.

Holding out a gloved hand, their ranger muttered a spell and started conversing with her deer. After a few back-and-forth sniffs and huffs, she looked to the party.

"It's hard to put what beasts think into words," Boksee explained. "But she says that's a valley of death. The reindeer won't go there."

Wolverine thought.

"Then we leave them behind."

With a loud chant and a hard stomp, Nih forced a wall of stone from the permafrost. Spider-man started webbing the deer to it.

"Now you keep an eye on these four," said Wolverine to his sour doe. They were pulling their packs from the mounts' backs to save their strength. "Got that Tomi, you're in charge 'til we get back."

"She's in charge anyway," said Boksee with cheek. Logan gave her a look.

The reindeer and unneeded gear left tethered to the summoned wall, the party began descending the long slope with poles and snow shoes.

"Man, this actually would have been a great place to use the skis," commented Spider-man.

"If you want to carry down Ms. Ball Buster, go ahead," huffed Logan.

Spider-man looked to Wyn. She looked back. They both stayed quiet.

His fur lined pelt whipping over his shoulders, eyes shielded by wooden slits, Wolverine looked around. All around them, hollow and gloomy alleys stretched out into a clouded white haze.

He felt his hair raise.

The party was making their first arduous steps through the entombed town streets.

"Hrngh," grunted the mutant sniffing. "Webhead, any spider sense?"

"Spider sense? Not really. A bad feeling? Totally."

"Everyone keep your guard up," said Wyn pulling her mace. "This ground is unhallowed."

"Unhallowed?" asked Peter.

"The resentment of mass death permeates the air," she said peering down an alley. "You can feel it. Expect to encounter undead."

"Undead? You mean like malevolent entities?"

"Possibly."

With another blank stare, Spider-man pulled up the two sticks he had webbed together.

"Do you still have that thing‽" snapped Logan. "Come on, we need to move," he growled.

"Wait" hushed Boksee seriously.

The party turned to see she was staring at a cottage window. Just visible behind the ragged remains of a broken shutter, they could see something had been written on it.

With a loud clatter, the window was pulled open and the party stood gazing into a home frozen in time and ransacked. Across every surface, the same four words had been written over and over again. They were crudely carved into wood and stone, and where they weren't, they were fingered in black stains. The same four words…

"Winter feeds," said Wyn reading the walls. "Winter gnaws."

The party stood in silence. Wind howled between the miles of snow buried streets.

"Hey um, Wyn?" said Peter.

She looked to him.

"Would this be a good time to break out the holy water?"

"By the might of the divine, may thine anointment grant thee protection," she recited plopping a drop on Spider-man's head.

"This blessing can protect from malevolent entities," explained the paladin. "But the attacks of corporeal undead won't be affected. Don't get complacent."

She repeated the process on Boksee and Nih and aimed for Logan.

"Save the prayer Mother Tereasa, we need to keep moving," he said brushing her off.

The shadow of the castle looming above, poles stabbing and snow shoes crunching, the mutant kept them moving through town.

"Not seeing any undead yet," said Spider-man looking through another open window. A bed and hearth were completely enshrouded in thick sharp ice.

"It is a bit odd, isn't it?" said Boksee. "This certainly seems like the place for them."

"Maybe everyone just got out? I mean, it's not like the curse dropped ten feet of snow on them all at once, right?" he reasoned.

"No, the detail of the perishing villagers is consistent through every iteration of the story," said Nih.

Boksee looked into a broken building. It was a higher-class home. Treasures of obvious value were left on shelves and tables, completely undisturbed, not by historians nor by thieves.

"Then what happened to the bodies?" she whispered.

They reached a dead end.

Looking up to the castle, then to either side, Wolverine moved to walk them down another street. A steel grip landed on his shoulder.

He turned to see Spider-man behind him.

"Not that way," he hushed seriously.

Wolverine didn't even question as he took them the other direction.

Eventually they found what seemed to be the main street. It was not only wider, but unlike the rest of the town might have even been traveled. Boksee pointed out what she claimed were the slightest remains of sleigh tracks but couldn't say how long ago they had been left. It was a straight stretch to the castle.

Reaching the road up the summit, they began their ascension.

"Webs," said Wyn. "Keep your senses peeled. We are extremely vulnerable to attack in this position," she said brandishing her shield. "Elf, ranger, eyes to the castle. It was built for this very purpose."

"I don't see anyone in the battlements," said Nih watching the snow-covered crenellations.

"No spider sense."

"If Winter's luring us into a trap, she seems to be doing a poor job of it," said Boksee.

"Maybe she's just got somethin' extra special cooked up'," growled Logan.

Nearing the top, they were met with an ancient iron gate, this one less of a defense against an invading army and more a means to keep out unwanted peasantry.

Just as Spider-man moved to leap over it, Wolverine ejected his claws.

The party jumped as he let out a roar, barreling forward and slashing the brittle metal in a hideous bang and screech. Bars went clattering into the snow in all directions.

"I needed that," the mutant husked nursing a wrist.

"Dude! I probably could've just opened it!" whisper shouted Spider-man.

"Could you have made any more noise‽" snapped Wyn.

"No, but you're doin' a pretty good job of it," he snarked.

Spider-man leapt to hold Wyn off the ground as she came at him.

The castle grounds were just as bleak and ruined as the rest of the town. There were still no signs of current habitation.

"Maybe Winter isn't even out here, and she sent us off to some desolate hole to die," said Boksee.

"I choose to keep things positive," said Peter. "So maybe there's just an army of hired assassins waiting for us in there."

"How is that positive?"

Reaching the castle landing, the party started up a tall set of stone stairs.

"Now ain't these familiar," husked Wolverine looking up. Sure enough, a familiar window was high overhead. It was the only one he could see on the face of the ancient fortress.

"They are?" asked Spider-man.

"Yah, you threw me on 'em. Hurt like hell," he grumped.

"Sorry?"

At last the party reached the castle entrance. The original portcullis and the great door were both ruined and fallen to the side, but a strikingly more modern and humble door had been built to fill the gap.

The party came to a stop.

"It seems someone's been here," said Wyn. "At least this century."

"Want me to knock this time?" sneered Wolverine.

She gave him a look.

"Maybe we should look for another entrance?" said Boksee. "It seems foolish to just tromp on through the front."

"I could scout around," offered Spider-man.

"We're here! Let's just go in! We'll deal," snapped Wolverine reaching for the handle but Wyn caught him.

"Yes, I agree Claws. If we're here to talk first and foremost, we should be direct," she said to the rest of the party, a hand kept to the barbarian. "Even still, that doesn't mean blindly stepping up for slaughter. Ranger, use your magic detection spell. There could be some sort of trap or hazard set."

Holding out a hand and muttering a chant, Boksee obeyed.

"No active spells," she declared. "At least not here in the entrance. I can't detect very far."

"Spider-man?" asked Wyn turning to him.

"No spider sense."

Wolverine pulled down his mask and gave a sniff.

"Druid?"

Nih pulled up his hands and felt the air. Though his face and ears were hidden behind his protective clothing, his body language fell.

"What is it?"

"There's something... something very odd in the magics," he replied.

"Like magic hole odd?" asked Peter.

"Stranger. I… I don't… I can't even… What is this...?"

"If it ain't danger we can deal!" Wolverine barked again. Before anyone could stop him, he snarled forward and threw open the door.

The frigid stillness of a dark foyer breathed out to meet them.

"Would you stop barging into places‽" Spider-man snapped in a heated whisper with Wyn's scowling approval. The mutant ignored them both.

Quickly pulling off their snow shoes, the party readied their weapons and cautiously entered. It was a grand and cavernous entrance, high arching ceilings and a central staircase. It was no warmer than the outside, but instead of constant wind, it was as still as the bottom of a lake. Eerily quiet, there was no sign of life.

With the exception of Spider-man, the adventurers pulled off their goggles and masks. Looking around, Wyn gave them one final questioning glance.

With the party's nod, the paladin raised herself with authority and unleashed her thundering voice.

"WE ARE THE FAR MARVELS!" she pronounced for all the castle to hear. "WE COME TO SPEAK."

The adventures waited, Wyn's declaration echoing down the dark stone corridors. There was no answer.

The party looked to each other.

Slightly relaxing their guard, they shrugged and moved to investigate.

"The frost isn't coated on nearly as thick here as it is in the rest of the town," said Boksee running a gloved hand across a wall. "The castle must have been warmed at some time."

"This looks new," said Spider-man pointing down. They looked to see he was standing on a large rush mat. He stomped his boots off on it as was its purpose.

Wolverine shoved him off, dropping to all fours to give it a sniff. Raising back up, he huffed the air, his eyes closed in concentration.

"Yahh," he growled. "I smell people."

"Woah, really?" asked Peter.

"Yahhhh… Strangers. Faint."

Nih looked like he was about to summon a light orb but Wyn stopped him. She pulled a torch from a nearby wall sconce and found it was new enough to be viable. Saving precious mana, the druid instead sparked it into a sputtering flame.

"Let's head upstairs," ordered Logan heading forward.

The central stair of the foyer was for grand display more than anything else, only reaching the second floor. As the party filed in behind Wolverine to ascend it, just as Spider-man's booted foot hit the first stair, his spider sense spiked in a sensation he had never experienced.

He startled back.

"Peter?" asked Wyn turning.

"Woah," he muttered, a hand reaching for the back of his head. He was looking around in confusion.

"Spider sense?" demanded Wolverine halfway to the next floor.

"Yah…?" he said putting his foot back to the stair. Again, he startled.

His spider sense was thrumming, but it was different. It wasn't just the painful tingle that prompted him to dodge. It was deeper than that, like an entire extra sensory apparatus was trying to boot to life, sensing things none of his other senses could, warning him of things his brain weren't convinced were real.

"Danger, definitely danger," he said testing it again. "But uh… not really?"

"If it ain't danger I don't care," huffed the barbarian continuing.

"Claws wait," ordered Wyn.

Spider-man tried his hardest to focus on this new sensation. It was filling him with an intense sense of dread, like walking a tightrope over the abyss, trapped in a steel ball sinking into the bottom of the ocean. Abstract and enigmatic shapes almost began to weave themselves together at the back of his mind. The shapes, they seemed…

"I, I think I feel it," said Spider-man surprised. "What Nih is talking about."

The dark elf whipped toward him.

"You're sensing the magical energies?" asked Wyn puzzled.

"M-maybe? Nih, does it… is it like… tangle-y?"

"Yes!" gasped Nih. "Yes, that's exactly it!" He threw up his hands again. "You're right. The energies feel tangled. Nothing is missing but nothing seems to be where it should be. I've never experienced anything like this."

"Does the magic work?" asked Logan flatly.

Nih turned and gave him a scowl. Flicking a hand, the drow summoned a tiny light orb beside himself and snapped it away.

"Then I don't care!"

"No, listen!" demanded Peter. "Guys, I… I don't think we should go up there."

"What‽" everyone but Nih exclaimed.

Spider-man looked up at the ancient black stairs, not helping but to liken them to a predatory mouth hanging open, the first silky lines into a spider web.

"You said it wasn't danger," said Wyn.

"Not, not active danger. It's just somewhere we probably really really shouldn't be."

"Is that danger or not?"

"We're here for your answers," said Boksee. "I'm still not detecting any active spells."

"You may not be able to detect them correctly if the magics are in upheaval," said the druid sternly.

"Well, you would be the expert on such matters, wouldn't you?" said Boksee offended.

"I am."

"Team," demanded Wyn.

"HEY! Can we get the fuckin' light up here!"

They turned to see Wolverine was already skulking around on the second floor. Nothing seemed unusual.

"Hrm," grumbled Wyn watching him.

"It seems fine for now," she said turning back to Nih and Spider-man. "I believe you two, but we came here with a mission. If you can't be more specific, we'll have to play it by ear," she reasoned. "At least for now. Just keep a look out for us. Let us know if you figure out what's going on or if you sense any more active threats," she said then turned to head up the stairs.

"We think this is the same lady that made the magic holes, right?" offered Boksee. "Is it really so strange that her evil lair feels off-kilter?" she asked following after her.

Nih made a slight harumph. Straightening himself, he calmly moved to join them.

Spider-man cringed again as he stepped back onto the first rung. It was like every instinct in his body was telling him to get the heck out of dodge, but the sight of the untroubled elf gave him enough reassurance to ignore his senses and coax him along. Still trying to wrap his head around, well, his head, and more pressingly the strange new expression of his spider sense, he didn't notice the drow was side eyeing him with intense suspicion. He stopped as Spider-man turned to him.

"How the heck am I picking up on this stuff?" asked Peter quietly.

"Perhaps your studies are yielding results," offered the dark elf cooly.

At the top of the stairs, Wolverine looked around the all too familiar castle halls. Out of the sight of the others, he clenched as memories of horror again touched at the back of his mind, threatening to burst into his consciousness.

He twitched.

The second floor seemed more used than the first - more rugs of better quality and a few other pieces of furniture - but like the entrance, it was coated in a thin layer of frost. The only light was that of their flickering orange flame, their breath hanging in the air in white clouds.

"If someone is here, they haven't been bothering to keep this floor either," said Boksee. She performed her magic detection spell again.

Wolverine sniffed.

"They may be held up somewhere," said Wyn. "Isolated or regrouped into a smaller section instead of the entire manor."

Still huffing, Wolverine scowled and looked around.

"When she brought me here, last time she was in my head," he explained. "She put us up in a hall that ended in a high window. That can't be for nothin'."

"Should we just keep moving upwards then?" asked Boksee.

The party gave each other a couple shrugs and continued forward in search of the next set of stairs. It didn't take long before they encountered a problem.

The main hall ended abruptly.

Left staring up in confusion, the party puzzled over a wall that by all accounts seemed to be out of place.

It was hard to put into words why at first, but they soon started to pick out the uncanny details. The stone didn't match. This wall looked like it had been weathered and worn by the elements, not kept safe indoors like the walls around it. It had an arrow slit that only opened into more hallway - Boksee letting them know they were looking at the wrong end of it - and the wall in general seemed far too close to an adjacent door for no apparent reason. It didn't quite seem to fit into the ceiling or floor correctly either.

"Um, I may not be an architect, but… am I crazy or does this wall not seem like it should be here?" asked Spider-man.

"Look," said Boksee pointing.

The party followed her gaze.

There on the floor, one of the rugs was in the wall, it was in the wall, stuck halfway in the bottom.

With consternation, Wyn crouched down and cautiously gave the fabric a pull.

It was stuck.

"That's not normal," said Boksee.

Wolverine twitched.

"We need to keep moving."

Just as he turned to backtrack, a sound caught his ear.

Beyond the wall, just barely audible, he heard the faintest scratching sound. His eye pinpricked.

"I hear somethin'!"

Nih held out an ear and concentrated.

"Oh, yes, I-"

"AAARRGHH!"

Sparks flew as adamantium met stone. The party jumped to dodge as Wolverine rammed the obtrusive wall, slashing at it again and again until hunks went flying. With a charge he brought it down, the party shielding themselves from falling bricks.

"Logan!" snapped Peter but the mutant was already blazing down the hall.

"CLAWS!" shouted Wyn.

The party gave chase.

Following the sound, Wolverine barreled down an uncanny castle corridor until he reached a door. In a flying kick, he shattered the ancient wood from its hinges, barging inside. Then he froze.

Although she wasn't phasing – her skin, clothes, and hair all covering her – and although she wasn't shredding – a skull, organs, and open tissues he was far too familiar with hidden behind skin and fabric – she was unmistakable. There – sat oh so casually slumped in a chair, her eyes wandering as a quill magically scrawled away beside her – there, sat the shredding woman.

Wolverine lunged.

"LOGAN WAIT!" blared Spider-man.

Fangs snarled, the mutant's claws sunk into the woman, and then through her. He passed through her like air, his claws eviscerating the chair in a puff of stuffing. He stumbled and did a double take. The woman was still sat. She was staring out into space, a book open on a table beside her, her quill still magically writing away. She was completely unphased.

Straightening and waving a hand through her, he again found the air empty. He gave her a sniff. Huh.

Spider-man stomped up beside him.

"WHAT HAPPENED TO WE NEED TO TALK‽" he demanded furiously.

"She ain't real."

"YOU DIDN'T KNOW THAT!"

"Claws! Webs!" snapped Wyn running up behind. "Claws, we agreed we we're going to try to restrain her. You agreed."

The mutant huffed.

"What is this thing?" asked Wyn as the rest of the party caught up and surrounded the woman. She looked real, as real as any party member, but she hadn't noticed them at all.

Boksee performed her detection.

"It's magical!" she declared. "Alright, I think I need to try to rest this spell for a while," she said holding her wrist.

"Some sort of illusion," said Nih.

"A diversion?"

"Is this the same thing we encountered in the woods?" asked Wyn to Spider-man. "The um, Pepper Ghost?"

"Pepper's Ghost," he corrected, then he walked fully around the chair, his eyes on the woman. "No…" he concluded puzzling. "This is something different. She's not a reflection. We can see her from all angles and she's not being compressed, you know, doing the shreddy thing. She just isn't real. I don't think she knows we're here."

"That is the woman you've been seeing, isn't it?" asked Boksee to Wolverine.

The mutant gave the strange woman a glare.

She was a dignified figure, aristocratic, dressed in a stiff blue gown and a tightly coiffed head of hair. Her hands were covered by gloves, arms by long sleeves, and her face… that unmistakable face. It was porcelain white, unnaturally so. Here in the open, Logan could now see she was wearing a thick mask of smooth white makeup, her lips painted red.

"Yah," he snarled. "No doubt."

"So that makes her Winter, right?" Spider-man tried to clarify. He was still visibly seething from Wolverine's unprompted assassination attempt.

"She's beautiful," said Boksee surprised. "Who would have guessed."

"She is?" asked Spider-man cocking his head. "I guess if you're into the Queen Elizabeth pox look."

"What?"

There was a knock. The woman turned and the party jumped. They whipped around to see the door, the one Wolverine had destroyed, was still hung open on its hinges but a second door, a new and unbroken one was now closed behind them.

The adventurers stared at it confused as it was calmly opened.

What looked like a member of the castle staff stepped inside. Completely unaware of the present party, he looked to the woman.

"Lady Esyllt," he said. Then he moved out of the way and bowed in presentation.

"Lord Adaliz," he pronounced.

Spring stepped through the door.

Jaws hanging open, the Far Marvels stood scattered about the room now watching the two incorporeal figures casually sitting together.

"It's Spring," said Wyn.

"Yes Silver. That was pronounced," said Boksee.

"Yes but, how can this… this is some sort of chronomancy, isn't it? It must be, yes?" she asked turning to Spider-man and Nih.

"It has to be," agreed Peter. "This guy is dead. This is some sort of time weirdness."

"Not a ghost is he?" grumped Logan.

Spider-man walked up to the late lord and waved his hand through his silver-haired head. Just like the woman, it was empty air, not even a ripple or a wisp.

"I don't think so? Does this seem like a ghost to you guys?" he asked the natives.

"Not any sort of ghost I've ever heard of," said Boksee.

"Time weirdness," agreed Nih.

They were in some sort of sitting room. Interestingly, they noticed the chair Wolverine had clawed was still whole and complete, but at the same time, was also half broken and laying on the ground. Spider-man moved out of the way as the staff re-entered. Cautiously stepping around the scene, the Far Marvels watched as he poured some wine and took his leave, closing the new unbroken door behind himself.

