"little rest for the weary"
They ran. They ran. Across midnight meadows and dark-cast fields. The night was quiet. No birds sang. No insects chirped. It was as if the very island was holding its breath in, waiting to see what would happen next. Formora pushed herself onwards - willing herself to just go, just keep going and never stop, don't wait around to plan your next tact just move. She didn't stop for anything. Not for the memory of what she'd left behind.
"Láerdhon!" Enduriel hissed just as they passed over another low ridge. "Láerdhon wait-"
"It saw us," she exhaled, slowing but not stopping. She physically couldn't keep herself from moving. Her veins were hot and cold with adrenaline and her heart was in her throat, pounding in her ears. "There's a hovel three leagues from here-"
"We won't reach it until morn," Enduriel shot back. He was breathing heavily, swords clutched tight in his hands. The lance had been strapped to his back. It looked ridiculous on him, so long was the shaft and so large was the blade at the head. Its mystifying low weight, she guessed, was the only reason he hadn't tipped over with it. "We need another."
Formora just shook her head. They hurried down the ridge and onto the pebbly beach that ran along the water's edge. The wish-wash of the waves softly sweeping against the rough sand tried to lull her into a false sense of security, but it did little to assuage her now very real desperation. "If you are proposing-"
"I am."
"We can't trust it."
"There is nowhere else!" Enduriel exclaimed furiously. There was fear in his voice, just as there was with hers. "It's closer than anywhere else. It's defensible."
"It's a trap."
"Your wards are still in place, yes? We should go!"
"We may have time yet."
"In the open?! Are you MAD?! The beast-"
"Enduriel-"
"No, I will not be chased down like a common hare," he snapped.
"So you will hole up like a rabbit instead?" Formora retorted. "I won't take that option."
"Then carry on as you will," Enduriel said, his tone lowering dangerously. "But pass them over."
Formora didn't even think; she twisted, her sabre already drawn, and she held the blade aloft - pointing it at him. "Don't," she warned, not even making the effort to hide away her hateful scowl. "Don't."
Enduriel took a step back and raised his own swords. "They are safer with me."
"No. They aren't. Even if that wasn't..." Formora helplessly indicated back the way they'd come. "They would never be safe with you."
"Keep Agaravel, then! Hand me the other."
"No."
"Láerdhon, I will not ask again."
Formora slid into a familiar stance, feet apart and offhand at the ready to cast a spell. Enduriel assumed one of his own, one she recognized, one denoting a style she knew how to best.
Shadows in the water, Agaravel suddenly whispered.
Formora blinked. Ahead of her, Enduriel flinched as if struck. "What?!" he hotly demanded, hissing through clenched teeth.
The water, Agaravel continued. Formora could feel the mad dragon tugging at her mind with increasing alarm. Shadows in the water, shadows in the water!
Formora gambled a glance to her right, across the ocean's moonlit surface. "I see nothi-"
There was a splash. Formora shifted, keeping Enduriel in view but slowly backing away from the water's edge. He glared at her a moment longer before doing the same; they watched each other just as closely as they watched for the source of the new commotion, but there was nothing to see. Not for a long moment.
Then-
Then something splashed, a long limb briefly breaking the water's surface some distance out, and... and something stood up, seawater flowing down its whip-thin body. It was no elf. No human. No dwarf or werecat or Urgal, nor dragon or spirit or even Ra'zac. It stood like them, on two legs, but it was not like them. The creature had four slender arms, the upper pair clutching what looked like a massive crossbow and the lower pair hanging limp by its side. Formora took in the sight of it - and she saw it for a relative of the monstrosity that had beset the beast at the barn. Thinner, but not shorter, and it was just as afflicted by brutal rot; boils bloomed from its joints and wet pink flesh wetly shone between plates of pale shell. It wore only torn rags for a loincloth and a single crude metal pauldron bolted onto its shoulder - and it wore an ornamented steel cap over the top of its head, obstructing its eyes if it had any. All she saw was a wide jaw framed by a pair of mandibles and filled with rows of needle-sharp teeth.
Shadows in the water, Agaravel murmured.
The thing trudged noisily towards the shore. Not... not for them. Somehow it hadn't seen them yet. They... were upwind, Formora realized. Upwind. Maybe it couldn't smell-
Not alone! Agaravel shouted, rattling her mind.
The creature heard. It must have, because at that very moment its head snapped their way so quickly Formora heard some of the vertebrae in its neck crack. Its mouth opened - and it howled, the noise of it so shrill and ragged and haunting. Other shapes surged out of the water, beckoned by their fellow, and Formora saw more rotting abominations, some missing limbs, some so overcome with their boils they were almost entirely formed of infection, and some even lacked heads. She counted sixteen, seventeen, eightee-
"Run," she whispered, and turned to flee. Enduriel sped after her, firing a spell over his shoulder. The orange energy projectile took the lead creature in the shoulder and spun it around, lighting it up on the spot. The monster crackled like kindling and staggered, immolated from head to shin, and it roared after them - then raised its crossbow as if the flames didn't even hurt. Formora turned her head, took the next ridge and bounded up the slope, all but throwing herself over the edge. Enduriel tumbled after her, just as a screaming streak of violet power sliced the air where his head would have been.
They ran. They ran as fast as they could with renewed vigour and the things - Formora heard them howl and roar and ultimately give chase.
They stumbled over the hill overlooking the fallen craft from before. Formora balked at the sight of it; she knew where she'd been going but she was still less than thrilled to be there. It wasn't right. Nothing was right anymore. Things did not fall from the sky, rotting corpses did not rise from the oceans, and they weren't supposed to move at night. Everything had been thrown out of routine; she didn't know where to go next. Not with a pack of feral things still after them. She and Enduriel closed on the foreign structure, almost racing each other for it, and she reached it first. Formora did not slow down; she dropped to the ground as she came to it and slid beneath its hull, carrying far enough over the sand and earth below that she made it almost all the way to the open hatch beneath. She was almost too afraid to pull herself in; what if the being from earlier had returned? What if another ghoulish creature was inside? What if-
"Hurry!" Enduriel gasped, crawling after her.
Formora pulled herself inside, waited until Enduriel had followed, then looked around - but she saw no way to close the hatch. Enduriel grabbed for the edge of it and tried to tug it up after them, but it was stuck tight. Something wouldn't give. One of her wards was tripped and the magic connecting it to her flared to life; Formora stumbled back, looking the room over once, twice, a third time and still nothing. Nothing to indicate how to close the ramp behind them. Nothing. If they couldn't...
"Frethya vaet aera," Formora quickly said. (Hide our scents.)
The air shifted. All traces of their passing were removed. But it wasn't enough - because another pair of wards, closer, were engaged.
"We have to barricade this," Enduriel decided. He lunged for the nearest couch and tried to pull it towards the ramp, but it was securely fixed to the floor. "Láerdhon!" he cried out.
"No, further inside," Formora urged. She backed away down the hallway to the rear of the craft, passed the other rooms without a care, and slammed her hand against the chamber at the back - and the door slid open, dull yellow lights turned on as she stepped inside. She tentatively threw her mind out; yes, the small creature from before was still there, still caught in its trap, still locked behind a steel container. Its presence shied away from her probing thoughts and erected a hefty defense, but Formora didn't care for it. Not anymore. "Here!" she called out.
Enduriel rushed after her. "How do we-"
Formora waved her hand around. By some miracle the craft must have sensed it and the door shut behind them.
Everything... became alarmingly quiet. Another of her wards was triggered, and another after that, but then they... stopped altogether. Close to the craft, she felt. But not as close as it could have been.
Smoke, Agaravel laughed, shattering the moment of silence. Shadows. Smoke and shadows. Smoke and-
"Hush!" Formora urged her, heaving her pack onto the floor. "Hush, Agaravel, hush hush. Please, you must be quiet."
Smoke and smoke and shadows, Agarvel whispered, growing fainter. Smoke. Smoke.
There was another sound. From down the hallway, muffled by the closed door. A slithering, hissing noise, followed by a low cackling. It got closer, slowly but surely. One of the monsters was aboard. One of them was inside with them. One of them-
"EMERGENCY ALERT!" a voice shouted from above, from around, from everywhere at once. Formora ducked and winced; the noise was cacophonous, but she could not figure out where it was coming from, no matter where she looked. "HAZARDOUS CONTAMINANTS DETECTED! INITIATING LOCKDOWN!"
The whole craft around them shifted. The door clicked and the dull lights within the room turned a worrying shade of red. The beast in the other room growled and began to... hit things, it sounded like.