Spider-man jumped over and stuck his hand to it, passing right through the wood.

"This is unreal," he said phasing through the door and back in again.

"Don't get too distracted," said Wolverine keeping his guard up, but even he found himself stopping to watch as the two strange illusions started to converse.

"So then, did the voyage treat you well?" asked the woman cordially to her guest.

"Did it?" Spring asked back.

The late lord gave the woman a coy look and waited.

With a slight roll of her eyes, she flicked her wrist. Boksee and Nih both startled and moved out of the way as an ornate hand mirror materialized from out of sight and floated between them. Wolverine's eyes focused on it.

Taking it from the air and holding it between them, the woman angled it so the reflection of Adaliz was all that was visible to her. After a moment of concentration, she spoke.

"I see you with an entourage," she said looking at the reflection. "No scowl ever too deep graced your face. Oh, except when you and your men were forced to spend a night at the base camp."

Spring chuckled.

"That hideous little stable we were forced to take shelter in, is that what it's called? Yes, I'm very much afraid that did happen. Forgive me," he said as she floated the mirror away. "You know your clairvoyant sight always amuses me."

"Clairvoyance is the sight of the future. I am able to observe the past," she corrected. "Only on the very rare occasion am I able to perceive that which has yet to be."

Spring took a drink of his wine.

"Whatever you call it, I find it a charm. As for your new residence, I must say, it's a bit on the nose, isn't it Winter?" he asked looking around.

"Winter. She is Winter," confirmed Boksee.

"Did you hear what she said? She can see the past. I think that's what this is," said Spider-man. "We're watching a moment of the past."

"But why this moment? Why now?" asked Nih.

"Shhh," hissed Wyn. "They're still talking."

"I needed a place of isolation," replied Winter. "One far removed from provincial eyes."

"Would a pleasant retreat into the woods not have sufficed?" asked Spring. "You are aware Summer is currently building a monolithic structure and even he is easier to reach."

With another flick of her wrist, a book floated into her hand. Without explanation she opened it and began to read.

"Winter comes but never thaws. Endings cannot reach a close. Winter feeds; winter gnaws."

"What is this?" asked Adaliz unamused.

"A poem, a villanelle, one of the only known writings of a survivor of Old Plieya," she answered. Then she continued.

"Hunts with cold and eager claws. Nothing stops her falling snows. Winter comes but never thaws.

Bites with wind and starving jaws. Must consume but nothing grows. Winter feeds; winter gnaws.

Cries and scrapes at scattered straws. Howls and screams still on she goes. Winter comes but never thaws."

"Not to interrupt, but are you getting to a point?"

She ignored him and continued.

"Stricken bare all that once was, Winter lives for Winter knows, Winter feeds; Winter gnaws.

End an end and it's a pause. Endings cannot reach a close. Winter comes but never thaws. Winter feeds; winter gnaws."

She finished her reading.

"My dear Winter, this isn't the inspiration behind your name is it, and by extension, all of ours?" asked the lord.

"I'm afraid it is. I've known this poem since I was a girl," she said closing the pages. "For noblemen and serfs alike it seems Plieya, the wicked mistress she is, has this uncanny draw to her. And I am no exception. This poem… I found myself relating to her," she said holding the book close. "Winter that is, the personification. I understand that feeling, of gnawing, of longing, that un-scratchable itch and need to… Well, I'm not even sure."

"I believe our master shares a similar sentiment," said Spring anodyne.

"Master?" asked Boksee to the team. "They have a master?"

"Is that Autumn?" asked Spider-man

"How do you think we first met?" continued Winter. "When I began this newest pursuit, when I knew I would need space, I knew there was nowhere else I wished to be but Plieya. So, I discreetly purchased an ancient castle, as one does," she added with a chuckle.

"And what is this newest pursuit?" asked Adaliz placing down his empty goblet. "You've still failed to inform me why I was summoned out to this miserable corpse of a land. Esyllt, what are you doing here?"

Across her white face, a red grin stretched.

"My dear Spring…" she said placing her chin to her gloved fingers. "I'm afraid I have grown tired of being a mere observer."

"Chronomancy?" said Summer.

The adventurers did a double take. Suddenly the shredding woman, for sure now Winter, was in different clothing and a new position. Instead of Spring, the late dwarven war mage shared her sitting room.

"Does that surprise you?" asked Winter.

"No, no. Well, perhaps a little," he admitted. "Mostly I'm impressed."

"Chronomancy is one of the seven prodigious disciplines, true, but is it really so impressive for one of the Ascensions of the Seasons to be pursuing it?"

"You've simply always struck me as a more passive intellectual, what with your natural gift of sight," he said with an undercurrent of passive-aggression.

"It's expected that a self-made dwarf would have such thoughts toward those born into greater advantage."

He gave her a scowl.

"There is no true power of this plane save the power to change that which is fated," she continued. "That which will be, and that which has already been," she said stroking her gloved hand.

"So the work of your fellow seasons, Spring, Autumn, myself, that is not power?" asked the dwarf affronted.

"Not true power. What need is there to raise the dead if death is prevented completely? What need is there to blast your enemies from the face of the world if you can erase them from existence?"

"Such acts of chronomancy are barely within the theoretical."

"Is that not the point of our ascension? To push what is known of our chosen disciplines to their truest potential, no matter the petty rules of society or prescribed morality we must disregard?"

Again, the dwarf gave her a scowl.

Unperturbed, Winter sat and pulled over a teapot.

"So then, how does go the work on your infectorum?" she asked filling herself a cup. She offered the spout to Summer and he relaxed.

"Construction is going smoothly," he said accepting as she poured his as well. "My investigators were able to track down the last known and hopefully current location of the Desert's Bloody Heart. I have already sent letter to Autumn to procure it."

"It wasn't Spring then?" commented Wyn stepping back into the conversation. "Who got the fire spire crystal. It was Autumn?"

"That's a minor detail. You still nailed that one paladin," said Boksee.

"Thank goodness. I've been really worrying I might have told the dragon wrong," said Spider-man.

"Ah yes. Your mana vessel," continued Winter. "Where was it?"

"A dragon's nest," said the dwarf. "The storm dragon Marvononaughshaighth to be precise. It's reported he's been hibernating only a few years now so I can't imagine he'll be eager to awake any time soon. Still, I don't envy the men charged the task. At least if they fail the dragon will dispose of them himself."

They chuckled.

"Have you found a source of mana large enough to fill such a crystal?"

"Yes. Our master informed me of a very promising prospect."

"The heart tree of the Warrark forest," snarled Nih. "Disgraceful vermin, to so callously speak of…" he started before devolving into a hiss of elvish swear words.

"But didn't you hear?" said Wyn. "Their master is the one who knew of the tree then."

"Is that important?" asked Boksee.

"But enough about me and my great success," said the dwarf curtly. "I want to know of these marvelous chronomantic endeavors of yours. Tell me Winter, have you successfully cast a spell in the subject yet?" he asked with venom.

"I have," she said ignoring it.

Taking her teacup, she pitched it across the room, shattering it in an explosion of steaming liquid and porcelain.

The dwarf was unmoved.

Regally pulling herself to her feet, she clacked her heels and pulled an ivory wand from her sleeve.

As she aimed it at the broken tea cup, Spider-man startled.

"Wha- Guys…!"

Her mouth opened to speak, but instead of words a horrific screeching, screaming, grinding, looping noise erupted from the vision of the past.

"MOVE NOW!"

The party clutched their ears as they barreled out of the room. Five feet into the hall and they heard a deafening, pressurized hiss. A shockwave rammed into their backs throwing them all to the floor.

Hands instinctually jumped to cover heads, but the moment was already passed. Looking over their shoulders, the party saw the hall had changed. The wall of the room they had just been in was now shortened and warped; the door bent at an uncanny angle.

Jumping back to his feet, Spider-man ran back and threw it open. The previous sitting room was now only the size of a closet, malformed by odd angles and impossible bends in the stone walls. What was left of the furniture was embedded inside them.

The party ran up behind him and gasped.

"Webs! What was that‽" demanded Wyn rounding on him

"I don't know! Why should I know‽" he shouted back.

"I thought she was just going to fix the teacup," panted Boksee. "Not destroy the blooming castle!"

"Not destroy. Look at it! It's like it's… sucked into itself!" exclaimed the paladin throwing a gauntlet.

"Wait! Wait wait. Maybe that's it," said Peter thinking a mile a minute. "That's a time spell, right? That scene we were watching? And that past Winter just tried to cast her own time spell. We just saw a time spell trying to perform a time spell. Maybe you can't do that! It's like some sort of error. It crashes the whole thing. We can't see the past of the past being altered."

"So the entire room implodes‽" exclaimed Boksee.

"It's collapsing in on itself…" said Spider-man. His white eyes went wide. "That's what I've been picking up on. This place is ripping itself apart. If these… things. Time slips? If they keep happening, then there's always a chance one might show a time spell. We're in a chronomancer's house for crying out loud! That's what's been going on here. The whole place, magic, time, reality, whatever! It's destabilizing!"

"The weave is being tangled," said Nih, his own eyes bright with realization. "Even as we speak, these time slips are responsible for the unraveling and ravaging we sense."

"Why is she doing it? Current Winter. Why doesn't she just stop casting time spells‽" exclaimed Boksee.

"I don't think she is casting them! Not anymore. Look, I barely know jack shit about magic," snarled Spider-man. "Alright guys, I admit, but I know what a cascading failure looks like. This is a runaway effect. This place is in meltdown! We need to leave, NOW."

"Not without finding Winter!" barked Wolverine.

"How do you even know she's still alive‽ This place is magic-ing itself out of existence by itself!"

"Because she's in my head! She's still here! She wanted us here!"

"Probably so we could go down with the ship! We need to leave!"

"We don't turn tail and run at the first sign of trouble!"

"We don't just sit in front of an oncoming train either!"

"She's causin' this!" Logan roared. "I ain't leavin' 'til she's stopped!"

Wolverine grabbed his head as memories of horror threatened again to overtake him.

"Wolvie!" exclaimed Boksee, the party taken by surprise.

His adrenaline spiked as he struggled to force it back down, flashes of images almost breaking through. Right when he feared they would, his attention was caught by a new scent.

"I smell something!" barked the mutant suddenly popping back up and focusing. Turning on a heel, he went barreling off in a different direction.

"Logan!" snapped half the party chasing after him.

Wolverine was storming down a particularly mangled hall. There were walls and rooms already warped and disfigured, doors sideways and slitted windows to nowhere. A piece of a library, books cut in half, seemed to have been nonsensically spliced into a hanging lavatory.

"Not this way!" snapped Spider-man, but he didn't heed him.

They rounded a corner and nearly collided with another wall that wasn't meant to be there. Boksee screamed. The staff, the man they had seen tending to the seasons, was half stuck inside it.

The party startled back.

His eyes and mouth were hung open in death, his body stiff and frozen from the cold.

"You smell something? You mean a frozen corpse‽" demanded Peter.

"SHUT UP!"

Before the frothing mutant could come at him, an armored grip landed around his shoulder.

He whipped around to see Wyn was staring daggers at him.

"Claws," she said like stone. "You've done an exceptional job leading us here. Why don't I take over for now?"

He snarled but backed down, looking away with a hatred.

"Alright adventurers, we came here with a mission," she declared firmly diplomatic. "We're confronting the chronomancer. We're here for answers and we will not hesitate to end her need be. Let's take a moment to regroup and plan our next move. I think it's fair to say we need to hasten our efforts," she said looking to the corpse in the wall.

"Let's just go outside!" said Spider-man.

"Webs, we-" started Wyn but Spider-man cut her off.

"No really, this place is a maze. If we're looking for a window, that's what you said," he argued throwing a finger toward Logan. "Then let's look from the outside. I'll just climb us up there."

The party considered.

"That sounds like a good idea," said Wyn.

They looked to Wolverine.

Logan thought, then he nodded.

"Yah," he huffed. "Let's do that. I know what it looks like."

"Come on," said Peter quickly taking the lead back out of the mangled hall.

As the party ran to follow him, Wolverine nearly tripped over himself as brilliant pain shot behind his eyes. His teeth snarled and brow clenched. Flashes and noises - screams, glass, water, blood! It all blurred his vision.

"GAHH!" he shouted grabbing his head, the party whipping toward him.

"NO! STOP IT!"

"Logan‽"

"She's doing it again!" he barked. "She's tryin' to get in!"

"Winter‽"

He was in his tank, then out, then in a glass orb. There was a glass orb. There was an eye. Why did she only have one eye? Who? He felt the shredding woman threatened at the border of his mind.

"Should you let her‽" exclaimed Boksee.

"NO! STAY OUTTA MY HEAD!" he roared.

Wolverine lunged, his claws stabbing into a stone wall. Spider-man leapt to shove the party backwards.

It was too much!

CAN'T…!" gasped Wolverine in a panic.

For the splittist of seconds, the grotesque exposed body of the shredding woman flashed before him, standing between him and the rest of the party, her arms stretched out. Then there was a hiss.

SPIDER SENSE!

Only Wolverine could see it. Directly beneath the woman's hovering feet - to the sides, the ceiling - the hall snapped in half.

Spider-man rammed the rest of the party backwards as a deafening shockwave threw them into the air. Their fire extinguishing, they hit the floor hard in the dark.

It took a moment, but eventually the ringing in their ears settled enough for them to get their wits back. Nih was especially affected by the loud noise. He struggled to sit up and pull a dim orb light. Finding the torch and reigniting it, they looked to their surroundings.

They had changed position in the castle. Their portion of the mangled hall was now crudely spliced into a different room, an imposing vaulted chamber with a throne stood at its center. Then they noticed it.

Wolverine was gone.

"LOGAN!" screamed Spider-man. "Oh gosh! Oh no, oh my gosh, oh my gosh," he started repeating in a broken panic. Boksee threw herself around him.

Wyn took the biggest breath of her life.

"CLAWS!" she bellowed so booming the others startled and covered their still ringing ears.

The word bounced around the ancient throne room, echoing down unseen corridors.

They stood and waited. Eventually, Nih's ear twitched.

"I hear him! He's still somewhere in the castle."

"Oh thank God," said Spider-man putting a hand to his chest. He let out a few breaths. "Oh gosh. I, uh, I didn't know how I was going to explain that I let Wolverine be evaporated from spacetime to the X-Men," he panted.

"Spider-man quiet," said Nih concentrating.

"WHERE ARE YOU‽" shouted Wyn. Nih startled and grabbed his ear annoyed, then he listened.

"Basement," he said, then he listened again. "He says for us to keep moving outside."

Nih flung both hands around his ears as Wyn bellowed.

"UNDERSTOOD!"

In a near pitch black cellar, crates and barrels stacked to his side, Wolverine strained to hear his teammate's last words. Hearing her affirmation, he nodded.

He dropped to his knees, hands to the wall as he continued to pant. He needed to calm down. Guess he should be happy he wasn't imploded.

Here in the dark and silence, he found a moment to get ahold of himself. He smelled the soot of a nearby sconce, felt his hot breath puffing in the freezing black. It was only through his inhuman senses - night vision and acute hearing - that he was able to recognize where he was at all.

After a few moments of grounding, his pulse started to slow. He didn't feel anything trying to push at his mind anymore. Whatever she had been doing must have been thwarted for the time being. Sharp adrenaline was still pricking through his veins, a burning rage still smoldering in his chest, ready to reignite with the slightest upset, but he at least felt he could concentrate.

It would have to do.

Rubbing his face with a growl, the old mutant pushed himself back to his feet.

"Alright, guess I gotta find the way back out."

No sooner had he muttered the words, the sound of crying caught his ear.

Nearly startling off the floor, Wolverine threw his back to the wall, his claws leaping before him in the dark.

"Who's there‽" he barked.

He listened for reply but again heard nothing but a quiet moan and cry. He sniffed the air but smelled nothing.

Spotting the dim outline of a torch in the sconce, he grabbed it and feverishly clicked it to life. Shoving away a pile of crates, the mutant aimed his flame toward the sound. Then his heart dropped.

Huddled in the cold and dark, her boney limbs tucked tightly against her, a young girl was sat on the floor and sobbing.

Face puzzling, guard lowering, Wolverine sniffed at the air again, but again, smelled nothing. This was another time slip. Nerves settling, he moved in to investigate.

"You're new," he muttered crouching down to get a better look.

She seemed maybe around ten? But it was hard to say. She was frail and thin, dirty and ill-dressed. Her face was hidden in her arms and knees as she whimpered.

"Who are you supposed to be?" he asked the vision of the past.

That burning hatred within him surged again as he noticed she was covered in bruises and sores - purple finger prints and red marks of restraint. He glared at them, making note of the size and shape of every handprint, then he felt something else than his anger, something far worse. His heart started to pound in a sinking sense of dread as he realized…

"Have we fuckin' met‽" he demanded, not expecting an answer.

It was slight but it was unmistakable, an unsettling sense of recognition. That didn't make sense. He didn't remember her? But…

It didn't matter.

"What you doin' cryin' down here?" he asked instead, again, not expecting the vision to answer.

Through no action of his, the girl happened to pull herself from her knees and look up.

Logan was face to face with an empty eye socket.

He startled back.

Reaching up a trembling hand, the ragged girl felt the skin of her open orbit, tears falling from the absent section. Then she slowly touched a finger inside. Meeting nothing but air, she clutched her hands around her mouth to silence a scream. She reburied her face, continuing to weep, then she started fading away.

Wolverine stood and watched as the time slip quietly finished, dematerializing like snow in the wind, the bruised, terrified, disfigured child disappearing back into the dark.

The torch snapped in his hand.

The rest of the party was somewhere higher in the castle trying to find their way through the confusing, winding, unnatural, broken floor plan.

Opening a door, they found a partial staircase that led nowhere, a room covered in schematics of space, time, and astronomy, and a window that had been so twisted around it looked into nothing but more brick. A telescope was still stood before it.

"Alright, I'm about to start busting down walls," said Spider-man.

"Which one's go outside?" asked Boksee.

Peter huffed. Having taken the torch, he handed it to her and stepped over to the farthest wall. Spreading his fingers wide, he suspended one hand to the stone and started knocking with the other, trying to feel the reverberations. As he did, the dark elf's ear twitched.

"Men," said Nih turning. "I hear voices."

Wyn and Boksee followed him as he calmly made his way back out and into the corridor. Spider-man turned around to see his party wandering off.

"Hey!" he exclaimed leaping to follow after.

Throwing open the next door, the adventurers startled to see Winter and Spring floating in the air. It was another time slip, but this one was malformed.

"Guys, we really don't have time for this," said Spider-man coming up behind them.

"We came all the way out here looking for answers!" snapped Boksee losing some patience. "Now here they are floating midair. The least we can do is watch for a moment."

"Answers don't mean anything if we're evaporated from spacetime!" he snapped back.

"This could be information we'll never have another chance of learning," said Wyn. "You've been doing a great job keeping us out of harm's way silver. Let's just-"

"No I haven't! We've already lost Logan! Can't you see‽ Whatever this is, it's getting worse!" he exclaimed motioning to the floating people. "You guys aren't feeling what I'm feeling! Let's just forget about all this. Please!"