SMOKE! Agaravel roared, the force of her mental bellowing blurring Formora's vision and tightening a vice around her head. The chaotic din of the beast ceased. Formora shared a worried look with Enduriel - and then flinched, startled, as something abruptly threw itself against the door. It did not, to her immense relief, slide open. Something had locked it. The voice, perhaps. Had the first creature, the stranger in white robes, returned? Was that who she'd heard?
The door rattled, but held fast as the monster on the other side slammed against it again and again, each impact a wet slap accentuated by the cracking of rotted shell and fragile bone. Formora shoved the bag with Agaravel and the silver stone into the corner of the room, between a crate and the steel locker, and she stepped back into the middle of the chamber with her sabre clutched in both hands, terrible magic running along the blade's length in the form of jumping sparks. Beside her, Enduriel had laid down his swords and pulled the lance free, pointing it towards the door as if to run the beast on the other side through.
Then the noise stopped. The impacts ceased. The creature... grew silent.
"ERROR!" the same voice from before bellowed. "ERROR! EMERGENCY FILTERS COMPROMISED, AIRTIGHT SEALS IN CARGO BAY CORRODED, HAZARDOUS CONTAMINANTS DETECTED! REPEAT, HAZARDOUS CONTAMINANTS DETECTED!"
Formora threw her mind out, to try and find the speaker, but all she detected was Enduriel, Agaravel, the sleeping stone, the trapped eye in the container behind her, and the beast-
The beast, whose mind was unguarded. The beast, whose mind was filled with but a single order. The beast, who shrilly screamed into the recesses of its own rabid brain KILL KILL KILL FOR FIKRUL KILL FOR THE BARONS KILL FOR THE PRINCE KILL FOR FATHER KILL FOR FATHER KILL FOR FATHER.
The beast who wasn't even really there, whose few thoughts began to dissipate and part, flowing away like water. The beast who seemingly disappeared from her senses against the behest of every physical and magical law known. It... just wasn't there anymore. It ceased to be. It was gone.
It was gone?
The door creaked. A bluish mist began to flow in through the sides of it, utterly stinking of organic rot and burnt ozone, more and more of the vile stuff, settling on the floor at their feet and building up, building up, building up. Formora could feel it as a semi-corporeal substance and nervously stepped away from it, trying to escape it. Enduriel remained where he stood and prodded at it with the tip of his new lance. The blade tapped against the ground and little else.
"What... is this?" he questioned, confused. "Láerdhon-"
The mist rose up abruptly, around him, behind him, compressing, becoming solid-
Claws clasped around Enduriel's head and he gave a muffled cry - a moment before the skeletal hand pulled his head around and snapped his neck altogether, forcing a surprised yell from her. Enduriel went limp and his consciousness, his very life... just blinked out. His body fell to the ground awkwardly, the lance in his hands clattering to the floor alongside him.
Formora blinked.
He... was dead.
He was dead.
Enduriel was dead.
It felt like an age before she could drag her eyes from him to the gangly creature that had so abruptly cut his life short. It was the one from before. Formora could only tell as much because of the ash and scorched skin that caked its face and torso. It still clutched that curious crossbow and slowly turned around, blindly staring at her through its eyeless helm.
And then proceeded to ignore her in favour of the locker. The creature... snarled at the container. "Kiiiiiiiiiivaaaaaa... kiiiiiiiiir-zeeeeel," it breathed, each word rough and dry but whistling past teeth slick with clumpy saliva and rancid pus. It reached out cautiously and dragged its broken claws across the front of the locker. Formora retreated a step, just one, and imagined pressing herself back - lodging herself in the small space she'd shoved Agaravel. The remaining mist around the monster sunk into its flesh and snuck under its broken exoskeleton, infusing in it a low blue glow. The stink of it remained; she could barely breath for fear of both alerting the creature and filling her lungs with poisonous rot. She gripped her sword so tightly she could feel the engravings on the hilt bit into the skin of her palm.
"Kiiiiiiiiiiiill," the creature coughed. "Kiiiiiilll... forrrrrrrr... fatherrrrr..." It began to scratch more urgently at the locker, helplessly tugging at the smooth metal surface. "Kill," it kept saying. "Kill... forrrrrrrrrrr... Rrrrrrrrrrrhuuuuuuuulllllllkkkk." The beast raised its crossbow and pulled the trigger - and the front of the weapon lit up with violet energy, charging, building up, gathering power-
Smoke, Agaravel giggled.
The creature faltered and turned - but Formora was already jumping into action, already closing the distance between herself and the creature. It tried to swing its crossbow her way, but she swatted it back with her sabre, diverting the weapon away before it could discharge. The shot went wide, hitting the locker and the wall beside it, and she gave no more thought to the matter; Formora chopped her sword into the arm hefting most of the weapon's weight, and it bit through the creature's flesh and bone with pitiful ease, like slicing through wet parchment. The crossbow clattered to the ground as the limb was severed at the elbow, but the creature was not fazed in the slightest; it lashed at her with its other claws and Formora was forced to beat a hasty retreat. The room, though, was too small - and the beast managed to score a stinging lash across the side of her face before she fell back to the safety of magic. "Vëoth!" she said. (Slow.)
The many-limbed creature instantly slowed, but the drain on her energy reserves was noticeable - far more than there would have been with a human, a dwarf, or even a Kull or fellow elf. It was strong. Stronger than its bony, decaying frame suggested.
Formora ducked beneath the next limb coming her way and simply stepped around it, coming up behind the creature as it gradually began to turn around. Formora brought her sabre across its shoulders and removed the creature's head entirely. She let go of the spell and heard first the clang as the helmed head hit the ground, and then the wet thump as the rest of the body followed. It was dead.
Good.
Formora staggered back, just stopped herself from racing to Enduriel side and simply stared at him. At... at his remains. His head- He was dead too. Well and truly done. At that angle; no. No, there was no surviving that. She spared the doorway a worried look, but no more mist trickled inside. She couldn't hear any other monsters beyond - nor the voice that had... warned her? Had that been what it had done? A poor enough job if so.
Blood trickled down her cheek. Formora brought her fingers up to her cheek and winced; the skin had been laid open and the wound was raw. She could almost feel the vile infections threatening to slip into her system from whatever contaminants the claws had left behind. "Brenna," she muttered. (Burn.)
The scratches seared with sudden intensity and her nose filled with the smell of coppery smoke. She almost bit her tongue but weathered the treatment through for another couple of seconds before ending the spell and muttering, "Waíse heill." (Be healed.)
Skin and flesh stitched themselves back together, leaving her cheek whole and unblemished by injury once more. Formora leaned back against one of the room's shelves and braced herself against it, heaving in lungfuls of air. The pain abated immediately, but she was left with nothing to anchor herself to in the aftermath. Nothing to cling to. The sudden reality of her situation finally hit her and it took all Formora had to keep standing. Enduriel was dead.
The beast had seen her.
And these... half-dead things...
Smoke, Agaravel chirped.
She shook her head. It wasn't right. It wasn't... It couldn't have been him, could it? Some new vile magic to set upon his enemies? But he couldn't have known about her; after all the lengths she'd gone to ensure she was forgotten about, that she was taken out of his schemes and his games for good, surely he hadn't caught on-
"Hey!" a voice urgently hissed.
Formora's eyes opened and her head snapped up. That hadn't been Agaravel. It hadn't even been a voice of the mind; it had been the real thing. She looked around, checking everywhere, but she couldn't spot anything. Formora threw her mind out in a net, once more searching for other consciousnesses, but beyond herself and Agaravel the only thing that could truly constitute as alive was-
"Stop that!" the same voice scolded.
-the false-Eldunarí. Formora turned to the locker, saw that one of its doors was hanging limp and in the brief crack between she could see a dull, incessant green light cut through the gloom within. She straightened up, held her sabre at eye-level and pointed it the thing's way.
"You need to rein that in, dearie," the voice continued. It sounded like a woman's voice, matronly. Old and kindly, but tinged with... a sort of crackling undertone. Formora slowly approached the locker and levered the broken door open with the tip of her sword. It swung out, creaked, and then fell off its half-melted hinges entirely with a dull crash. The other door was stuck tight, but Formora saw the crystalline eye within clear as day. It stared up at her, twitching as the tiny arcs of lightning from its ring trap coursed along its core. A paler diamond-shaped pupil in the middle of its orb-like body blinked at irregular intervals, and it looked her over. "Ah, sweetie, you're a mess."
Formora pressed down on it with her mind in an effort to pierce through, but its mental defenses held tight - more than that, they pushed right back.