"The time slips may hold the very answers needed to stop the unraveling," argued Nih calmly looking to the scene.

Spider-man grabbed his masked brow but didn't push it as they all stopped to watch.

Having to look up, the adventurers saw the two wizards were sitting on missing furniture and hovering above a missing floor. The imagery of the floating figures was made especially unsettling by the torch dimly illuminating them from below. Harsh orange shadows lighting her face, the chronomancer had an air far more forlorn than when they had last seen her. It seemed her contemporary agreed.

"You seem troubled Esyllt," said Spring.

The vision of the woman took a long moment before reply.

"Did I ever tell you how I discovered the gift of my sight?" she asked.

"Not that I can recall."

"When I was a very young girl, the very first memory I can conjure, I remember telling my governess I saw a boy on the pond," she began to expound. "She asked me if I had meant in the pond and I said, in all certainty, no. The boy was on the pond, as if he were ice skating. She said that could not have been for it was currently summer. She took me to the pond and made me feel the warm water, but still, I was adamant. This was during my first visit to my grandparents' estate. It wasn't until I was shown an old portrait, saw the very boy I had seen skating now painted on canvas, that I realized what had truly transpired. I had borne witness to a childhood moment of my own father, of his boyhood. I had seen a reflection of the past."

Spring was silent.

"Of course, no one believed me. Why would they? I was a five-year-old claiming to have seen through the veil of time. And slowly, I began to agree with them. Gentle dismissals of 'you just had a little waking dream' and reassurances of 'we sometimes put new faces to old memories' lulled me into a state of disbelief. That is until one… cataclysmic day, again when I was paying visit to my grandparents' estate, that for whatever reason I found myself looking into my grandmother's vanity."

"I didn't look back."

"The thing in the mirror was not me. She was… her skin was boiled. Burnt red, glistening. Her hair was missing. She stood over me, a girl, older, staring down at me with an unyielding gaze. It was in that moment of pure terror that the worse happened. I did recognize her. My reflexive assessment had been wrong. The thing in the mirror, she was me. She was an older me, burnt and deformed and she was smiling. My dear Adaliz, she was smiling at me."

"I screamed, oh did I scream. I screamed and sobbed. I was but a five-year-old girl. I was inconsolable."

One of Winter's gloved hands trailed across the other.

"It wasn't for another five years before the fire. I spent five years, half of my young childhood in the knowledge of this event, haunted by a burnt smile, somehow knowing in the depths of my infant soul that it was a fate unescapable. Do you know what that feels like, Adaliz? Can you imagine what it feels like to live in constant dread, occasionally forgetting for only the splittist moments of contentment before the dark cloud re-consumes you? To cry to sleep every night for five years, only to wake every morning to the same pain. There was no relief. The fear itself was alive, the thing I was afraid of was merely the face of my suffering, the seed that the darkness in my soul used to grow into an inescapable entanglement so vast and so oppressive the warmth of a peaceful summer day was more a myth than a memory."

"When the fire finally came, when the smoke was so black I couldn't see, and the flames roared so loud no one heard my screams. When I felt myself begin to boil, it was at that moment, after all those years, half of my life, it was at that precise moment where I finally found… relief. Yes Spring. It was only when my flesh burned that a mind as tormented as mine could finally find peace. The nightmare I had dreaded so long had finally come to pass. It was gone. There was no more reason to fear."

"Then I found a second comfort. As my mouth screamed, as my body burned away, my mind recalled that I had seen myself in Grandmother's mirror boiled and raw. That meant I was going to live. Even as a child I understood this. I was going to live. I must. I must survive to be in the place I saw myself to be, otherwise I could not have seen it. I see through the veil of time only and precisely how it was and how it will be."

"And so, after I was rescued, after the healers did everything they could, and after my family and I were released into the care of my grandparents, the first thing I did was go to Grandmother's dressing room. With bare red feet, I stepped up to the vanity whose memory had tormented my every waking moment, and with eyes moistened only by thick medicinal salve, I looked into the mirror. Sure enough, instead of myself, a five-year-old girl looked back. Our eyes met and she began to scream, oh how she screamed, so utterly horrified by my face. No one else heard it. Her screams were for me alone. There was no more doubt, no question. Whether others believed me or not, I knew I could see through the veil of time."

"I smiled."

"Of course, when I was finally supplied a tutor with proper magical aptitude, I was instantly recognized as the prodigy I was. Oh how silly my family felt for not believing me," she concluded casually with a heavy smile. Then her porcelain face wilted.

"Why tell me this now?" asked Spring.

A white glove to her lips, her brow furrowed.

"I had a vision today."

Spring perked in interest.

"And I cannot pretend that it did not disturb me."

"These rune stones you're using to power your tower, they are left here in the open. Do you not understand how fragile they are‽"

The party jumped as another voice shouted into the room.

They whipped around to see another vision was playing out at the same time. Winter and Summer were pacing about the floor, Winter brandishing a paper with disgust. She was looking even more disheveled than in the previous time slip still playing out over their heads.

"I have not found a solution yet," argued Summer back. "Shielding the runes dampens their effects. They must be free to fully command the mechanisms. No other spell can be deployed onto the same rune, and…"

"Then I'm afraid your infectorum is not viable," she interrupted. "You must start again."

"You would say that. All thought, no work."

"What use is work if no thought has been put into it!"

The war mage glared at her.

"It is already built," he declared flatly.

Winter was floored.

"You pompous fool!" exclaimed the chronomancer. "This construction of yours is nothing but a monument to your own hubris! You've created the greatest weapon the world has ever known that any fool with an arrow could bring down!"

"An arrow‽" barked the dwarf enraged. "Do you think a fool with an arrow could get close to a machine that puts the breath of a dragon to shame‽"

"One skilled archer, one skilled archer on a flying mount could swoop in and bring the entire thing down! This is not functional. You must find a solution!" she said tossing the schematic to the ground.

"An arrow," he muttered again. Then he shook his head with a cruel grin. "So quick to place judgement on my work," he said picking up his schematics. "I am a master mechanist. You have never cast a single cog. How presumptuous of you to assume you know anything better than I."

"The truth is not biased by anyone's proclaimed expertise."

"No? Tell me then Winter, how goes your own expertise then? What great strides in chronomancy have you accomplished since we last met? Repaired another tea cup?" he mocked.

The woman grimaced as the dwarf sneered.

The party looked back to the vision overhead.

"Perhaps it has been my studies into chronomancy that have stirred the laten ability within me," Winter continued to Spring. "To accidentally bear witness to the future once again, reawakened a dormant terror. Not since I was a girl, seeing my own burned face smiling back at me have I been filled with such dread. This vision, the knowledge I now bear…"

Between her blood red lips, Winter bit at the tip of her gloved thumb.

"It gnaws at me."

"Winter comes but never thaws. Endings cannot reach a close. Winter feeds; winter gnaws…"

"Yah, yah, shut up," said Wolverine stomping past a vision of Winter as he made his way up a winding stair. "Come out here and face me already why don't you."

"What do you think she saw?" asked Wyn. "In her vision? What bothered her so?"

The time slips having faded, without destruction this time, the party was once again trying to find a way outside.

"Maybe her castle falling apart," snarked Spider-man.

"Look, another window!" said Boksee spotting a dark pane of glass in a bisected room.

"Oh thank heavens!" said Peter hurrying toward it.

"No wait. It's dark. It must just lead to more inside again," she dismissed disappointed but Spider-man was already at it.

He was stopped at the glass, staring out the window wide eyed.

"Webs what is it?" asked Wyn.

The party came up behind him.

Outside the window, instead of the snowy land of Plieya, or even another room, an endless black void stretched on before them. They were standing outside. Wyn, Boksee, Nih, and Spider-man were stood outside in the void staring back at them with stretched grins and maniacal eyes. The window was strangely hot.

The two parties stared at each other.

Wyn calmly stepped forward and splashed the glass with holy water. Then she slowly moved the party back away from it.

"Are we just not going to talk about that?" asked Boksee's voice.

It was perfect darkness. Hanging onto each other's clothes, blindly shambling down another hall, Nih had taken the lead. After smothering the torch, the dark elf was walking them through the pitch-black corridor searching for any suggestion of light.

"Why does this place have so few windows‽" snapped Spider-man's voice instead. "What do you people have against natural light‽"

"This place was built hundreds of years ago," said Wyn. "It's a castle, a fortress. Glass is a luxury."

"I guess that's a yes. We must be going in circles," said Boksee. "There's no way this one floor is this large," she said pulling off a glove and feeling the air.

There was a loud clonk.

"Ahgh!"

"Careful paladin."

"I think I tripped on a… wall sconce?"

"Nih turn the light back on," said Peter.

The druid pulled a glowing orb.

They were stood on the side of a wall, cloaks and long hair hanging sideways.

"That's new," said Boksee.

"Not for me," said Spider-man.

"Wait! Wind!" she exclaimed moving her bare hand around. "I feel a wind! This way!"

They took off running across the wall. Light was growing. Somehow the party found themselves reoriented correctly to the ground as they followed the ranger. Rounding a corner, a room ahead had been completely spliced out of the castle, what was left of an ancient bedroom now broken open to the howling, snowy air.

"I never thought I'd be so happy to see a blizzard in my life!" exclaimed Spider-man as they all ran toward it.

Reaching the edge, Peter poked his head out into the free air and took note of where they were. The eternally snow-covered grounds were far below them.

"Alright, this is good," he said shooting a web line to the floor. "I'll get everyone down. Who's first?" he asked mounting the edge and holding out an arm. Just as he did, a woman they hadn't seen before manifested from nothing. She went running out of the bedroom.

The party stopped.

"My lady please!" exclaimed the woman fretfully shuffling down the hall.

"Webs wait," said Wyn grabbing their torch and relighting it.

"No! Absolutely not! Come on! Let's-" but Wyn was already tromping down the hall, Nih following her. Boksee gave him a silent apology and moved after them.

Spider-man growled in frustration. Then he shot another webline to the hole, trailing it behind him as he ran to catch up.

"It's just right here," said Wyn as all four of them followed the vision into the next room over. "Every past scene we can observe might serve as a critical advantage."

Pushing open the door, they were met with a floor coated in a mirror-like substance.

Cautious and puzzled, they carefully entered the chamber and approached. There was no sign of the new woman.

Boksee dropped to her haunches and ran an uncovered hand across the floor's smooth surface.

"It's ice."

"That's some quality ice," said Peter looking at his reflection. "Ok, can we-"

"My lady please!"

The party startled as Winter, followed by the fretting woman, stomped right through them.

Spider-man startled again at the sight of the wizard's ivory wand but his spider sense wasn't reacting.

Clacking her heels right up to the edge of the mirror-like ice, Winter held up her hands.

"Ex aere ad aquam pluviam," she commanded swirling her wand around herself. Clouds formed to fill the room and were then commanded into its center. They spilled their water as a deluge of rain, covering the floor in standing water. "Glacio!"

With another stab of her wand, the past water froze into the current ice.

Removing her shoes, the chronomancer stepped her bare, scarred feet out onto the frozen floor.

"Until now the past has been my domain," she said. "Never in my life have I been able to will my sight to perceive that which has yet to be." She reached the center of the ice mirror, staring down into her reflection. "But perhaps that is because I lacked the proper incentive."

Floating over a series of scrolls and notes, she read them over. Satisfied, she summoned a few glowing spell circles into the air and held out a demanding hand.

"My lady, please," said the woman, presumably a servant, sheepishly clutching a bowl. "I don't mean to speak out of line…"

"Then don't," she snapped coldly.

"But what are you even trying to accomplish? What future sight ails you so? Perhaps, if you only spoke of it it would…"

"Would what‽" she demanded. "It's not the nightmare of a child. Simply speaking of it does not purge its potent cloud!"

"Forgive me," quickly said the servant bowing her head, bowl outstretched.

Winter's pale white face gave her a contemptuous glare. Then she sighed, eyes closing.

"There was a man," she admitted.

"A man?"

"A man, in my dressing room. He was… monstrous, savage. The look in his eye as he walked behind me, a shadow over my shoulder. With fire and fang, he stared at me with a revulsion I fail to even put to words. He aimed to kill me."

The past servant, as well as the current Far Marvels listened intently.

"This…man. He will come. He will be in this castle, in my dressing room. I am sure of this. I believe… this man will kill me, but perhaps I am mistaken. I cannot live with the mere glimpse of this event. I must know more."

She once again held out her hand.

With a grimace, the servant presented the bowl to her.

Snarling her spotless white face, the aristocrat snatched it and downed whatever concoction was held within. Pulling incense from her bust, she lit it between her fingers and inhaled the thick smoke.

"Throughout the ages, great psychics and savages alike have used sacred plants to free the mind from the trivial realm of the corporeal," she explained as she waited for the drugs to take effect. "To ascend into the spiritual and transcendental. That is the domain of magic."

Her pupils widening, hands trembling, the chronomancer looked to the mirrored floor, to her reflection, and she focused.

"Tempus scriptum…" she began to recite in a monotone chant. "Est ego qui video atramentum per membranam diffluere…"

Continuing her spell, she stared at her reflection, her black eyes narrowing and brow furrowing in concentration. At long last she let out a gasp.

Eyes going wide, her body went rigid, mouth snapping open as she stared in horror.

"N-n…"

"My lady! What…?"

She unleashed a blood curdling scream, flailing backwards off the ice, collapsing to the floor between the current adventures. They leapt back, the servant running to clutch her as she sobbed.

Peter felt his spider sense start to hum.

"Guys, we need to…"

"My lady, what is it‽ What ails you? Please!"

Suddenly igniting in fury, the chronomancer pushed her servant away and leapt to her feet.

"NO!" she barked.

Black tears were smeared down her white face.

"I cannot, I refuse to allow this to transpire!"

Throwing her wand toward the mirror, spider sense erupted in Peter's head worse than anything he had yet felt.

"MOVE MOVE MOVE!" he blared and his team was already running.

"I am no longer a frightened girl! I do not sit back and accept my fate! I am a mere observer no more!"

They were sprinting down the hall when a distorted shriek erupted around them. Peter reflexively grabbed Wyn and Boksee, chucking them both back through the castle like ragdolls. He grabbed Nih and moved to jump after them.

He wasn't fast enough.

Spider sense. Ice shattered. Brick warped. There was a crack, a hiss, an explosion… and then there was silence.

Ears ringing, body pounding from a collision with stone, Wyn found herself in a pile of rubble atop her teammate.

"Ranger! Ranger, are you alright‽" she exclaimed jumping off.

Boksee groaned.

"A-aye," she moaned. "I think I took a pauldron to the face," she said grabbing a bruising eye.

They were in a collapsed corridor. A wall that hadn't been now cut them off from the outside. There was no light but that of their still burning torch.

Wyn gasped.

"Paladin?" asked Boksee. Then she saw it too. The door of the room where they had just been, as well as half the surrounding hall, was utterly imploded. There was no sign of their teammates.

Grabbing the fallen torch, Boksee scrambled to follow Wyn as she sprinted over the wreckage.

"Webs‽ Nih‽" she bellowed.

Kicking at what was left of the distorted door, the paladin forced it open in an explosion of splinters. Instead of a spacious chamber with a mirrored floor, all that was left of the room was a foot-wide circle, a fractalized patch of ice at its center.

Spider-man and Nih were gone.

Nih came to. Opening his eyes, he saw the blurry shape of a flickering flame. Feet were running back and forth before him.

Carefully sitting up, a hand tapping his bloody temple, he waited for his vision to clear and looked around.

He and Spider-man were in a sphere of stone bricks, as if the walls and floors and ceiling had all looped in and around themselves. Shards of reflective ice circled around them. There torch wasn't there, but the flame it produced was half stuck in a wall, still burning.

"Where are we?" the elf asked quietly.

Peter was running back and forth, looking around in a frenzy.

"No… no, no, no…"

His hands slapped against the wall of the sphere.

Groaning to stand, Nih pulled up his own hands to feel the air. His face fell in utter bewilderment.

"NO!" screamed Spider-man.

He slammed his fist into the wall with the strength to shatter a boulder. His glove ripped and blood ruptured but the brick didn't even shake. He tried again. Then again. Then again!

"Spider-man!"

He threw his foot into a broken shard, but like the stone, the delicate ice didn't budge, not so much as a crack as his boot was cut across it. He screamed and lunged around the sphere in a fury of shouts, kicks, punches, throttles! He threw his palms around the torchlight trying to extinguish it but the phantom fire simply kept burning.

"SPIDER-MAN!"

The elf leapt to grab him.

Catching him around the wrists, he was nearly pulled off his feet but Spider-man stopped. The man whipped around in a froth, gloves charred and tattered, exposed knuckles bruised and bloody.

"That doesn't seem to be working," said Nih curtly.

Chest heaving, Spider-man wilted. He yanked himself away, a trembling hand finding his forehead.

"I told you…" he said quietly before igniting with anger. "I told EVERYONE! We had to LEAVE!" he roared.

"You did," said the elf calmly.

Spider-man paced and stomped.

Nih was feeling the air again, his ears pulled far back.

"I don't understand. Where are we?"

"I…" started Spider-man, then he shook his head in confusion.

Between his tattered gloves, he wove a thick weave, spreading it wide. Then he started tearing at it. With anger and frustration, he tore away at the strands, twisting them around over and over again in a fit until what was between his hands was an absolute mangle. With a sigh, he looked at what he had made. Then, with a free finger, he pointed.

"There."

Nih leaned in to see a loop of webbing was twisted and cut off from the rest.

"That's where we are," said Peter. "Time, space, reality, magic, I don't know. I don't know any of it Nih, but whatever it is, we aren't in reality any more. We're stuck in some broken pocket. We're in a broken loop, a bubble."

The drow's red eyes darkened as he grasped the cold gravity of the situation.

"Nih, we're going to die here."

"Pull yourself together emerald!" demanded the silver rank as Boksee sobbed in a pile of rubble. "SPIDER-MANN! NIHHH!" She bellowed.

Uncovering her pointed ears, Boksee listened intently.

"Do you hear anything?" asked Wyn.

Her little ears twitched, then she shook her head no.

"That doesn't mean they aren't still in the castle. You're no elf."

"But what if they aren't‽ Paladin! We waited too long! We should have just turned back when we still had the chance. I didn't want to. Not after we came all this way just so they could leave us… But now? Now…"

She buried her face in her hands and continued to sob.

Stood over her - watching her teammate despair - pain, regret, then intense anger flashed across the paladin's face. Her violent pink eyes turned to ice.

"Now what?" asked Wyn crude.

"What?"

"Now WHAT‽" the silver rank repeated. "What's now? Now that half our party has been wiped from existence‽ Slain in the blink of an eye‽ Is that now‽ What do you propose we do about it‽"

"P-paladin…"

Wyn's iron gauntlet clutched her mace with enough force to shake.

"Good people die every day," she snarled. "Innocent people. It can't be helped. Mistakes were made. We ALL understood what was at stake here. But we're still alive! And we've got one teammate still. Our mission now is to regroup and plan our next move."

"Wolvie! You're right, but…"

"If Peter and Nih really are already gone, then the only way left to honor them is to carry on their memory. That means pulling ourselves together, not whimpering about waiting to join them."

She grabbed the ranger and pulled her to her feet.