"None of that now!" the thing admonished. "It's all well and good to act the part of a Psion, but no more! Leave it."
Formora frowned and retreated back into her own mind. "What... what are you?" she asked. Her voice sounded rough to her ears. Raspy. Too dry and too tired.
"Never mind that now," the little green eye told her. "That was fair work with the crayfish, it really was, but it's about time you took that bow and put the crab down before it gets back up. They get awfully irate after resuscitation, see. Go on dear."
Formora just stared at it.
"Dearie, kill the arthropod," the eye thing sighed. "You don't want to play rough-house with it anymore than I do. C'mon. Use the bow, kill it dead please."
"It is dead," Formora retorted.
"Then why is it getting up?"
Formora's frown deepened, but a sickening crack pierced the air and she twirled around, sword at the ready - and watched, horrified, as the dead monster's body began to twitch, began to twist its limbs to painful angles and began to pull itself together. It stood up abruptly, tendons standing on end where the flesh peeked through cracked shell, and it lazily turned its neck stump towards her - as if it could still see her. This time, though, it was silent. No voice. No hissing, no snarling, no howling. It just lurched towards her, three clawed hands reaching out, and Formora backed away. There was a pit in her stomach, a sinking feeling, and she couldn't-
It was dead.
It was dead.
But it was still moving. Still coming for her. The dead were supposed to stay dead; that was the law. That was the ultimate physical and magical law. The dead were dead. But this... this was an abomination; this was a mistake on the part of all reason, of all reality.
"You're supposed to shoot it, sweetie," the eye-thing told her. The dead thing stopped, shifted and turned towards the locker. "Uh, quickly please," the crystal urged. "Before-"
Formora steeled her nerves and swept in, drawing her blade across the creature's waist - parting its torso from its hips. Both pieces hit the ground. The torso-half refused to stay dead and it began to drag itself towards the locker, determined to reach the crystal-creature inside.
"Shoot it!" the eye-thing shrilly yelled, losing her mask of geniality. "SHOOT THE SCORN NOW!"
Formora stepped over it and plunged her sabre down, right through the monster's middle. It shuddered and went limp.
"No, nonono, that will only buy you a couple of seconds..." the eye-thing said, then paused. "Dear, the bow. The bow on your shoulder. Or it'll get back up again."
Formora pulled her sabre free, sheathed it and drew her warbow free of the holster built into the quiver at her back. She fitted an arrow along its string and pulled-
"No, not that!" the eye chided. "You need to burn it!"
"And fill this room with smoke?!" Formora angrily said at last. She was tired, she was impatient, she was terrified and she was, quite certainly, unnerved. Nothing was sacred anymore. Nothing was true. If the dead could rise again... "I would suffocate. Die."
"You sure there isn't an oxygen mask in here somewhere?" the eye shot back. "Have you even looked?"
The corpse twitched before Formora could respond.
"The other bow," the eye ordered.
Formora loosed the arrow. It planted between the dead monster's shoulders and it went still once more.
"Dearie-"
"Be quiet," she reprimanded. Formora stepped around the dead creature, quickly fetched her packs and dragged them over her shoulders.
"The psionic-bow," the eye continued. "Use it!
Smoke, Agaravel said for the umpteenth time. Formora looked back at the monster and found, much to her horror, that each of its remains had begun to slowly melt into a deep blue mist - the same mist from before. She hurried to the door, slammed her hand against it but it was lodged tight. She hit it, she kicked it, but it would not open.
"DEARIE!" the eye cried out. "The SCORN!"
Formora turned just as the mist consolidated and she dropped to the ground as the creature reappeared - this time rendered whole once more, its head reattached to its neck and all four limbs still linked to its body. It closed over her, snarling out feral curses from its frothing mouth, and it reached for her neck.
"THRYSTA!" Formora shouted. An invisible force flung the dead thing up against the ceiling so hard she heard its spine snap, and it dropped to the ground in a lump.
"Dearie!" the eye called out. "Let me out, let me out, I can... I can kill it! Let me out!"
The corpse began to twitch once more. It wasn't ending. It wasn't dying - not for good. "Brisingr," Formora snapped, and the rotten corpse caught alight in an instant, covered from head to toe in intense flames. Boils popped and fat crackled, but the creature still managed to stand right up, unfazed, and lurched towards her. "Thrysta," she said again, throwing it to the wall hard enough to break its spine again, but this time it lived - and this time it began to crawl towards her once more, dragging its limp legs after itself. It wasn't dying. It wasn't dying. She could stab it, break it, cut it apart, set on fire - it wasn't staying dead.