"Keep faith emerald. They may be alive yet, and we will find them. And if not, if they've already fallen, we will live to tell their story."

Boksee's eyes went wide, then she wiped her face with a renewed vigor. She gave a nod and the silver rank returned it.

"And by the divine ranger, we are getting the FUCK through this!"

Shouldering open a warped door, the sputtering flame of his torch lighting the darkness, Wolverine found himself in a familiar cavernous hall. He was back in the foyer.

Excellent.

Jogging up to the castle door, he threw it open and had to brace from a gust of blustering ice. The earlier grey sky had metastasized into a howling storm. Sticking his head out, he squinted to look around and sniffed the air.

There was no sign of his party.

Guess no one else had made it out yet. Odd.

Wolverine considered, then he stepped outside. In the scouring wind, fur whipping, he crunched through the deep snow to place himself back on the stairs. He turned around, looked up, and baulked.

The time-space, implosion, splicing…thing inside the castle, it was starting to leak to the outside. Walls, battlements, and even entire spires were either imploded or missing, some visibly spliced into the wrong places.

A hiss and shockwave sent the white snow clouding as the point of a tall watch tower crumpled out of existence.

Shit, maybe webhead had a point.

His gaze moving downwards, the mutant spotted what he was looking for. There, still where it should be, ever so unassuming on the high castle wall, was his familiar window.

With a determined snarl, he ejected his claws.

Just as he moved to start climbing, a desperate cry sounded beside him.

"No! No let go! PLEASE!"

No longer surprised, Wolverine turned to see a time slip. The snow falling through them, a man was dragging a girl up the stairs.

He was sure he hadn't seen the man before but the girl, she was the same girl from the cellar, the one with one eye, except she wasn't.

As she was dragged straight through him, the old mutant noticed both the girl's eyes were still in her skull, full of fear and desperation. She fitted and struggled but was powerless to escape the grown assailant. She was still in very little clothing, nothing that could protect her from the harsh cold, and it looked like she had been out in it a while, fingers purple and cheeks burnt red.

Abandoning his climb, Wolverine didn't even think as he followed the pair back into the foyer.

"Vaughn, good, you found her," said Winter clacking up to meet them.

"Aye my lady. She was in the village," said the man.

"We're lucky she didn't perish. The last thing I need is to barter with that idiotic dwarf for another slave. Bring her to the laboratory. The equipment is ready."

Wolverine's hair raised.

"NOOO!" screamed the girl fighting in the man's grasp. "LEAVE ME ALONE! PLEASE! LET ME ALONE!"

"Quiet," order the man twisting a thin arm.

The girl let out a gasp.

Winter's blank white face stared at the pitiable creature, then it snarled into a fury.

A smack loud enough to echo nearly sent Wolverine out of his skin. The man startled. The girl went rigid as Winter struck her across the face.

"You will not speak," hissed Winter stooping to her eye level. "We all suffer girl. Learn this! Take her to the laboratory," she ordered again. "I'll be there in a moment."

"Yes my lady."

As the man quickly forced the girl along, Winter clacking away, Wolverine was left stood in the dark.

"Oh ho ho, pickin' on kids, huh Winter?" he breathed uncharacteristically quiet. Then a fanged leer stretched across his face. "You're gonna regret that."

Flashes of horror threatened at the back of his mind but were quickly quashed down.

He threw a look over his shoulder, to the open door, to the free air, the wind, then he looked back to the vision of the girl being dragged into the deeper castle.

Without hesitation, Wolverine followed her.

"LOOGAN!"

"CLAWS! WEBS! NIH!"

Wyn and Boksee called for their teammates as they traversed an ever more deformed and nonsensical floorplan. Rooms were upside down, walls were crumbling, what was once a stone pillar had fractalized into a repeating geometric pattern.

Boksee heard a hiss.

"Move move move!" she screamed.

The two sprinted as a neighboring room imploded. Wyn threw up her shield to defend from the barrage of raining bricks. Debris was thrown into the air.

"We're lucky this bloody heap is still standing," the ranger snapped waving the dust from her face.

"I wonder if it's the very breaking of spacetime that's keeping it from collapse," said the paladin with a cough. "That's something Webs or the elf might say, right?"

"Very Nih."

"Bites with wind and starving jaws…"

The two quieted as the sound of another voice could be heard. Quickly recognizing it as Winter's, they followed it to a room so distorted they couldn't even tell what it was meant to be. A vision of the chronomancer was pacing fretfully.

"Must consume but nothing grows. Winter feeds; winter gnaws," she recited as her quill dutifully scribbled away into a book. "Cries and scrapes at scattered straws. Howls and screams still on she goes…"

"My lady please, you are not well."

Two of her staff, the female servant and the man they had already found dead, were stood at her side.

"Forgive me for speaking out of turn," said the late male staff. "Is this amount of worry really needed? You've seen what could happen, so now you can take steps to avoid it. Isn't that the point of your future sight?"

The chronomancer whipped toward him. He flinched back as she let out a deranged chuckle.

"You would think that. Simple man. Can you not understand? If I have seen it, then it has already happened. It just hasn't happened yet."

"My lady you're not making sense," said the female servant.

"Time is not how we perceive it."

Winter yanked the book from its stand, her magical quill flailing and ink splattering.

"To read a book we read word by word, sentence by sentence," said the wizard stroking it with a gloved finger. "But the words do not spring forth from the ether as we reach them. The book, its entirety, it already exists, it is already written. We mortals can only not perceive it. Even if it were written out on some grand tapestry, we would still only be able to read word by word, line by line. We cannot understand the book all at once, and so is the manner of time. Everything that has been, is, and that which will be, already is. We simply cannot perceive it. The book is already written," she snarled snapping it closed. "And I, who is gifted, who is cursed, I can see the ink bleeding through the pages. I have seen it, and so it is written."

"There is no evasion," she repeated resolutely. "None, save for the ability to rewrite the book entirely, to alter time itself… and what an incredibly endeavor that is indeed. Winter comes but never thaws. Stricken bare all that once was, Winter lives for Winter knows…"

As Winter returned to her pacing, the vision began to fade. The past master and her servants disappeared like snow, but this time, the adventurers noticed something had been left behind, laying on the ground amongst the rubble.

"Look!" exclaimed Boksee.

Running up and pulling it free from the bisected remains of a table, she held up a book.

"It's the book she's been writing in!" exclaimed Wyn hurrying over.

Boksee threw it open and scanned the pages.

"It's a journal, her journal!" she exclaimed.

Wyn took it and started vigorously speeding through the pages.

"Maybe she wrote about what's happening here," continued the halfling. "How to stop it! Reverse it!"

"Here!" exclaimed Wyn. "My repeated use of the veil piercing sight spell has begun to take its toll on this area of spacetime," she said reading the smudged writing. "The staff have informed me visions of my past self have begun manifesting without my casting. I did read that repeated use of such a spell in one area could have this effect, like a rut formed into soft sand, but I didn't expect it so soon."

"Spidey was right," interrupted Boksee. "These spells are going on their own now." At the mention of their lost teammate, she clenched her jaw but pushed through. "I didn't even know that was possible."

"It is appropriate," Wyn continued. "I feel of so many minds it seems proper that more than one of me is about the manor. Gerra had quite a fright as she found my previous self in the library during one of my less flattering frustrations. She was in such a state I had to lock her in the drawing room to assess the situation. My assessment, I do not care."

"Where is she‽" demanded Winter.

"My lady…"

"I said I would be there in a moment! Just a moment! How can you dullards lose a ten-year-old slave twice‽"

Up a set of stairs, Wolverine was down the hall stalking his way toward the newest manifestation of the chronomancer's past.

She was in a rage. Spells were shooting off and furniture smashed. The sound of shattering glass made his hair stand on end.

His clawed hands leapt to clench around his head as he was flooded with another jolt of adrenaline and visions half remembered and half imposed upon him. He could feel the current Winter, wherever she was, stabbing at the back of his mind, trying to break through the weakness. Lab. Hall. Glass. Orb. Eye. Tank. Glass. GLASS! HE WAS IN GLASS! DON'T YOU TOUCH ME!

He came back to himself when the tiny sound of bare feet on stone caught his ear.

Turning, he saw the slave girl sprinting for her life. She was moving in time with the raging and smashing, using the crashes to hide her sound.

"That'a girl," he breathed, his chest still pounding. "Smart girl."

He gave chase.

As he ran with her, Wolverine and the slave, the past and present, they both heard a scream followed by the slamming of a door.

With nowhere to hide, the girl threw herself to the wall, eyes shaking with terror as she listened.

Wolverine threw his head around the corner to see a female servant run wailing from the other room, her hands clutched over her face.

Winter clacked out after her.

"Not yet," he whispered to the girl who couldn't hear him.

Straightening her stiff skirt, the wizard headed the other direction, shouting for more staff.

"Alright… Go."

The girl lurched but stalled, unable to bring herself to run.

"GO!"

Through no action of his, she took off sprinting.

Wolverine kept pace with the vision of the past, his own heart racing as she made another run for it. Really though, where could she go?

"Left!" he shouted. She had stumbled to a stop at an intersection. "It's left! Down the stairs!"

Both their heads whipped as they heard fast clacking footsteps.

She went right.

"No!"

Barreling directly into a dead end, the girl grabbed the only door handle and tried to wrench it open. She grunted and snarled, tears running down her face but the heavy castle lock wouldn't yield.

"There you are!"

She and Logan both whipped around, the girl letting out a scream. The enraged chronomancer was storming toward them. The servant, still clutching her wounded face, was whimpering behind.

Wolverine jumped in front of the girl in a fury, but of course, it would do no good.

The wizard aimed her wand.

"Sentire ardeat!"

The girl let out a scream like she had been set on fire. She dropped to the floor behind him thrashing and flailing.

"LEAVE HER ALONE!" roared the mutant lunging at a past he couldn't change.

"Do not disobey me!" commanded Winter.

Passing right through him, Winter snatched the girl by a boney wrist. She whacked her on the back of the head and pulled her screaming down the hall.

The servant said nothing.

"You are the property of nobility," snarled Winter. "Your only purpose on this plane is to further the progress of greater men! Consider this your highest honor!"

"NO! PLEASE! I'LL WORK HARD! PLEASE DON'T HURT ME!" screamed the girl. She kicked and sobbed and bit and was rewarded with a stomp to her leg. There was a crack and the girl screamed.

Wolverine could barely see he was so engulfed in rage.

"Look," said Wyn. She was still with Boksee reading the chronomancer's personal writings. "Here's one about her visions, what she saw when she tried to see the future again!"

"Does it say anything about this fellow she's so bloody worried about?"

Wyn started to read.

"I have delved into the nature of dreams before, though I never found much use for it. A tutor from my youth insisted I explore this ability. Dreams, he said, were the place between the body and mind, life and death, the material and ethereal. To master the dream is to find passage to astral ascension. Indeed, it was this very ability that my colleagues found so incredibly useful. Until now, the dream – whether my own or others - was nothing more than a stepping stone toward a grander goal, the pointless swampy bog one must traverse to untether the mind from the material. I'm afraid I may have been gravely mistaken."

"As I stared down into the ice, into a mirror of my own creation, my reflection, I suddenly found myself gazing up into a place I've never been. It was a stone room reminiscent of Chiliadal ruins, but I was not in the room. I was turned upside down, the ice now a solid ceiling above me. Hands pressed against a crystalline veil, it was as if I had been trapped beneath a frozen lake, the reflection of a mirror given thought."

"Instead of my reflection, a strange figure was now stood over me, staring down at me through the ice from a room I've never known. My journal… it was him!"

"At that moment I understood what was happening, and oh my journal, what had happened indeed… will happen. I was seeing the future just as I had desired, living through a future version of myself, but that future version of myself was INSIDE a dream. Yes, my future self was attempting to infiltrate the mind of this man just as I had learned to do so long ago. For what possible reason, I couldn't say. This sight only added to my questions, my confusion, my suffering."

"There, in that place so far beyond reality it baffles the mind - the future of a dream, a nightmare yet to be suffered - there, I was helpless but to experience my future self succeed her goal and pierce the mind's dreaming veil. Like a demon from the void I climbed up, through the mirror, through water and ice, and HE was there, and SHE was there, and I was there."

"I opened my mouth to say words only my future self knew, and this man, this haggard, barbarous man, the very face of my inescapable turmoil… he started screaming! Journal, he started screaming at ME! He screamed like a child, as if I were the monster of HIS nightmares."

Wyn slowly lowered the journal and turned to Boksee. She was already staring back at her, the same realization dawning over them both.

"Oh my journal, there was nothing of me that was smiling."

Wolverine was barreling down… he didn't know where. The walls, the rooms, they meant nothing to him. He huffed the air by instinct not sure what he was searching for. Burning horror and icy fury was boiling his blood to steam, pounding deafeningly behind his ears.

The shredding woman flashed beside him and he jumped as the floor spliced away. Landing on his feet, he hit the ground as he heard a child's muffled scream.

"Oh journal, what have I done? What have I done‽" read Wyn. "It keeps getting worse. I keep searching, keep scraping at straws. Every time I manage to glimpse another moment into the future I receive no relief, but am instead besought with visions of horror beyond anything I could have possibly conceived."

Sprinting after the sound of the child's cries, Wolverine flew up another stair and higher into the castle. Reaching a heavy door, he threw it open. He threw it open to see an archaic laboratory of flasks, and blades and instruments lining dirty castle walls. He threw it open to see another time slip, another moment of the past he had no power to fix. He threw it open, but by whatever gods pretended to care about this miserable universe, he wished he hadn't.

The girl was strapped to a table. Mouth gagged, spasming in agony, half her face was covered in blood as there was now a fresh hole where an eye should be.

Winter, her gloved hand dripping crimson, was clenching a fist above her.

"There now, that wasn't so hard was it?" breathed the wizard. "Isn't it much better now that what you feared has come to pass?"

The girl wailed.

"I once again entered that place journal, that place so far beyond reality, that place of suffering. I was in a dream, but this time… I must be mad. I must… No. I swear upon whatever god will take me that there is only one truth! I was in the dream of a place that has never existed upon this plane!"

"It was some sort of laboratory, a place of learned men draped in white gowns - a place filled with oddities, and instruments, and glowing mechanisms so enigmatic that even now I fail to comprehend them. And what were these learned men doing? With their alien knowledge and their uncomprehensible automations, what were these men concocting? It was there journal, it was there in the center of the room…"

The girl wailed through her gag, her eyes scrunching closed.

Wolverine lunged forward, attacking the past vision of Winter but of course was met with nothing but air.

With a wave of her wand, she sealed what she had been holding into a magical sphere and floated it away.

An intricate metal amulet was pulled from the chronomancer's neck. Wolverine's eyes snapped to it, its familiarity smacking him in the face as he had almost forgotten it had ever existed.

She attached it to her wand, and with an incantation, the metal disc began to glow red hot.

The girl's one eye shot open, locking onto the fiery metal. She started shrieking through her gag.

"QUIET!" snapped the wizard, but the squealing child wouldn't heed her.

"QUIET! WE ALL SUFFER GIRL!"

Winter pulled down her tattered blouse and aimed the brand for her bare, boney sternum.

"We all burn."

Wolverine closed his eyes as the girl screamed.

"Yes journal, at the center of the room, it was him. It's always him. It was the man, the same man. He was the object of these learned men's craft, except… oh journal."

"I don't know what this creature is that hunts me, but he is no man. He is an aberration, an abomination. Like he was an experiment in a great flask, he was suspended in glass at the center of the room. He was shaved bare, body naked, great metal tubes and needles stabbing into his flesh from every conceivable angle. He writhed and thrashed as the men performed their unknowable task, pumping the man with liquid metal. What unholy pursuit WAS this? Was I wrong? Are we all wrong? Is there, in fact, a point when the acquisition of knowledge must come second to the DECENCY of natural law‽"

"So much metal was pumped into that flailing beast that it began to erupt from its body. Knives grew from his hands, skewering him from the inside as he screamed. And journal, oh my journal. I didn't care! As aghast as my present self was, my future self willingly threw herself through the glass, through the veil, to join him once again. My mouth opened as I screamed. I'm always screaming, but he never heeds me. He only screams and tries to fight me away. I screamed and I watched as he broke free his crystalline prison and slaughtered the learned men, just as my sight foresaw my own future fate. Where was this? Why am I with him? Why does he come for me? When? WHY‽ What have I done to deserve this torture? WHO IS HE‽"

Wolverine stood in the laboratory.

Winter and the slave girl were gone, the past visions having faded. The table and the straps fastened around it were still there, stained with frosted blood.

He was physically shaking, his muscles taught and veins bulging. Sight blurring, he stared at the straps that held down a child, at the instruments used to harvest her, experiment on her.

In that moment, he lost.

With a roar that shred his vocal cords, Wolverine's head snapped back as fury and terror overtook him. He was behind glass, in water, in tubes, in the snow, impaled, in a battlefield, in an explosion, the respirator strangled around him. No!

"WWWWIIIINNNNTTERRR!"

He didn't know where she was, he barely knew where he was, but he still knew one thing.

"I DON'T KNOW WHERE YOU ARE!" he screamed. "BUT I'M GONNA FIND YOU! I'M GONNA FIND YOU AND I'M GONNA KILL YOU!"

In a blind rage, he eviscerated the laboratory. Wood was clawed to splinters, flasks and beakers shattered, liquids splashed.

"FIGHT ME! FIGHT ME!"

Lab. Tank. Tubes. Glass. BROKEN GLASS. Hall. Orb. Eye. Shredding.

"I AIN'T SOMEONE YOU CAN KICK AROUND!" he screamed. "I AIN'T SOMEONE YOU CAN STEP ON!"

In his blurred vision, he saw his own blood covered hands, shards of glass lacing up his arms. He was in a lab, no, the snow, no, a forest, no, a room. He was in a cold stone room, a dying child clutched in his arms, asking him for help.

"WWWWIIIINNNNTTERRR!"

The last few pages of the wizard's journal were nothing but mad scribbling and blots of ink, the parchment warped with tear spots. Slowly, Wyn lowered the book.

"It's Claws," she said. "Winter, this entire time, she's been afraid of Wolverine."

"In the past?" asked Boksee trying to wrap her head around it. "Because she saw into her future, their shared future?"

Wyn was thinking.

"But we only came here because she started tormenting the man!" the halfling argued. "If she's so afraid of him, why did she seek him out? Where is she? Why did she try so hard to get us to her castle‽"

"I…"

"Wait!" exclaimed Boksee, her ear twitching. "Did you hear that?"

They both went quiet and heard a roar echoing down the hall.

"It's Logan!" agreed Wyn excited.

They could hear him shouting. It was quite a fit.

"He must be close! This way paladin!"

The two took off running toward their teammate.

From reflections in the spilled fluids and the shattered glass, the shredding woman attempted to materialize but Logan didn't care.

He was beside himself, barely cognizant of where he was or what was happening. All he knew is that he was angry and something was supposed to die. Then he heard it.

Clacking.

Eyes pinpricked and manic, he threw his gaze toward the obliterated laboratory door. A new time slip had manifested. Prim and put together, a vision of Winter was clacking her way down the mangled remains of her manor.

Wolverine followed her.

The past Winter, content and unbothered, clacked her heels down the hall unaware of the present state of her castle or the mutant stalking behind her.

Following her up one last winding stair, Wolverine watched her reach a room. Her female servant was waiting for her. Unafraid and unharmed, she gave her master a bow and the two entered, phasing through a presently closed door.

Wolverine couldn't even remember how to open a door.

Three adamantium claws were shoved through the handle, forcing the ancient wood forward until it snapped.

He stepped in behind them.

The wizard was being undressed. The servant, contently performing the intimate duties common to such aristocracy, orderly relieved her master of her shoes, gloves, and the many pieces of her stiff blue gown.

Dressed down to nothing but a thin silk slip, Winter's burned and scarred skin was freed to Logan's sight for the first time, not that he was registering that. The hair came next. With the pulling of pins and the untwirling of braids, the tightly bound coif was released into feet of dark ragged hair. Large chunks were missing from it, unable to grow from a blotched scalp.

Oblivious to the furious mutant breathing down her neck, Winter dismissed her staff and settled in to attend to her private affairs. She took a seat at a vanity, gently humming to herself as her reflection came into view. With water and cloth, she leaned over and started removing the thick make-up from her face.

Directly over her shoulder, vibrating with fury, holding on to the thinnest strand of his sanity, Wolverine watched in the mirror as the porcelain white face and the blood red lips that had haunted his nightmares were casually washed away. A far more human face was left in its place, one scarred and discolored from a childhood injury and one just starting to show the weight of its age.

Drying off, Winter sat up, and she froze. Her eyes leapt up to focus on the mirror, past herself, and land directly on the deranged man stood hovered over her shoulder. His eye leapt down to meet hers in return, and in that instant, through the mirror, past and present were both suddenly looking at each other… and they both new it.

Winter let out a scream as Wolverine lunged for her. She whipped in terror, throwing out a blast of uncontrolled mana as his claws plunged through her face. He met nothing but air and stumbled forward into the vanity, a loud clatter joining the wizard's shrieks as the mirror shattered.

A scream and clatter echoed down a mangled hall. Following it up a winding stair, Wyn and Boksee barreled into the remains of a dressing room just in time to see Wolverine attacking a vision of the past.

A woman was feverishly looking around confused and horrified, no longer able to see her attacker. She turned to the past version of a vanity but Wolverine was no longer visible within it. He was behind it, his claws stabbed through a present mirror, its wood splintered and glass shattered to a hundred pieces.

Shattered glass.

"Logan!" exclaimed Boksee ecstatic, then her face dropped.

Wolverine was stood there, unmoving. Nearly shaking, taught muscles spasming in animalistic jerks, he was stuck staring down at his claws stabbed through the shattered glass, his hand bloodied by shards.

Shattered glass.

Blazing with sudden alarm, Wyn pulled her shield, her face paling behind it.

"Claws?" she asked. "Claws, can you hear us?"

Wolverine stared at the shattered glass. He was in a tank, no a lab, no- He didn't know where he was. His blurred vision spotted crimson. His nostrils flared, assaulted by the smell of his own blood. His pulse pounded in his ears. His veins caught fire.

"Paladin…"

He didn't know where he was! He didn't know anything! Something was behind him.

A dozen times over in the shattered mirror, the women saw their teammate's pinpricked eyes glaze over. White steam panting from his bared fangs, his lips curled as he caught their scent.

Wolverine didn't know where he was. He didn't know who he was. He didn't know who was behind him. He only knew one thing.

"RUN!" screeched Boksee.

KILL.

Blood shot into the air as Wyn blocked a slicing lunge. With a scream, adamantium claws tore through her armor and into her arm. Her solid metal shield hit the floor in pieces.

Spider-man was huddled on the far side of the sphere. Balanced on his haunches, he watched the light of the broken torch dimly dance over the unbreakable brick.

"Of course I'd end up trapped in some pocket dimension," he muttered somewhere between fury and despair. "Of course that's where I'd get myself wound up. After it all, after everything… I really did just end up buried."

Nih was stood silently. He was in deep contemplation. Having practiced to no longer require incantation, he attempted to cast his light spell. With a flick of his wrist, a tiny red orb was summoned into existence. His ears perked.

"Just had to end up in a different universe for it to happen, I guess. What a joke."

"Hrm," thought the elf assessing the current state of the magics.

"Nih, I don't understand."

The dark elf turned to him.

"Magic is a weave," said Peter. "I get that, but we're not in magic, are we? Are we in time? Space? Are we even in reality? Are we actually outside of time? We can't be. We're moving in time," he said flexing his hand before himself.

"How much air do you think we have? If the fire can't die, can we? Can we really? Nih, I'm so lost. I've been in this universe for two months. I got to read a single book, no, a single section in a single book and somehow I ended up having to duke it out in a nonsensical obstacle course of relational theoretical magic-spacetime. I don't have a clue what's going on! So much for all my brilliant ideas," he snapped throwing a random web cartridge at the wall with disdain. It went bouncing off with a ringing clatter, rolling to a stop by Nih's boot.

Calmly, the elf reached down to take it.

"You know snail ears, I've been in this universe for over three hundred years. Although I do not consider myself an expert on the matter of time, I am extremely versed in the flows of the natural magics."

"Oh crap. No, Nih," said Spider-man whipping around. "That came out wrong. I didn't mean…"

"But I'm afraid I am as lost as you. I've never encountered anything like this. The weave is twisted beyond my comprehension. As a druid, I have long been comfortable with the idea that the great tapestry of reality is beyond any mortal's full understanding. Perhaps that isn't of much comfort."

"No," said Spider-man dour. He turned back around.

The drow considered the metahuman, his ears drawn back in intense thought. With a final breath, he spoke.

"My snail ears, I fear I must make a confession," he said darkly.

"W-what?" asked Spider-man popping to his feet. "A confession? About what‽"

"I don't like spiders," he grumped.

"Oh… Um, ok? You made that sound like it was going to be a lot worse. No offense taken?" he said almost forgetting their current circumstances. "You know, trapped with no way of escaping confessions are usually bigger things."

"It's not you. My people have an extremely unfortunate history with the creature."

Peter thought.

"Driders?"

"In a sense. Spider-man, I never told you, but when we first met you concerned me."

"I did? You didn't act like it."

"I am extremely adept at hiding my inner thoughts. On sight, I didn't know what to make of a half-elf emblazoned with arachnid iconography, but the entire scene was so unusual I decided to follow where it led. That concern was short lived. As soon as you removed your mask and I realized you were a man I was put at ease, perhaps even filled with a new curiosity. Yes, I had over worried," he said casually pulling off his thick winter gloves. "You were simply a strange little snail ears."

Spider-man made a face.

"But I was wrong," said the drow seriously. He stepped toward him. "You are not, neither simple nor simply a snail ears. I am somewhat concerned again. I trust the man, Spider-man, but I fear the spider…"

"What?"

"But perhaps it is a spider we need."

Taking hold of his hands, the druid removed Spider-man's tattered gloves.

"Perhaps it is only the senses of a spider that can traverse a weave so intertwined…" he repeated. "…and I've simply been too focused watching an empty sky to trust them."

Taking his palms into his, he put their bare hands together, holding them up as if to feel the air.

"Perhaps it is only a spider that can truly perceive that which we druids know. Let me take you there spider. Let me take you into the world as I see it."

Spider-man didn't know what was happening but he didn't pull away. He felt strange. Then he noticed Nih's hands were glowing. Then so did his. He watched in astonishment as blazing red and xanthous green lit beneath both their palms, meeting in a harsh line down the middle.

The whites of Spider-man's mask took on a haunting green hue, backlit from his glowing irises.

"No, close your eyes," instructed Nih shutting his own. "Concentrate with me. Feel the world through my mana. You already understand, that which we call magic is a weave, an uncomprehensible interconnection of flowing energies. We are in a tangled web, a malformation of natural existence. Comprehend it spider. Feel the strands and find us passage."

Peter closed his eyes and tried to understand what the elf wanted of him. Then he felt it. His spider sense was thrumming again, again not in any way he knew. Instead of an uncomfortable jolt letting him know of danger, it was a far more subtle sensation, a holistic one. His spider sense was responsible for his remarkable aim, his uncanny ability to pinpoint the exact safe places to land or shoot a webline in real time, he knew that, but he didn't know how it did that. Here in this moment, with the elf's magic channeled through him, focusing them both on the metaphysical strands of existence he… he almost.

Like he was suspended in a web feeling for vibrations, his spider sense almost felt like it was trying to map out an image of the magical weave around them. But no, that wasn't…

He felt himself pulling against the alien sensation.

"Trust your instincts spider. Release your ego to all existence," commanded the drow. "You have my word you'll return."

Focusing, trusting, his body and mind surging with a magical energy he had never experienced, Spider-man stopped fighting whatever this was and let everything of himself flow in whatever direction it wanted. In an instant, a flash of extra-sensory cognition erupted through his mind.

He gasped.

"Yes, that's it. Feel the magical energies. Do what only a spider can. Find us passage in this incomprehensible web."

"I…" said Peter searching. Without eyes he saw, and without words he understood. His senses were operating on a different level of existence, dancing and spinning and assessing trillions of metaphysical strands and the shapes they formed. It was only a split-second burst, but it was enough for him to find his answer.

"I… there, there isn't any," Peter said in conclusion. "There aren't any openings here. It's just what I thought… Exactly what I already knew…"

Nih's chest fell.

Disengaging, the strange sensation ended, and both sets of hands stopped glowing. They separated and the elf's long hair floated back into place. Peter hadn't even realized it had been whipping.

Giving him a somber look of acceptance, Nih nodded.

Spider-man didn't return it. Instead, he clenched a hand.

Stepping passed the elf and into the center of the sphere, he made sure his web shooter was set to the correct cartridge.

"Nih, I don't understand," he repeated. Then he took a deep breath.

Shooting a silken line blacker than anything else that existed, Spider-man started weaving a strange web. A dizzying, repetitive ring of overlaying parabolas was spun up all around them, under their feet, encircling the sphere in a shadowing geometric pattern. All lines meeting at the apex of the dome above, Spider-man took hold of one loose strand and gave it a long pull.

From every angle, the lines were pulled sliding over each other in a precise clockwork of silk. A circle of mathematical angles began opening the center of the web like a flower. With it, the sphere began to unwind.

As Spider-man and Nih stood perfectly still, the sphere of brick and floating ice shards was uncoiled back into a solid room. A few small hisses sounded as square walls snapped back into place. The mirror-like ice reformed perfect and uncracked beneath them.

As the room - a spacious chamber once more - let out a final crackle to settle into place, Nih looked down to see all the anti-glowing strands of silk had congealed into a small every day spider web under their boots. It sat in the center of the ice like a snow flake, Spiderman still holding a loose strand of it.

The elf whipped toward him dumbstruck.

Spider-man, his own pulse racing, gave a nod.

"I still don't get it," he said to the elf's gaping face. "All I could guess was that if magic got us tangled, anti-magic could get us untangled."

Nih just stared at him.

"There wasn't an opening, so I sewed one in."

Cautiously, the two stepped off the web and back onto terra firma. Quickly throwing open the now holey door, they saw the hall and other room were just where they had been, the large break in the external castle wall still open to the free and snowy air.

Blood dripped from Wyn's arm as the women sprinted for their lives. They had mere seconds on the mutant as he barreled after them, claws thrown out and enraged.

Castle halls lit only by their singular guttering torch were only more and more deformed. Great empty chambers of rubble and fractalized brick rattled with distant implosions. Up ahead, a section of the castle was completely missing, open for stories below them.

Taking a flying leap, Boksee jumped the gap. Under her feet, ten different time slips were playing out all at once, figures floating and shrieking and barking in the open air like a vortex of lost specters.

Landing, Wyn was right behind her. Launching herself in her heavy armor, the paladin cleared the gap and hit the ground hard, the ledge slipping under her feet.

"Go go go!" she shouted as Boksee grabbed her.

Wolverine was right behind them.

Soaring nearly ten feet more than the women, they screamed as he nearly came down on them. He just landed short, adamantium sparking against stone as the ledge gave way. He was caught in a landslide. As the adventurers scrambled to safety, the mutant tumbled and roared, hundreds of pounds of stone pelting down on him.

He was barely phased.

Skin scraped off in chunks, bloody and bruised, Wolverine caught himself on a solid wall and all but vaulted back into the chase.

Feet and sweat flying, lungs burning from the freezing air, Wyn and Boksee raced to keep ahead of him.

"We can't outrun him!" screamed Boksee.

Wyn took a sharp left, grabbing the ranger as she went. They both skid sideways to double back into a different corridor.

Throwing herself swinging, the silver rank careened her mace through an especially precarious wall. It gave way and half the room above them collapsed behind their heels. What was left of the female servant, half her body spliced from existence, was amongst the wreckage. It was quickly buried as the corridor was blocked off.

Before they could even slow their steps to catch their ragged breaths, there was another roar followed by the skin crawling sound of metal scraping against stone.

In an explosion of brick, Wolverine ruptured the wall beside them.

With a scream, Wyn reflexively slammed a heel and landed her mace directly into his face with everything she had. Metal met metal, the skin and flesh of his face shredding off in a bloody spray.

Boksee screamed at the top of her lungs.

"WOLVERINE!"

Their teammate was thrown backwards out the hole. He hit another wall and landed on his feet. Instead of going down or even screaming, half a bare bloody skull stared back at them with intensifying fury.

"We can't stop him! NOTHING CAN STOP HIM!" screamed Boksee.

"Ranger RUN!"

Boksee was startled by the sudden sounds of distorted barks and screams. Whipping around, she saw half a dozen separate time slips were starting up behind them. Amongst the crowd of visions, she noticed a past Winter pulling her wand in a fervor.

His skull open to the air, skin and flesh and hair hanging from undamaged metal, Wolverine lunged at Wyn again. Again, the paladin attempted to bludgeon him back. Instead, her mace went flying, cracking against a wall with a bang as she dodged a second set of claws coming up from below. Forced tumbling backwards, locks of lavender hair flew into the air as he missed dismembering her by millimeters.

She landed on the floor, her mace nearly coming down on her head. Faster than anything she had experienced, not giving her a moment to recover, Wolverine plunged his claws toward her.

"PALADIN!"

Wyn threw up her arms with a scream. It was an involuntary reflex. She shielded her head and clenched her jaw, eyes scrunched closed waiting for her death. A moment longer than she expected passed. Then another?

Pulling her arms back down, she opened her eyes.

Wolverine was stalled inches from her nose. His face was already regrown, showing every line of his fury and insanity. His blazing, unseeing pupils were twitching in confusion, less like an animal and more like a broken automaton. He was huffing the air as blood dripped down his teeth, her blood! She had gotten him with a splatter.

In this inexplicable moment of hesitation, she threw herself prone and grabbed for her mace. As she did, her eyes landed on the fur tassel tied to it, her wolf fur tassel. A thought almost found her.

Whatever had caused him to stall rapidly lost its potency. His focus returned to her with a snarl. Lunging again, an arrow landed between his eyes, snapping his head back as it bounced off his skull. He roared.

A hand grabbed her.

"THIS WAY PALADIN!"

Boksee all but wrenched Wyn back to her feet.

The sight of the adventurers running reignited the mutant's attack. He screamed and chased after them just as they saw the past Winter aim her wand.

"It's death or death silver!" shouted Boksee running them toward the wizard.

Wyn understood.

Sprinting, skidding they dodged a lunge by Logan and threw themselves into the time slip. A distorted scream erupted around them as the past chronomancer opened her mouth. There was an ear breaking hiss, a snap, and they were gone, a set of claws missing them by a sliced hair.

In a blink they were in a different room.

Wyn and Boksee both hit the ground hard, both holding themselves as they gasped and throbbed in pain.

"Are we alive?" asked Boksee.

Wyn grabbed their sputtering torch and looked around. She nodded. By the grace of the divine they had been spliced into another section of the castle and not imploded. The hall they had been in was now crudely intersecting a different room.

"Oh no!"

Wyn turned to where her teammate was looking. A clawed vanity was laying broken on the floor.

"We're back where we bloody started!" exclaimed the ranger.

A roar screamed from the bowels of the castle.

The women whipped toward the sound.

"He's going to find us. Wyn! HE'S GOING TO FIND US!"

Sweat drenched, covered in dust, and bloodied, Boksee sprung to her feet. "We can't fight him! We have to snap him out of it!"

Wyn was still on the ground. Her arm was bleeding badly, blood loss exaggerated by the run. It was starting to take its toll. She stared down at the familiar red gashes.

"Ranger I-"

"Paladin! I know I'm a middling emerald but trust me! I know what I'm talking about in matters of the feral folk!" she blared.

Wyn shut up.

"We have to snap him out of it! Calm him down! We need sensories!"

"Sensories?"

"Sights, sounds, smells, touches!" the ranger rapidly listed. "Anything that's familiar and safe. We need to calm him down. Fighting is just making it worse!"

"Sensories," Wyn repeated. She looked down at her bleeding arm, watching the crimson liquid pool and ribbon down her shredded metal gauntlet. Finally, her eyes lit in realization.

"No, not safe, complete. Ranger, you're right. We have to remember what he is!"

Her one good hand shaking, she struggled to quickly unlatch what was left of her shield arm's armor.

There was another screaming roar. It sounded like a man being burned alive by his own hatred.

"What are you talking about‽" exclaimed Boksee. Freezing cold sweat poured from her bruised temple as she fought every instinct to take off running.

"He's a rogue weapon. He was built to kill. He has to kill. He can't stop until he succeeds. That's the only way to end the chase."

There was a roar much closer.

Wyn looked to the ranger, then she pulled her dagger.

"The doe has to die."

With a hard breath, she plunged it into her already clawed arm.

"Wyn!"

Gritting her teeth, she used the blade to draw her blood gushing.

"Or at least he needs to think it did! Ranger help me! My cloak!"

The floorplan had changed. Instead of a winding stair, now a dark, half-bisected hall stretched beyond Winter's dressing room.

Having angled the shattered vanity mirror to see out the door, the adventurers were crouched and huddled to the wall. Wyn was on the ground. Half her cloak was tied around her clawed arm, now trying to quell the bleeding. The other half of the cloak, absolutely drenched dark crimson, dripped between Boksee's hands.

They heard another scream.

"You've got one shot Ranger," hissed Wyn. Their eyes were both locked on the mirror. "Aim for the face. Overwhelm him."

Visibly trembling, the halfling nodded.

Both their hair stood on end as they heard rapid footsteps. Roars and metallic scrapes echoed down the hall.

Hair mangled, eyes demented, teeth dripping, and body ragged, Wolverine leapt from somewhere beneath the broken hallway and landed on his feet. His claws glinting in the dark, his head snapped toward them.

He launched.

Nearly jolting off the floor, Boksee leapt out of hiding and slung her bloody wad of fabric.

Wolverine didn't know where he was. He didn't know why he was here. He didn't know why he hurt. He didn't know why he was angry. He didn't know what he was chasing. All he knew is that he was closing in.

KILL KILL KILL!

There was a blur of motion and something came at his face. Throwing up his claws he sliced it to ribbons, but the shredded remains still found him. Several warm somethings hit him in the face with a wet slap.

"Got it!" blurted Wyn. Boksee skid into the floor to rejoin her, hands leaping to cover the paladin's mouth. They both held their breath to watch the mutant in the mirror.