She was going to run out of strength long before it was going to stay down. The constant spells were wearing on her. The fight might not even last long enough to exhaust her; she couldn't dance around its mist-form quickly enough. That it hadn't caught her like it had Enduriel was something Formora pinned purely on good luck.
"DEARIE!" the eye exclaimed desperately.
Formora cursed under her breath, threw caution to the wind and bounded over to the locker. She grabbed the ring around the shelled eye and winced; the lightning burned her fingers and fizzled up her arm, making her grit her teeth. She dropped her warbow, took the ring in both hands and strained to pull it apart. The beast closed in and Formora retreated, tugging, tugging, tugging - and the ring shattered.
The eye fell a few inches before steadying out and floating up. "Oh dearie," it said, relieved - and suddenly not even concerned in the slightest anymore. "Thank you." It expanded its shell and its core lit up. Formora closed her eyes against the glare of light... and opened them when the light faded.
It was no longer the three of them - herself, the eye, and the undead monstrosity. Something else, something taller and larger, floated between herself and the decomposing creature. Formora looked up at it and found it was staring right back at her. To her surprise she found she recognized it, in a sense - if only because its skull had been shelved just below the eye. This time, though, its head was attached to a living body - and it watched her with three glowing blue eyes, shining through a glassy visor. Its body was... unlike anything she'd seen. It wasn't even bipedal; Formora couldn't see any legs on it, only long robes trailing from a body fitted with a bone-carved cuirass. Its arms were slender and long, and bedecked with a spiked pauldron each and bracers engraved with glowing symbols she did not recognize, ending with three claws each - two fingers and a thumb, just like the hands of the rotting creature behind it. It only had those two limbs, though, where the other had four. Its cranial horns stood tall and proud, framing its masked head, but its lower jaw dipped below the edge of its visor as if it were preparing to speak and Formora glimpsed black bone and even darker fangs, as long and sharp as those of a young dragon.
It was as large as a Kull. Larger, even. Taller than they would have been if the bottom of its robes were to touch the ground; it had to bend over to fit in the room as it was, and it all but crowded her against the side of the chamber, what with its sheer size and presence.
The eye floated up in front of the newcomer's face... and nuzzled affectionately against the side of its head. "There you are, kiddo," the eye quietly cheered. "Oh, it's good to see your face again."
It didn't react in any way physically, simply hissed something in a low tone that Formora couldn't decipher. It hadn't sounded like any language she'd ever come across before - not the speech of the dwarves, not the common dialects of the humans nor the tongues of their wandering tribes, not the ancient language her people adhered to, and nothing like the rough speech of the Urgals. It did not even resemble the few slurred words cackled out by the undead creatures that had chased her all the way to the craft she was now trapped within. The words it uttered were sharp enough to prick at her eardrums and deep enough to rattle her skull like a wardrum, and Formora came to the conclusion that she did not like them.
"What? Oh, no, not that one." The eye touched the floating creature's visor with the top of one of her shell-horns. "That one's just muscle and bone. No, if you'll-"
There was a snarl from behind. The floating creature twisted and Formora saw that the dead thing had caught a hold of the end of its pale tattered robes, clumping them up in its pus-slick hand.
"Irksa," the newcomer said dispassionately and waved a hand towards it. Lightning - like the ring but so much more intense - danced from its glowing claws and the dead thing was simply... erased. It disintegrated on the spot, a fading silhouette of crackling energy left in its wake, and that soon dispersed entirely. It hadn't spoken a single word in the ancient language. Not one. The power of it had been hefty enough that Formora had felt it; she'd felt the energy on her skin, in her mind, but more importantly she'd felt it against her own bottled up magic and it had been immense.
And yet, where was the word to command the spell? Irksa? That wasn't of the Ancient Language. Formora knew the ancient language as best as anyone in their age; she knew the word for killing, for growing, for summoning power and condensing energy - and that was none of those things.
It turned back to her. It pinned her against the wall with its three-eyed gaze and it watched her studiously. Formora hardly dared to move, to even breathe. It leaned down to her, as if to peer closer, but then the eye flitted up between them. "Ah ah," she tutted, "be polite. Your dear mother would be disappointed if she heard you forgot your manners."