Wolverine screamed! It was such a noise of anguish and fury the women could see the veins of his neck bulging. His hands leapt to his face to tear the tattered fabric away, something hot and wet still covering him. His nostrils flared.

It was blood! It was all blood! He roared in revilement, his anger increasing tenfold.

KILL KILL KILL!

In his blurred vision, he could see his hands were shining red. The scent was dizzying. He could taste it on his teeth. It… it wasn't his. Wait. Did he…

The mutant stalled, his claws slightly lowering, eyes staring out unblinking.

Wait, whose blood was this?

"He stopped! It's working," panted Wyn.

Stood in an eerie stillness, Logan's eyes were twitching, his deranged mind attempting to process.

Blood? Not his. KILL. Who's blood was this? KILL. He recognized it. Who? KILL. But…

Another scent caught him, the scent of sweat, fear, more blood. The predator reignited.

KILL!

Wolverine's head snapped toward their position.

"No! It's not enough!" barked Boksee.

The mutant roared. Throwing out his claws, he stormed toward them at full force.

Before Wyn could stop her, the halfling jumped out of hiding and sprinted toward him.

"RANGER!"

"LOGAN!" she shouted throwing up her hands. "LOGAN IT'S US!"

She screamed as the adamantium blades came down on her.

Arms up, body recoiled, it took her a moment to realize she was alive. Forcing her eyes back open, Boksee saw her horrified face reflected in six different blades caged around her.

Wolverine was stalled again, hovering, panting, stood still. His face was stuck in a pained, confused, furious expression as his pinpricked pupils tried to focus. They were trying to focus on her.

From Wolverine's perspective, he could see the shape of a small person directly before him. He could smell its fear, its weakness. He could see a pale, shifting face, bright splotches of red, big cinnamon eyes…

Big cinnamon eyes.

Hung inches from the halfling's petrified face, drool was oozing from his snarled fangs. Sweat and blood dripped from his chin. His breath huffed in white steam.

He knew those eyes. Kill. But, no, he knew that. Who was that? Doesn't matter. Kill. No… WHO'S BLOOD WAS THIS?

With a whimper, trapped between her teammate's blades, Boksee forced herself to start speaking.

"S-stay back, Silver, stay back," she gasped. "L-Logan, Wolvie, it's me. You know me. I-It's alright."

Talking? Talking! Why was there talking?

Shaking in terror, she carefully moved forward. One claw slowly sliced open her cheek, blood weeping down her face, but she continued regardless. She pushed herself against his chest.

Wolverine could feel a small body against his, a heart bursting out of its chest. He could smell its fear.

Why was this happening? Body? KILL! MORE BLOOD! Who was with him? Whose blood was this? He knew it. Doesn't matter. Kill. But… DOESN'T MATTER. Kill! KILL!

A hand clamped around Boksee's arm. She let out a scream as inhuman strength threatened to snap her humorous.

"Not yet! Stay back! Wolvie, please," she growled through clenched teeth. The pain was excruciating. "You'll regret it. I know you'll regret it."

More talking. STOP TALKING! He couldn't concentrate! KILL! Wait, he knew that voice. KILL. Kill? …but.

"You don't want to hurt me. You never want to hurt things smaller and weaker than you!" she accused. "You want to protect them!"

A new smell. She was crying. She was shaking. She threw her face into him.

"I know you don't think so, but you're a good person Logan!" she sobbed onto the deranged figure. "I don't know who didn't tell you that enough."

Why was she crying? Who's crying? He knew her scent. He knew her voice. He knew… her? Whose…whose blood was this‽ Was this…

He remembered.

Boksee felt the agonizing grip on her arm release as the same hand jumped up in front of Wolverine's face. He stared at it, the light of coherence flashing back behind his eyes.

"FUCK!"

Both his hands were covered in blood, copious blood. It was tuts'. He could smell it. No, he could taste it!

"What happened‽" he cried.

"Wolvie!" Boksee exclaimed practically jumping for joy. She tried to grab him in a hug.

"N-nO!" he barked pulling away. "WHAT HAPPENED‽" he demanded again. "Darlin'! Where's Wyn? What happened‽ SHIT!" he exclaimed seeing the state of her.

"It's alright! Everyone's alright! Now you can!"

There was the sound of clonking.

Wolverine whipped to see Wyn, one arm bloody and tied against her, stagger out of hiding. She gave him a weary smile.

"WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU TWO THINKING‽" roared Logan feverishly bandaging the paladin.

He was coming down off the adrenaline.

"You didn't really leave us much of a choice Wolvie," said Wyn. Popping the cork of a health potion with a thumb, she forced it down. "Aghh, grrr!"

After a moment of magical healing and her teammate's tending, the silver rank flexed her hand. "Ughh, I think I cut too deep," she said assessing the pain. "I was a bit panicked. Uhhgh. It's my shield arm anyway."

"Where's your shield‽"

Wyn nodded a direction.

He turned to see it clawed to pieces on the floor and baulked.

"That thing wasn't cheap you know. You owe me some coin barbarian," she scolded.

"Yah, never do that again. I think I pissed myself," added the ranger.

Wolverine whipped back around. Neither Wyn nor Boksee seemed all that bothered by what had just happened, not really, just busted and trying to catch their breaths. Absolutely flabbergasted, he looked back and forth between the two women, both looking back at him like he hadn't just tried to rip out their intestines. They seemed slightly puzzled by his confusion if anything.

"Holy fuckin' shit…" he breathed in realization. "You two are crazy!" he exclaimed. "And as tough as fuckin' nails," he added in disbelief. "Lord help me, get over here."

The sorely mutant scooped them both into a hug, much to both their surprise. Boksee laughed and returned it. Wyn startled but quickly smiled.

"I'd say next time nuke the building, but that'll probably just piss me off more. I'll get you both a drink when we're through," he said putting them down. "Crazy broads. Where's everyone else? They alright?"

At that the women's faces fell. They looked to each other.

"We… we don't know," Wyn admitted.

Wolverine nodded. He tried to sniff the air but grimaced at the scent of his teammate's blood still smearing his face.

"Here," said Boksee pulling out a rag.

"Thanks."

After an impromptu spit bath, he tried again. As he skulked around the room huffing for the rest of the party's lost scents, his boot crunched down on a shard of broken glass. They could practically see his hair raise at the sound. Boksee put a hand to his arm.

"It's just the mirror you broke."

The adventurers turned their attention to the clawed vanity. They stared down at it, all three of their faces reflected, repeating in the spider web of cracked glass.

"So it came true," Wyn marveled. With a grunt, she levered herself to her feet.

"What did?" asked Wolverine.

"That's how all this started. Winter saw you in her dressing room mirror, in a vision of the future. She saw you like that and knew you'd come here. It came true. You were destined to come here because in a way, you already had. It was fate."

Wolverine gave his fractalized reflection a glare.

"That don't mean nothin'."

"What?" both women asked.

Stepping up to the broken piece of furniture, he shattered what was left of it in a single violent stomp.

"I don't believe in fate."

He turned and started out of the room.

"I go, where I wanna go."

"WEBHEAD!" called Logan.

"WEBS!" bellowed Wyn. "NIHH!"

They were carefully traversing another malformed hallway. At least this one seemed relatively quiet.

"Wait," said Boksee. "Do you hear that?"

Wolverine did. A light thunking.

Stopping and listening, they heard the sound of breaking glass.

Again Wolverine jerked, but both women threw a hand to him and he recovered quickly.

Barreling toward the sound, natural light growing, they rounded a corner just in time to see Spider-man climbing through a window out of the snow, his gloves, shoes, and Nih thrown over his back.

"There you are!" he shouted in joy.

"Thank the divine!" cried Wyn running up and catching them both in a death hug. She buried her face in their shoulders.

"We thought you two were evaporated from spacetime!" exclaimed Boksee on their hips.

"Trapped in a finite pocket dimension," said Peter. "Close enough."

"Spider-man was spectacular," said Nih.

"Woah what happened?" asked Peter seeing all the blood.

"Everyone's fine webhead," said Logan. "Though there might be a couple pair of shorts that need changin'," he added and the women laughed.

"Yah, and one of those is mine," snarked Spider-man stepping out of the embrace. "Alright, we're done," he said aiming a finger at them. "This place is going down and we're three strings and a paperclip away from oblivion. We've gotta go!" he demanded.

"You're right," said Wyn.

"What‽" snapped Logan.

"Look, we found her journal," said Wyn pulling it out. "I think it's more than evident that Webs is right. This place is burning to the ground, and you'd have to agree things have gotten out of hand," she said giving him a look. "Let's take what we've gathered, get to safety, and regroup. If Winter is still alive, if she is here, and I'm not convinced she is, she might just go down with the ship. If not, we can track her down to wherever she flees and try again. We can always try again."

"Send a call to the greatest wizards of the land to come put spacetime back together while we're at it," said Boksee.

Spider-man hopped back into the window and anchored a webline.

"I can give some rides if we need, but you all can probably just rope down. It'll be faster. We're right over the stairs."

"W-WHAT‽" exclaimed Logan.

Almost shoving Spider-man over, he threw his head out the window. Sure enough, the stone stairs up the castle grounds were a dizzying fall directly below them.

Eyes going wide, the mutant turned around. They had come from the right, but directly behind them, the window serving as its end, a familiar hallway stretched out before him.

"Uh Wolvie?" asked Peter.

Wolverine looked to the open window, then to the long hall. His brow furrowed as he could see something just barely visible amongst the gloom and wreckage. Cocking his head, he spotted the glint of something made of glass.

"You all go ahead."

"What?" the party asked in unison.

"I still got business," he growled.

"Are you serious‽" snapped Spider-man. He jumped back in and grabbed Wolverine around the shoulder.

"I've got business to finish!" he repeated. "You leave, but I ain't leavin', not 'til this is done! GOT IT‽"

He pulled his shoulder free and they watched him start down the hall.

Before Spider-man could strangle him, Wyn threw a hand to his arm.

"What do you want to do Webs?" she asked seriously. He was surprised, but then looked around to see everyone was waiting for his response.

Taking a breath, he gave it a rapid thought. Then he face palmed.

"This blasted idiot is going to get us all killed," he groaned. "We stick together!"

Throwing half a dozen thick weblines out the window and to the ground, he turned back to the group.

"If I say run, we run like hell. Got it? I'll drag dog breath back kicking and clawing if I have to."

"Understood."

They hurried to catch up.

Making his way down the familiar yet already mangled castle hall, Wolverine traced his steps backwards. Not sure what he was going to find, remembering where he had started the last time the shredding woman pulled him into his own head, he braced for the worst.

Stepping into a dark chamber, Wolverine was met not with his infusion tank, but instead a great glass orb was suspended at the center of the room.

He came to a stop, staring up at it. The party filed in behind him, joining his confused stare.

Their torch starting to dim, Nih pulled a red orb light, a deceptively hot color for their frigid surroundings. Floating it over for a better look, the full extent of the great glass sphere was revealed.

Hovering ever so slightly above a stand of dense leaden legs, it was large enough to house a car. The adventurers weren't able to tell whether it was hollow, solid glass, or filled with liquid, but they could see something very small was suspended at its center.

"What do you think it is?" asked Boksee.

"Some manner of crystal ball?" asked Wyn. "She was trying to look into the future."

Logan snorted with suspicion.

Taking the torch from Boksee, he aimed its last dying flame at the orb's center, toward the small dark object.

A single human eye was revealed by fire.

Everyone but Wolverine made a noise of revulsion.

"If that is what I think it is," he growled, vibrating with fury.

"Keep it together barbarian," said Wyn. "Ranger, druid," she instructed and they both understood.

Boksee cast her magic detection spell and Nih felt the air.

"It's magical but in stasis," said Boksee.

"I'm afraid I'm of little use. The weave is beyond comprehensible here. We're lucky to be casting magic at all."

Wyn nodded.

"Webs, can you probe it with your senses?"

He nodded and stepped up to the great sphere, hovering his hand directly over the glass.

"No spider sense."

In a common mistake of mankind, Spider-man went to give the strange object a prod. He felt the slightest buzz as his finger came down on it, but it was too late. As soon as his bare skin met the orb's cold smooth surface, his hand was sucked to it.

"HEY!"

The party jolted, Spider-man trying to pull himself free, but he was stuck.

The orb breathed to life, the enormous glass sphere illuminating as bright and grey as a television.

The eye at its center shuttered. Pupil dilating and contracting, sclera jerking, it twisted and rotated as if frantically looking around. Seeming to find what it had been searching for, the eye snapped forward and focused. A light shot out of the back of it and onto the far wall of the orb. A blurry scene started to manifest. It was upside down at first, but different layers of glass within the sphere laboriously slid over themselves until the image was flipped around. The party could see it was a scene of a dark cave tunnel.

"Um, are you using me as a human shield?" asked Spider-man's voice.

"What?" said Wyn defensively. "No. I didn't tell you to touch it! I was just asking if you could sense if it was-"

"What? I didn't ask that," interrupted Spider-man.

"No, look!" exclaimed Boksee.

The rest of the party already was. Within the orb, a scene was playing out just like the time slips, but this one showed not only the full environment but more importantly, the Far Marvels. They were making their way down an ancient passage.

"It's us!"

"Ha! Ms. Paladin's afraid of bugs…" laughed the Boksee in the orb.

"I remember this," said Wyn in realization. "This was in the Excorium."

"Not afraid. Disgusted…"

The present party watched as the past party was attacked by and quickly dispatched of a giant centipede.

"Is this your memory?" asked Wyn turning to Peter.

"How can it be? It's in third person," he replied.

Spider-man, never pulling off the glass, found he was able to slide his hand around the sphere. The scene within mimicked the movement, rotating around as if he were controlling a fixed camera. The center point was always and unbreakably his past self, but he was able to see angles he wouldn't have been able to, such as behind walls and beneath their feet.

"This shows the actual past then," said Wyn. "Your actual past."

"Absolutely astounding," said Nih. "A magical mechanism with the sight of a chronomancer."

Wolverine had his guard up.

The party in the orb was still making their way down the tunnel.

"But why this moment?" asked Boksee.

"I had to catch one of those things for my girlfriend once…" continued the past Peter blasé.

Suddenly the eye lurched. The playing scene abruptly vanished but the orb remained lit. The eye was searching again but this time it was having far more trouble. Thrashing, spinning, twisting, the eye couldn't seem to find what it was looking for. It flailed and sputtered and jerked in more and more frantic desperation. The entire sphere started flashing in colors, the mechanisms and layers of glass starting to turn, slowly at first, then faster and faster under Spider-man's palm.

The party startled, weapons leaping from hilts. Peter tried to pull his hand away again, but again the orb held him fast. He nearly wrenched it from its stand as he tried to free himself. The eye was in a frenzy, the orb hot and spiraling, for all the world acting like a program was failing to execute. Finally, it seemed to find what it had been seeking.

The center eye stopped so suddenly it lurched sideways and had to snap back, its unblinking pupil landing forward and contracting. The orb at large returned to a neutral glow, the grey having taken on a slightly different hue. Very blurred at first, a new scene was slowly pulled into focus.

In a small cluttered apartment, one filled with oddities and contraptions unknown to this reality, a past Peter was getting ready. He was wearing his suit sans mask. With him, halfway between dressing, a beautiful redheaded woman was standing on a bed and shrieking.

"GET IT! GET IT!" she cried pointing at the floor.

"It's just a centipede!" he exclaimed back. "Jeeze, don't scare me like that."

"It's three inches long!"

"Oh boy! If you think that's impressive…"

"Peter!"

The native adventurers, transfixed by what they were seeing, slowly lowered their weapons, mouths opening.

"Is this…" gasped Boksee.

The Peter of the past unflinchingly reached down and plucked the centipede off the floor. He gave the woman an eyebrow.

"Alright pal, eight legs or fewer to enter this joint."

Walking through the room of bestrewn alien technology – toaster, microwave, television, laptop – Peter approached a singular window, the towering corridors of his Manhattan neighborhood in view behind him.

Pushing it open, the sounds of sirens and car horns entered the air.

"Out you go," he smiled casually tossing the centipede.

"Honestly Mr. Parker, you're going to have to keep it a lot cleaner in here if you want me to keep spending the night," scolded the woman throwing a sock at him.

"Don't blame me," he argued amused. "Do you know how many silverfish I had to run out of this place when I first moved in?" he asked as she escaped the bed. "At least four."

Dawning his mask, he hopped up into the window himself.

"Ironic that Spider-man moved into the buggiest building in Manhattan, right?"

"Only if you don't fix it," she said pulling the mask back up and giving him a kiss. "See you tonight Tiger."

"Love you."

Flipping backwards, the sight of the orb stayed fixed over his shoulder as he plummeted a dozen stories into the bowels of the otherworldly city. Before hitting a street filled to the brim with metallic contraptions, he threw a webline and launched back into the air with a spin. Hundreds of feet of silken strands were left in his wake, strewn from monolithic walls of endless windows and drifting in the wind. A morning sun could be seen, orange and heavy, fighting to dawn behind a jagged black sea of silhouetted skyscrapers.

"This… this is your world," breathed Wyn.

Spider-man looked to her. The paladin was stunned, Boksee and Nih just as wide-eyed.

"Yah."

As the party watched the past Spider-man swing through a cloud of scattering pigeons, he rounded a skyscraper and a street filled with pedestrians came into view.

"There's so many people," said Boksee watching the undulating mass of foot traffic.

"It's all stone, and glass, and metal. All the way to the horizon," said Nih distressed. "Is this what your world is like?"

"No. This is just the city," Peter replied.

Before he had even finished the sentence, the image in the orb faded and a new one came into focus. It was a past Spider-man walking down a railroad in a much more forested area.

"Oh," he said surprised. "See."

"I've seen trees before!" said Boksee. "Go back!"

"I don't know how!"

"I believe it's responding to your thoughts," said Nih.

"But I didn't think about that."

"Perhaps on a subconscious level. It likely requires a clear intent and focus to wield correctly."

"And a fair bit of training I'd wager," said Wyn. "Try remembering something."

"Oh, um ok."

Peter concentrated on a random memory and was rewarded as the scene switched back to the city. The time of day and year had changed. Fall was in the air as his past self was sat hanging against the side of a towering building. Putting another hand to the orb, the current Spider-man fiddled around and managed to zoom the image out, then he spun it until a good angle of the street came into view. Balloons as big as houses were being walked down the way in a rain of confetti.

"I love a parade," he shrugged as the native adventurers were once again mesmerized. "Neat huh?" he smiled.

"I want to see a shower," grinned Boksee.

"What?"

"IIIIIIIIII'm gonna Swi-iiinnng from the chandelieeer! From the chandeLIEEERR!" sang a naked Peter scrubbing away in a not so well-kept apartment shower-tub.

"AH!" he cried.

"AH!" agreed Wyn.

He zoomed out so his past self was behind the curtain.

"By the divine," whispered Boksee once again wide-eyed. "What a fool I've been. It's like a fountain, but so hot the room steams. Truly, I have never known such luxury."

"Stop watching me shower! How do I make this go away‽ Why do I keep ending up naked in front of you people?"

"You do half of it yourself!" snapped Wyn with her eyes covered.

"Would you stop fuckin' around‽" barked Wolverine making everyone jump. "Are you stupid‽ Ask it how we got here already!"

"OH! Oh yah!" exclaimed Spider-man.

Taking a breath and concentrating, he tried to command the orb to his will.

The scene changed to Logan finding him in the river.

"We already know that part!" barked the mutant.

"I don't remember how we got here. How can I think about it?"

"Think about the time before you were in the river," said Nih. "Not as a memory, but as a concept."

"Ummm…" said Spider-man concentrating again.

The scene switched back to Spider-man minding his own business in the city.

"Ugh!"

"Come on kid!"

"I'm trying!"

"I'm trying!" shouted a past Spider-man.

They looked up to see the orb was pulling a different scene into focus. A past Spider-man was shaking and screaming. Spine bent, arms over his shoulders, he was straining to keep the weight of an entire collapsed building from coming down on him, a tiny red figure under an immovable mountain of concrete.

"Hey!" snapped current Spider-man, then his eyes landed on what was being depicted. Losing his train of thought, his attention was completely captured by the reflection of himself struggling in peril. He stopped, really watching it, his blank white eyes widening.

By his subconscious command, another vision started manifesting.

"What? No! Stop it!" he shouted forcing it away. Just as he did another tried to start up, then another. Against his will more and more scenes of his past tried to conjure before them.

"No, stop!" he exclaimed.

"NO, STOP!" screamed a Spider-man in the orb. He was beaten and war-torn. They watched him lunge for an abomination of a creature, a man with metal tendrils welded into his living flesh, only to be caught and slammed to the ground. A mechanized claw clamped around his head and launched him through a wall. Civilians screamed as tendrils ensnared around them.

Peter was yanking at his hand again, the party jumping to aid him, trying to free him, but he was stuck. The more he fought and panicked, the worse the scene that played, and the worse the scene that played, the more he fought and panicked!

They were all powerless but to watch more and more horrific and violent scenes flash in rapid succession. The images weren't even coherent. Sounds, screams, explosions, bangs the native adventures didn't recognize. A dead man in a parking lot. A woman's snapping neck. They flashed by faster and faster, abhorrent and grotesque acts of violence afflicted on Spider-man, and BY him. As the current Spider-man fought harder and harder against the orb, flashes of the past Spider-man sobbed, despaired, clawed, screamed, roared, bit. Bones were snapped, bodies were thrown. In an absolute fury, his past latched its fingers around someone's face and ripped the skin from their flesh, bloody chunks still stuck to his fingertips as they wailed. Even Wolverine's brow furrowed.

The current Spider-man let out a shout. Suddenly each disparate scene seemed to bring him closer and closer to death - beatings, bombings, stabbings, bleedings - until finally a coffin was thrown open. A flash of a maniacal man and the past Peter awoke in the dark. His hands leapt to find a ceiling was only inches above him. It was the lid of the coffin.

The women both gasped in sudden understanding as the past Spider-man screamed.

"I DON'T WANT TO SEE ANY OF THIS!"

The current Spider-man scrunched his eyes and turned away.

As soon as he stopped looking, the image stalled. It had landed on a scene with the redheaded woman again. The Spider-man in the orb was unmasked, filthy, and covered in mud and sores like he had crawled out of the grave itself. He was just lying on the floor in the grasp of the woman, his eyes clamped closed.

Unaware of this, his current eyes also firmly closed, finally the present Spider-man found he was able to pull his hand away.

As soon as skin no longer touched glass, the center eye lost focus and the orb went dark.

Noticing an uncomfortable silence, Peter looked again and turned to his party. In the stark crimson of Nih's orb light, he saw them all staring at him, even Wolverine.

"Um…" he started. "Can, can we all just pretend we didn't see any of that?"

Even with the mask, they could tell he was giving them an awkward grimace.

It took everyone another moment.

Wyn cleared her throat.

"Um, Claws, why, why don't you give it a try," she said turning to him.

"WHAT‽" he exclaimed recoiling.

"See if you can get it to focus on how you two got here. E-everyone knows Webs is a bit of a scatter brain. No offense."

Spider-man shrugged.

Intense apprehension flashed across the old mutant's face, but it was quickly suppressed.

"Right," he gruffed.

Taking off what was left of his glove, he stepped up and extended a hand toward the orb. He stopped, fingers hovering just over the glass.

"Claws?"

"No wait, maybe this isn't a good idea," said Boksee turning to the paladin. "Wyn, think about it."

"Huh? Oh! Um, right. I'm sorry Logan. Maybe, maybe we can…"

"NO!" he barked rounding on them. "If he can't do it then it's up to me! Stop talking! It ain't a big deal!"

Bracing himself, he reared back and moved to slap his hand down.

The shredding woman flashed in the glass.

Wolverine startled back.

An ear piercing, eldritch, distorted wail echoed around them. The party screamed, clutching their hands over their ears.

Without anyone touching it, the orb lit on its own, the eyeball flailing to reset itself.

"What? No!" barked the mutant.

Wolverine slapped his hand to it but the orb refused to heed him. It was already in use.

Ready to leap, the party hovered backwards and watched as a new scene began to materialize.

Within the orb, Winter and Summer were once again sat in a castle room together. The chronomancer held herself in a position of penance, her white make-up especially thick and her dark hair pulled especially tight.

"I'm afraid I must apologize…" she said. "I was out of line attempting to lecture you in your own expertise. You truly are the greatest mechanist of our age."

The dwarf was unimpressed.

"You wouldn't be saying this if you didn't need something from me," he said curtly.

"And a perceptive one. I am in need of a master craftsman," she admitted immediately.

Reaching into her sleeve, she pulled out a red, leathery scroll.

His eyes went wide.

"That is…"

"Writing from our master, yes."

He snatched it.

"It's instructions to create a magical facility of a bygone age," she explained. "One which can peer through the veil of time with great accuracy and minimal disturbance."

Unbinding it, the war mage quickly scanned the scroll over. He gave a few thoughtful nods.

"Yes… exquisite. The physical requirements seem simple enough," he said flashing the chronomancer a dismissive leer, then he continued reading and thinking. "I can have the metallurgy cast and shipped. The sphere will require more extensive spell work but…," he started, then stopped. His eyes had focused on something.

"Yes," agreed Winter to his silence. "As you can see, this facility requires ingredients." There was a pause. "I would like to discuss purchasing."

"You're too generous…"

In a flash, Winter and Summer were now walking down a hall in a different time and place. The one-eyed girl, blind folded, bound and gagged could be seen being dragged off in the background.

"On the contrary. I'm happy to be rid of her," said the dwarf with a coin bag and an armful of schematics. "At that age I've found they cost more in resources than they contribute in labor. I was only saddled with her because the seller refused me the mother without dragging her along. Said it was cruel or some such nonsense."

"Still happy you saved that guy?" asked Logan to Peter.

A flash and another scene came into focus.

It was of the orb itself. The current orb showed a scene of the past orb being wielded by Winter, but instead of showing what scene it was depicting the past orb was a sphere of glowing emptiness.

"No, NO! It cannot be!" cried Winter frantically swiping away at it. "After all this, after EVERYTHING‽ It can't…. NO!"

The wizard flew into a rampage, spells exploding and rogue magic shooting in all directions.

She snapped back to the orb.

"It can't see into anything beyond this plane‽ That can't be true! I have seen it! In my visions! Why can you not show me what I have already seen‽ WORTHLESS! UTTERLY WORTHLESS!"

"It can," said Peter causing the party to jump again. "But it needs a reference point. "Why was she trying to see into a different dimension?"

"You don't know!" exclaimed Boksee in realization. "Webs! She's looking for Wolverine!"

"What‽"

"Her vision! The man in her dressing room! It was Wolverine! It's already happened!"

A flash and another scene.

"We all have problems Esyllt!" snapped Spring pacing back and forth before the chronomancer. "I do not come to be bombarded by your obsessive worries. You sit alone here in your castle, away from any eye, free to explore your passions at any leisure. Could you even fathom the pressure of constantly upholding your family prestige? Of your every tiniest action being anally scrutinized by the incestuous preening gaze of our backwater aristocracy? I don't have the luxury of disappearing to a private fortress for months on end. I can barely orchestrate the investigation of a single dead dwarf."

"Yes, Sigmondus…" said Winter calmly. She was almost in a daze. "I've been meaning to ask you. Summer told me of your interest in the dwarf. Could you not find a more recent body? What of the heaps of remains in the catacombs? Why does this one dwarf matter so much to you?"

"That fool died thinking he had outwitted my father. Father may have lost his nerve in the subject, abandoned his experimentation, but I long for nothing more than to see that mad dwarf's face after he is dragged kicking and screaming back to this mortal plane. I want to see it. I want to see it as the realization dawns behind his living eyes, that in the end, the Losthips won."

"You've found him then?"

Spring took a hard breath, a hand to his brow.

"I have. I believe so," he explained taking a seat. "My investigator was able to find a forty-year-old report from one of the most remote outposts in Strana. It was concerning the dwarf's last known location. He's skilled in dowsing you see, and was able to confirm the presence of the remains within the nearby forest. Hopefully that's close enough for some common adventurer to go dreg him up. You're aware of the philosophy society I patron?"

"Honestly, you patron so many societies."

"Yes. I'm in the process of convincing them to honor Sigmondus this year as an excuse to commission the retrieval, imagine, the mad old fool. Normally I would put far more distance between myself and a dealing such as this, but time is short."

"You call him mad," argued Winter. "But Sigmondus is the only mortal in Strana ever known to have pierced the veil of reality and look upon the demi-plane of time. That is why he went mad they say, but he was brilliant. Did you ever think that he was not running from your family's nihilistic agreement, but was instead running toward an ascended goal? In the last of his life, Sigmondus was said to have been chasing a weakness in the veil, to once again pierce it. What if he found it?" she demanded regaining some vigor.

"You seem oddly interested in this matter," said Spring suspicious.

"I am keenly interested in piercing the veil of reality. My dear Spring, please, I believe my doom will not come from this plane. I have seen it. It is a world filled with mechanisms and abominations never having been known to any mortal here. I must pierce our current veil if I am to find it."

The necromancer gave her a frigid look.

"So then… which outpost did you say Sigmondus was last seen at again?"

Flash.

"The Northern Outpost, headed to the Ashen Woods," said a new voice.

A new scene pulling into focus, Winter was handed a paper scroll. Taking it, she looked it over with palpable relief.

"Your grace, I cannot thank you enough for meeting with me," she said.

"Please Winter, what is the good of code names if we don't use them?"

"Oh, very well… Autumn."

The party's attention snapped to the new figure coming into view beside her.

He was a large, athletic man in maybe his fifties. Both his beard and hair, umber in color, were tied away into tight knots hiding them from view. There was little else of note about him.

"That's Autumn? 'Your grace'? He is the one in charge!" exclaimed Spider-man.

"He… kind of looks familiar?" said Boksee tilting her head.

"He does‽" asked Peter.

Wyn and Nih were both squinting.

"You guys know him?" demanded Logan.

"Maybe?" said Wyn. "There is this uncanny feeling."

"I'm not the best at distinguishing the faces of men," said Nih.

"Maybe he just has one of those faces," said Spider-man.

"So Spring finally found his dwarf, did he?" asked Autumn. "Finally putting an end to that little saga?"

"Yes, and is apparently very jealous of him. He needn't worry. I haven't use for bones. He can play with his remains and petty family feuds all he wishes. Again, my gr- Autumn, I apologize for having to involve you. My status meant nothing to his highness' Royal Military Library," she said bitterly.

"I've been meaning to check in on my colleagues in the flesh," the larger man shrugged. "Summer's infectorum is quite a sight to behold. Certainly worth the expenditure."

Winter bit her lips.

"Wait, did… are they saying Summer build the fire spire for Autumn?" asked Spider-man.

"He's saying he at least paid for it, right?" asked Boksee.

"Autumn got the crystal for it," added Wyn.

They kept watching.

"Time is in short supply for our dear fellow Spring I'm afraid. Seems it always is. Maybe as a chronomancer you will be able to aid him with the matter," Autumn partially joked.

Winter didn't laugh.

"You know I would certainly not decline a few more hours in the day," he continued giving her a look. Then his face fell. Sitting up, he stared down at the wizard with an air of absolute authority. "In fact, I think I would very much appreciate it if my esteemed chronomancer companion could assist me ANY time time is not my friend," he said with a threat. "Certainly after all the trouble I went to to hand deliver her an exclusive report behind our colleague's back."

Winter baulked, but quickly bowed her head.

"My gr-," she started sheepishly but corrected. "Autumn, it would be my honor to assist you," she submitted. "In any way I can. As soon as I am able."

"Wonderful," he said giving her back a warm smile. He leaned back and twisted at one of the small knots of his beard. "In all seriousness, I do hope our friend Spring doesn't do anything foolish. I have enough to manage without the local aristocracy falling into a tizzy. Winter dear, if I may ask, if you're not interested in the dwarf's bones, what are you interested in?"

The chronomancer paused before answering.

"I simply need to be, where he was."

Flash.

"Come!"

With a trio of armed males, Winter stomped through a familiar forest, a very familiar forest.

"That's Nehfar!" exclaimed Boksee.

The chronomancer pulled out some sort of ritualistic instrument and tested the air.

"Yes, yes here!" she exclaimed maniacally.

Running to the bank of an extremely familiar shallow river, she pulled her wand and started throwing up spell circles.

"But my lady, we were said to be heading toward the Ashen Woods," said one of her men. He was carrying something covered by a thin sheet. "By our chart, that's still…"

"I detect a weakness here!" she snapped. "Bring me the mana!"

With a flicker of apprehension, the man pulled the thing he was carrying from his back. It was the body of a child.

The party gasped.

Removing the sheet, it was revealed to be a girl with a missing eye, everyone but Wolverine recoiling in realization. She wasn't dead. Instead, she appeared to be in some sort of trance, frozen with her limbs stiff, head thrown back and eye open.

Stepping her forward, the man placed her on the ground before the wizard. A spell circle lighting beneath them both, the girl was pulled hovering into the air.

Floating out a book and a metronome-like device, the chronomancer readied herself like a conductor. With an incantation, the same sort of amulet the party had found so long ago began to glow around her neck. As it did, the corresponding brandmark beneath the girl's tattered blouse blazed a burning red. Her frozen face twitched and arms jerked.

A spiraling gale of magical energy started whipping around them.

Her men rushing to join her in the eye of the storm, Winter began casting her spell.

Pages and pages worth of text spilled from her mouth in a monotonous mechanical recitation. More glowing runes and spell circles were summoned around them, ticking and twisting in synchronized rotations, mathematics formulating in real time.

At one point Winter audibly stumbled on a word. A rune circle glitched and the grass and plants around them started to shrink and grow in unnatural time distortions. The males, swords drawn, huddled closer to their master.

Re-finding her rhythm, the adventurers watched her continue undeterred until the spell reached its climax. Stabbing her wand over the river, Winter shouted a final command.

"APERTA!"

There was an ear-piercing hiss as a tiny bright orb formed passed the tip of her wand. It floated perfectly still in the air like a dent in a window.

Winter's porcelain face erupted in deranged exhilaration. The storm whipping into a typhoon, the girl's unblinking face twisting and mouth gasping as the brand blazed brighter, the wizard funneled every ounce of their combined mana into the singular pressure point. It grew brighter.

"Almost…"

Plants and even animals rapidly aged and died and rotted then de-aged and grew around them.

"ALMOST..!"

Another hiss and the dot spread into a crack in the thin air.

"YES!"

From the crack, a massive skinless finger suddenly pushed through.

Her men shouted. Winter let out a scream and yanked her wand away.

The scene erupted into an explosion so loud the Far Marvels reflexively ducked and covered their ears. As the image slowly came back into view, the present adventurers saw the past chronomancer, her men, and her slave were all still alive. They were scattered about the ground, and despite the massive explosion, nothing seemed out of place. It was somehow still a peaceful spring day by the shallow river. The spell had been ended. The crack, and the finger that had broken through it, were gone.

Struggling back to her feet, Winter waved her wand but nothing happened.

"What‽" she gasped trying again, and again, nothing. She was just waving a stick.

They could see her quickly assessing the situation, her mind blazing behind her eyes.

"My lady?" asked a man.

"No good," she hissed. "This area is now unviable. We'll have to keep looking."

Snapping her gloved fingers, she motioned to the slave girl still stiff on the ground.

Lowering his head, the same man stepped forward and retook her.

Flash.

In a forest of grey gnarled trees, the chronomancer ran between a collection of ancient stone ruins. Four of the Far Marvels recognized it as the ruin site in the Ashen Woods, but it was far larger than they remembered.

"Yes! YES!" she exclaimed. "This is it! This MUST be it! The veil is so thin!"

Following her ritualistic device, Winter all but sprinted into a stone temple. It was partially built suspended over the neck of the river. Entering a crumbling doorway, she found the building was flooded.

Splashing through standing water, she entered a familiar stone room.

"That's it!" shouted Logan.

"Vaughn! Vaughn, to me! Bring the mana!"

The usual man carried the girl to the doorway but didn't step through. The girl was looking far worse than when they had last seen her, frail and sickly.

"M-my lady please. How much more of this do you think she can survive? The child, she's growing cold."

"That doesn't matter! Bring her now or you can be her substitute!"

The man looked down at the girl, then his face curdled in disgust. He brought her to the chronomancer.

The other men entered behind him.

Summoning her supplies and throwing up her spell circles, Winter readied herself to repeat the process.

Again the girl was placed before her, floating over the water. The brandmark again blazed a burning red and the spell was begun.

A whipping gale of magical energy flurried around them far greater than that at the shallow river. The chronomancer was giving it everything she had. Dozens upon dozens of clicking spell circles and spiraling runes manifested around them. The crumbling walls shook and the magical gale nearly swirled the standing water into a maelstrom.

Stabbing her wand through the air, the same white dot formed before her.

"Yes…"

Winter again funneled her unbridled power directly into the tiny pressure point, but the veil wouldn't be pierced so easily. A backlash, a shockwave, erupted from the chronomancer and exploded backwards. Her men, along with the front wall of the temple, were blown flying. Still, she refused to yield.

The men hit the grass, shielding themselves from flying rubble and looked to each other. Then they looked around. It was if reality itself was shaking and breaking under the strain, the air wobbling, the world bathed in odd colors and distorted sounds. To the side, there was a pressurized screech. They whipped around to see a glowing slit split the open sky.

"What is that‽" shouted a man.

Another! A glowing rip in the thin air formed closer. This one they could see inside. It was an unintended portal to an arid desert, a tear in the fabric of their plane.

Just as the men leapt to their feet, they heard a loud buzzing. A cloud of black flies erupted from the rip, descending onto the closest man. His mouth shot opened but no sound escaped as he was stripped to the bloody bone, flies twitching between his teeth.

The other men screamed and fled for their lives. The adventurers saw one barrel down a set of stairs and disappear into the catacombs. The other ran for the chronomancer.

Winter's spell dome and whipping magical storm was keeping the flies at bay, but the ancient stone building was nearly being pulled from its foundation. As reality continued to split at the seams, Vaughn, the last man standing, ran toward his master in terror. She wasn't stopping!

"Whether I change my fate or face it, it makes no difference!" she screamed unrelenting. "This ends now! I will find him!"

The air was electrified. Rips split the sky, water erupted, rubble flew in a cyclone.

"I WILL NOT LIVE IN FEAR AGAIN!"