The creature hissed something and straightened back up.
"She broke my container," the eye replied. "Surely that deserves a little consideration." The eye turned to glance at Formora. "Even if she drew it out a little too long, the little half-Techeun rapscallion."
"Who... are you?" Formora whispered. She was at an utter loss as to what was happening, what had happened, what she was supposed to do next.
"Hm? Oh, right. Hey kiddo-" the eye turned around but the creature had already moved on, floating back into the middle of the room and inspecting everything - starting with Enduriel's corpse. "Guess not. You'll have to forgive her; she's shy."
"Shy," Formora dubiously repeated.
"Oh yes, very shy. Doesn't like speaking with people. A bit of an introvert, you know?"
"What... what is she?"
"Don't worry about it." The eye rotated back around and bobbed happily. "You're lucky, dearie. Squabbling with Scorn ain't for the faint of heart. I can understand all that consideration - you're a right sweet little thing, yes you are - but Scorn won't give you the same treatment. They're pests, see, not pets."
"I wasn't-"
"Just be a little quicker on the draw next time, eh?" The eye's pupil narrowed on her. "Are you alright, dear?"
"Am I-"
"Looking a little sickly is all. You're very thin. Very..." the eye paused. "I like your ears. They're very... what's the word the kids use these days, very hrazkara'avunir." She hovered closer and whispered, "That's Hive for 'stand out'."
Formora just blinked.
"And the earrings too, and the facepaint - ah, no they're tattoos are they?" The eye tilted. "I love 'em. The hair as well. You're not afraid to flaunt who you are, are you?"
"Excuse me?"
"And the eyes! Are those contact lenses or implants? I've always wanted to grab a couple of new lenses for myself - it's a whole other business, I know, like what would I do with a human contact lens? Anyways, I dig the look. You're very stand-out as they say - yeah, very stand out. Granny Skuldu approves, oh yes she does."
Formora blinked again. "Granny... Skuldu," she said slowly. "That's... that's you?"
"Yep." The eye - Granny Skuldu - retreated. "Now, to business! Where are we, dearie? Secure-storage? Tower's basement?"
Formora opened her mouth, then thought better of saying anything and closed it.
"No, not the basement," Granny Skuldu decided. "We used to play tabletop games in the basement, and this isn't it. Oh, now those were the days. Hey kiddo, have you ever heard of dungeo-"
The other creature snarled and picked something up. The lance. Enduriel's new lance. The creature held it at arm's length and looked at Formora with a dangerous look.
"Ho ho, now there's a blade with a history," Granny Skuldu said, but this time her voice was subdued. She flew over to the other creature's side and looked down at Enduriel before glancing back Formora's way. "Who's this?"
Formora hesitated and looked at the door. She didn't say a word.
"Oh no, don't even think about it. Kiddo, watch her." The eye flew around the top of the room and finally settled by what looked like any other panel of ceiling. A ray of blue light flew from her pupil and pierced through the roof. The other creature floated closer, holding the lance tightly in one hand while the other glowed with fantastic power. It stopped only a couple of paces away - far enough to run her through if it wished, but not so close that she could retaliate with her sabre unless she took a few steps closer. It was far from Formora's optimal range and the creature knew it.
As if it didn't already have a hand over her anyways.
Granny Skuldu came back and settled in the air beside the creature. "We're in his ship," she said, all humour gone. "We're in his damn ship. Who are you?"
Formora watched them both warily. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Oh, you don't know who you are?!" Granny Skuldu cackled "That's outrageous!"
"Leave me be."
"No. Give us your name, now. Puh-puh-puh-lease."
"... Ferriel," Formora said at last.
"Oh yeah?" Granny Skuldu tilted. "Just so you know I can tell when you're lying. Your heartrate spiked."
Formora inched towards the door - but the larger creature took notice and closed in, hissing more loudly.
"You tell 'em, kiddo," Granny Skuldu agreed. "She is being uncooperative. Now you, dearie, you best start yammerin' for us or we'll be turning this ship around and draggin' you before the Radiant Lady. Got that?"
"I don't know what you want."
"Your name."
"Formora!" she helplessly snapped back. The word hung in the air between them for a moment longer than she was comfortable with.