Her wand nearly shaking out of her hand, finally, the dot let out a shriek and cracked. Then it splintered open. Winter nearly fell forward. Within the crack's glowing border, the adventurers could see spheres and stars and galaxies spiraling past.

"YES!" she howled.

Zooming through an endless celestial weave, through a universe, a galaxy, a solar system, an atmosphere, finally a frosted forest came into view.

Vaughn covered his head as part of the temple nearly came down on him. The magical storm in a hurricane, a heap of rubble flew into the floating girl knocking her from the spell circle. She hit the water with a scream, the brand darkening, her hands leaping to cover her head. The trance had failed.

"NO!" screeched the chronomancer.

Straining with all her might to keep the spell going, she lunged for her, the girl screaming at the top of her lungs as she was caught by the hair.

At last the man blazed with indignation, his sword leaping into his hands.

"You're mad! STOP THIS! STOP THIS NOW!" he roared attempting to stab the wizard through the back.

A burst of magic and the man's attack was deflected. Blood splattered as his blade came down not on Winter, but on the girl.

"NO!" they both screamed.

Falling into the water, the girl clutched her body in anguish, blood spilling between her boney arms.

All of reality was wobbling and distorting around them.

The man lunged for Winter again, ripping the glowing amulet from her neck with a loud snap. She barked in pain and threw her wand in a bright flash.

The amulet sent flying, the man wailed as he rapidly de-aged, limbs retracting and scream shrilling. With another swing of her wand, she blasted him out of the room. The now toddler hit the water outside and was immediately attacked by a river serpent.

"SHE'S A DEMON!" screamed Boksee.

In the vision of the orb, the crack was closing. The world was quaking.

Her wand burning bright, shaking, charring her gloves, Winter was physically straining to move while maintaining the spell. Grabbing the dying child from the ground, she shoved the white-hot wand right to the brandmark. It ignited a burning raw red as she tried to manually pull whatever mana was left from her.

The girl screamed a noise that could break a soul, then she whipped around and landed a boney thumb right to the wizard's eye.

"THAT'A GIRL!" shouted Logan.

Winter screamed and recoiled. Her wand exploded, sending her and the girl both flying in opposite directions.

The orb was consumed in pure white, the sound so enormous it failed to convey it, only an endless boom that sent the adventurers reeling.

They again couldn't help but duck, covering their heads and ears, but the orb was undamaged. Pulling themselves back up, they watched the scene begin to clear.

Outside in the grass, Winter was curled on the ground. She still had both her eyes, but one was clenched closed. Staggering to her hands, she and the adventurers saw the spell had failed. The crack was closed. Half the temple was completely removed from existence, the walls bisected and its water pouring into the flooded river.

The girl was gone.

"NO!" shouted Wolverine. "YOU BITCH! YOU-"

Wyn clasped her metal gauntlets and quickly recited a prayer for the deceased child.

"NOO!" screamed Winter. "NO! This cannot be!"

She tried to stand but fell to the ground gasping. All around her, glowing rips through space time were still hanging in the air, the structure of the mortal plane shredded and tattered.

Clutching her side, clawing the ground, Winter tried to throw one last spell. Remarkably, her magic still worked, her gloved finger glowing as she stabbed it through the air. Perhaps that was for the worst.

With the final flick of her wrist, her intention unknown, a rip like none they had ever seen split into the sky before her. It was like eternity itself had severed open. The adventurers couldn't see what was inside, the orb only showing an empty white, but Winter could.

Both eyes going wide, jaw nearly snapping off its hinges, her body went rigid and gasped. Her porcelain white face stared in both terror and awe at what forbidden sight lay beyond the rip, beyond the glowing border of eternity.

"The plane of ti-"

It was all she could say. Mid word, she gasped again, her pale white face erupting into a horror beyond comprehension - terror and awe transformed into the scream of the damned. Too fast to see, almost too fast to register, something lunged out of the rip, grabbed her, and pulled her screaming inside.

The orb went black so suddenly the adventurers jumped. The scene was over, the center eye left spinning from the inertia.

Back in the crimson light of their druid, the party looked to each other.

Before a single word could be uttered, another distorted scream shattered the air.

Winter was stood right behind them.

Whipping around, they saw her phasing, shredding flesh sliding backwards. The realization hit them that she had been there the entire time. Manipulating the orb, stood with them shoulder to shoulder.

They startled back, hands leaping to weapons and backs hitting glass, but the chronomancer couldn't touch them. It was her ghostly, reflected form. With the great sphere serving as her mirror, her image was coming through with such strength that a halo of repeating doppelgangers was fractalized around her, every one of them screaming.

"Th-that's where she is!" Wyn blared, her ears covered. "Where she's been this entire time! She's trapped in the plane of time! She's trapped in time! Trying to escape!"

"Or are we in time‽" exclaimed Boksee. "And she's trying to get back in‽"

"This ain't the time for high thinkin'!" barked Logan.

Turning around, he threw his claws into her source of reflection, right into the glass sphere. Winter's screams reached a fever pitch.

It shattered like ice.

All at once, the entire sphere gave way in a rain of crystalline shards. A tidal wave of clear fluid flooded down on them, violently surging the adventurers in all directions.

Claws stabbing into the floor, Wolverine caught himself in the raging current, resurfacing with a gasp as the liquid dispersed through the castle. He could see his reflection beneath him in what was left standing and he realized his mistake.

Winter now had the entire chamber to serve as her mirror. Sliding over top of them, dozens upon dozens of herself, each with their own repeating halos, screamed and wailed in a growing light.

"ELF BOY! DROP THE LIGH-" he started but it wasn't coming from Nih. The light was white. Every head in the room whipped to see where it was coming from.

There, where the orb had previously stood, the central eye was unmoved. Floating in midair, without the constructed glass sphere to contain it, it was staring straight forward, its pupil shining a piercing white.

There was a hiss.

Peter's spider sense nearly spotted his vision.

"WE HAVE TO GO NOW!" he screamed.

At his command Wyn, Boksee, and Nih went sprinting, splashing through the water from wherever they had landed in a mad dash toward the hall.

Wolverine didn't move with them. Leaping back to his feet, he charged for the eye.

"LOGAN!"

Spider-man tried to web him down but the mutant shredded it away. In a flying lunge, Peter tackled him. The two hit the flooded floor screaming and fighting.

"WE HAVE TO GO!" the younger man shouted. "LET IT GO!"

The older shouted back.

"I AIN'T FINISHED!"

"LOGAN!"

The chronomancer wailed her distorted scream as they flailed and tangled over each other.

"I WON'T LET HER GET AWAY WITH IT!" Wolverine roared. "YOU CAN'T RUIN PEOPLE AND THROW THEM AWAY! I WON'T LET YOU! I'LL KILL YOU!"

"SHE'S NOT HERE!"

Wolverine launched an adamantium filled fist right into Spider-man's nose. There was a crack and Spider-man flailed backwards, hands leaping to his face as blood gushed and he kicked. Wolverine pushed him off and scrambled back to his feet.

Despite their orders, the rest of the party floundered to a stop.

Wyn cursed.

"Keep going!" she shouted at the others before turning and running back. They didn't listen to her either.

Sprinting past her at full speed, Boksee lunged for Spider-man, grabbing his writhing form out of the standing liquid and pulling him back.

Planting his feet, the druid threw his thornwhip after them. In her thick winter gloves, the ranger snatched it from the air and wrangled it around her arm. In a twisting flourish he gave them an extra pull back toward the hall.

Seeing the rest of her party moving in the right direction, Wyn sprinted for Logan.

Spider-man's mask was filled with blood. As soon as his head stopped spinning and he realized where he was he whipped back around.

"No!" he exclaimed. "Keep going without m-"

"SPIDER-MAN COME ON!" shouted Boksee. She and Nih scrambled to try to restrain him but they stood no chance.

Just as Peter moved to launch himself back at Wolverine and Wyn, his spider sense jolted anew.

Directly over their heads, a pressurized scream split the air. A glowing tear ripped the ceiling apart. Suddenly everything was being sucked up into it. Nih lassoed his thornwhip around a jut in a wall. Spider-man stuck to the ground and grabbed Boksee as she went flying.

He looked up to see the tear was open to a black sea of stars.

"WHAT'S HAPPENING‽" the halfling screamed.

"IT'S A VACUUM! A REAL VACUUM!" shouted Spider-man.

Nearly yanked off his feet, Wolverine stabbed his claws into the ground. Right behind him, Wyn lunged and snagged him by an ankle but only by her good arm. She couldn't hang on! Just as she lost her grip, her body pulled into the air, Wolverine freed an arm and snatched her. They both slid, a terrible scraping sounding from his singular set of claws as he strained to keep them embedded in the floor.

Directly under the rip, Boksee, Nih, and Spider-man were hanging on for dear life. Bare feet in the freezing flood, Spider-man was the only thing stuck firmly to the floor, the air, liquid, and other adventurers being violently pulled into the vacuum of space.

In a moment of nothing but intuition and instinct, he freed a hand a threw a black webline at the glowing rip in spacetime.

Instead of being sucked inside it, or even passing through, the black silk was pulled spinning around the tear in an invisible vortex. He gasped, watching as the inky webbing was spun faster and faster until it was a solid black ring. Then, like a pair of magnets refusing to meet, the spinning anti-magic forced the glowing border of the rip smaller and smaller, the ring shrinking as it spun. With a snap the rip was closed, the web shooting off and splattering in all directions with a force.

Nih and Boksee hit the ground with a splash, freezing liquid raining.

Another pressurized screech sounded behind them. Both Boksee and Nih let out a bark in terror.

Spider-man whipped around to see just as one rip had closed, another had torn through the wall. From floor to ceiling the glowing tear was filled completely by massive, twitching, insectoid legs.

"That's too many legs!" he screamed.

Snapping out of their shock, Nih and Boksee charged forward, forcing the spindly legs back through the tear with lashes of fire and falchion while Spider-man attempted to spin it closed.

With the vacuum gone, Wolverine freed his claws, freed himself from the paladin, and launched back to his feet.

He didn't know what he needed to do. He didn't know what he could do! All he knew was that he couldn't let her get away with it! There was no next time! This had to end now!

Like a moth to flame, his sight landed on the glowing eye. It was growing brighter, a burning white orb starting to shake. He could see a reflection of Winter directly behind it. It was the prime reflection, fuller and clearer than any of the others. The intense light was amplifying her refractions tenfold, hundreds of shredding, screaming, exposed bodies rotating around her in a blinding mosaic.

Sprinting, Wolverine made a last-ditch lunge for it.

Whatever force was being channeled through the exposed orbit finally became too great for it to contain. The eye shuttered, the nuclear white pupil dilated, then there was a hiss.

A rip split the castle from foundation to spire in an all-consuming column of blinding light. Wolverine flailed to stop, his arms reflexively leaping to shield his scrunched eyes.

He could feel a wind on his face, could hear… he wasn't sure. There was a sound he had never heard before, like nothing but everything all at once in a melodic whisper.

Lowering his arms, Wolverine looked to see he was directly before the tear. Spiked hair blowing, face engulfed in an alien light, Logan's eyes went wide as they attempted to focus on the coiling, looping, repeating strands of eternity spiraling before him, at the plane of time.

"NO!" screamed Wyn. She tackled him, clamping her hands around his eyes and clenching her own shut. "DON'T LOOK AT IT! DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT! IT WAS NEVER MEANT FOR MORTAL EYES!" she bellowed pulling him blindly away.

A scream unlike anything they had heard exploded from the tear. It was Winter's distorted, grinding, looping wail pure and unfiltered. Then it wasn't. The sound was slowing down, reforming, becoming coherent. Suddenly the screaming uncorrupted into a single shouted word.

"YOU!"

Wolverine and Wyn, eyes still closed, went flying backwards as a body collided with them. Half-submerged on the flooded floor, Wolverine opened his eyes to see the unmistakable pale face of the shredding woman, real and in the flesh, hovered directly over him. With overwhelming joy, she shoved those blood red lips right onto his.

The mutant startled.

Throwing her arms around him, Winter forcibly kissed him again until he flailed backwards with a splash.

"You!" she repeated chasing him down on all fours. "It's you at last! I knew! We were fated to meet! We had to meet!" she exclaimed.

"WHAT‽"

"I knew you would find me! I found you! I finally found you! You had come to shatter the veil of my prison! Free me from my torture! My vision was misunderstood but one truth was evident! If we were fated to meet then I must be free again! I would escape! I would be free! I MUST!" she cried trying to grab him again.

Wolverine clocked the chronomancer right in the face.

She let out a scream, flailing back into the flooded floor. Hands leaping to her mouth, all three of them noticed her white gloves were heavy and weeping with a dark crimson.

With a start, bloody finger prints smearing her white face, the chronomancer threw herself back to her knees and freed a hand.

The flesh was melting from her fingers.

Winter's breath caught in horror as she watched her skin and muscle liquefy, her bones and fingernails clatter into the liquid below. She let out a blood-curdling scream as an entire hand rotted from her wrist. Then she looked up.

Wolverine was stood over her, a set of claws reared into the air, his face emblazoned in that same monstrous glare that had haunted her nightmares.

That pale porcelain face ignited in terror one last time.

In a geyser of spraying blood, Winter's head went flying. Unceremoniously landing in the standing liquid, it splashed with a clunk and bobbed to the surface.

"That's for the girl," growled Logan stepping up to it.

He watched that pale face, still frozen in horror, continue to rot and melt until nothing remained but the skull.

In one violent stomp, he shattered it to splinters, disgusting liquid splashing.

"And that's for me," he huffed. "Bitch."

He rubbed the smeared make-up off his face as Wyn grabbed him.

The tear into the demi-plane of time still open behind them, all five of the Far Marvels were making a run for it.

All around them, what was left of coherent continuity was ripping at the seams. Walls spliced, ceilings crumbled, rooms imploded, reality ripped.

Time slips were manifesting, no longer of the recent past of Winter, but of the manor's deep history. Distorted music played as men and women - silken gowns and colorful capes - danced through the collapsing castle. The aristocracy was intersected by rioting masses, different scenes bleeding into each other, hundreds of ghostly visions.

Barreling through them, the party sprinted the hall toward the lone window.

"There are no more boats!"

The people of the past were screaming over each other, their cries overlapping the music.

"Where are the boats‽"

"WE ARE STARVING!"

Another rip.

Ahead of everyone else, Boksee slid beneath a glowing tear as it split the air above her.

Just behind her, Spider-man and Nih threw themselves to a stop.

"Keep going!" Spider-man shouted and she obeyed.

Moving to web it closed, he and Nih both recoiled as half a dozen of the same insectoid legs erupted from the gash. Before they could stop them, they crawled forward. Phasing, glitching, a gargantuan spider dragged itself onto the floor before them.

The adventurers both froze.

With a dozen unblinking eyes, it looked at Spider-man, fangs twitching. Then it turned and pounced on the distorted visions of the past. It caught them! The people of the past screamed, the others around them crying out and scattering as the present spider started cocooning them in phasing, glitching, iridescent silk. Dragging its thrashing prey back through the rip, the enormous spider webbed the tear in spacetime closed behind it.

Both adventurers were stood gaping.

"Nih!" exclaimed Peter turning to him. "Nih, are time spiders a thing‽"

The dark elf couldn't even respond.

Wyn and Wolverine came sprinting up behind them. Joining them, Nih and Spider-man again took off running. The window at the end of the hall came into view. Boksee was stopped, stood on its ledge.

"GO!" Spider-man blared.

Seeing them all coming, the ranger obeyed and threw herself out, taking ahold of one of Spider-man's left weblines and rapelling to the stairs below.

Nih was after her.

Before Spider-man could protest, Wyn charged into him from behind, forcibly shoving him out the window only to get thrown by Wolverine in return.

Spider sense and Peter lunged to catch the paladin before they both hit the stairs.

His party all outside, Wolverine reflexively gave one last look over his shoulder.

Winter was behind him.

He screamed as freezing, immaterial hands clamped over his mouth and dragged him backwards. He was pulled into the air, flailing and clawing but the thing in the shape of Winter wasn't a person anymore, it was a monstrosity! A groaning, twisting cloud of fury and anguish, untouchable and unstoppable, her limbs snapping and head floating off her shoulders.

His muffled screams joining hers, a web shot past him. The thing that was Winter let out a nauseating screech as Wolverine hit the ground. He looked up to see a web with a pair of sticks in it was now hung over him. Whipping around, he saw Spider-man leaping back through the window.

"And you made fun of my crucifix!"

Logan looked up again at the pair of ordinary sticks webbed together over him, then to the malevolent entity retreating away from them.

"THAT WORKED‽"

Running back into the castle one last time, Peter grabbed him off the ground by the collar.

"Next time don't skimp on the holy water!" he berated. "PLAN AHEAD!"

Throwing him down the hall, the pair sprinted for their lives as the world wobbled around them. The hall imploded as they both took a flying leap.

Wolverine fell from the sky and hit the stairs hard.

"SHIT!" shouted Spider-man.

"LOGAN!" screamed Boksee running for him.

"RUN!" he barked leaping back to his feet. "KEEP RUNNING!"

A fourth of the castle imploded above them.

With a rapid incantation, Nih threw a hand. The snow was melted from the stairs before them and with another command was thrown upwards in a curling wave.

"Spider-man!" he shouted and his teammate understood.

In a leap, Spider-man splattered the wave with ice webbing, freezing it into a solid curve. He landed on it, snapping it from the ground as everyone but Wolverine jumped in.

Giving his team one final push, Logan was snatched by a webline as the ice sled rocketed down the ancient stone stairs.

"HEADS DOWN!" he barked landing in the back. "WEIGHT FORWARD! TOGETHER!"

It was no use!

Flying off the stairs, they hit the snow hard but didn't slow down. Cracks and snaps and hisses exploded from the castle behind them as they clung to the sheet of ice for dear life. They were out of control! Careening down the central summit, the entombed town of Old Plieya leapt up to meet them.

Speeding through the main street, an explosion detonated from behind sending them all flying as the world was engulfed in white.

Deaf, blind, Wolverine couldn't breathe.

His eyes shot open but he couldn't see. Cold wet snow completely covered his nose and mouth. He was buried!

Instinctually flailing against gravity, he felt himself roar as he burst into the fresh air. He hadn't been deep. Ears ringing, spotty vision slowly returning, he feverishly looked around.

It looked like a bomb had gone off. The bygone buildings of the frozen village were fully exposed or completely buried by a tsunami of thrown snow.

He heard a scream.

Spider-man burst out of the snowbank. Face covered in blood, he ripped off his mask and collapsed beside him, gasping in terror. Wolverine grabbed him.

To the mutant's relief, the rest of the party started surfacing. He pushed through the snow to help pull them out as everyone was in a panic, bodies thrashing and hands clutching desperately.

Soaked to the bone, shaking from chill and adrenaline, they grouped together, huddled on their knees in the arctic cold and devastation, waiting for their senses to recover. Nih was forced to use his health potion. Finally, the adventurers turned their attention back to the castle.

Staring up from between the blasted, entombed alleys of Old Plieya, the Far Marvels let out a silent, collective gasp. Like it had never been anything else, the town was now an uninterrupted expanse of stone cottages gently doming over the surrounding valley. The castle, and even the entire summit it had been built upon, was gone.

The End.