"Formora," Granny Skuldu slowly repeated. To her relief the eye didn't seem like she was familiar with it. "Guess you're not lying. Ain't seen it on any Vanguard aide lists, though. You Vanguard?"
"I don't know what you mean."
Skuldu inched closer, then rose up. "You don't. Huh."
"Leave me be," Formora repeated.
"We'll get to that, calm your Sparrows. Now, dearie - just took a reading there. This ship ain't soarin' is it? We're not in transit, are we?"
"What?"
"No, we aren't." Granny Skuldu paused. "Where are we?"
"... Vroengard," Formora reluctantly said. She glanced for the door again. It looked no more ready to open than earlier, but if she had to exhaust her energy reserves to smash it open, then she was prepared to do just that.
"Vroengard? Sounds nordic. Where're we, then? Triton? New Reykjavík?"
Formora listened. She didn't offer any response. Not in words, anyways. The look she gave them, though, was pointed enough.
"You don't seem to get it, do you?" Granny Skuldu said with a sigh. "Look, dearie, if you want me to lay out the ground rules proper, you just have to say. We're asking, you answer, everyone comes out with a smile on their pretty little faces. Even you. You'll be breathing, you'll be alive, and you'll be grinning like you're smelling daisies because you get to live for good behaviour. Get it?"
"I just want to leave," Formora replied in a neutral voice.
"We'll get there, don't worry. But you have to-" Skuldu paused and her shell expanded. "So that weren't your only cockroach, were it?"
"What?"
"I've got Scorn bio-signatures crawling all over."
Scorn. The dead things. "They came from the sea," Formora said. "They chased us."
"'Us'? Oh, right. Yeah." Granny Skuldu glanced down at Enduriel. "Killed your boy. Big yikes.
"What do they want?"
"To be bothersome little bugs, as always. How's about a compromise? Maybe some fresh air will loosen your tongue? Wonder what that's like: having a tongue. Big fat muscle in the middle of your mouth... weird." Skuldu turned to the other creature. "Kiddo?"
The creature growled something.
"Yeah, I get it, she's being very rude but let's not get distracted. We've got rot-cases and stick-bugs all about. You're here, so this is Radiant turf; they're infringing. Get?"
The creature rasped something that sounded remarkably like a guttural, "Get."
"There's my girl," Granny Skuldu said warmly. She glanced back at Formora. "You follow close, dear. Wouldn't want to get you mixed up in the crossfire, eh? Follow and you'll be good - and it'll make us just the happiest trio this side of Mars."
The three-eyed creature shifted and floated to the door. It placed its offhand against the smooth steel surface of it and unleashed its power - melting right through the solid metal and reaching out onto the other side. It grabbed a hold, tugged, and pulled the entire door free with a crash. It tossed the door behind it, almost catching Formora, and it ducked its head as it floated down the hall. Skuldu lingered after it, looking at Formora expectantly. "You want out or naw?"
Formora looked back at Enduriel. It... was oddly distressing to see him like he was. She couldn't profess to having cared for him very much, but... he'd been her companion for the better part of half a century. A companion she'd wanted to throttle almost every second day, but all the same-
"'Fraid that question was rhetorical, dearie; c'mon. Now."
Now he was dead.
And she still couldn't come to terms with that.
"Dearie-"
Formora inhaled shakily and pushed away from the wall. She was going to run, she decided. At the first moment available she was going to run and never look back. Run until her legs gave out and then maybe some more if she could siphon strength from the surrounding life - because this, this, was pure madness.
She stepped forward and trudged after Skuldu.
"Good girl," the eye murmured.
The very first moment.
In the hallway she found the three-eyed creature had stopped to peek in the adjoining rooms, and it even pushed into the small armoury - emerging out of it with a massive single-edged sword carved out of a seemingly blend of dark bone and darker stone, flickering at the edges with green fire. The creature held it up to its eye and hummed, evidently pleased.
"Kiddo," Skuldu admonished.
The creature grumbled and floated onwards, right into the central chamber. The hatch in the floor, Formora saw, had closed somehow. Like the door for the storage room. The voice - had that been responsible for this too? Who even was i-
Skuldu threw another ray of blue light over the floor and the hatch opened for them. "Traveler above I'm so good at this," she giggled to herself. "Hey, kiddo."
"Shraaaa," the creature said, and without a second look it all but flew out the hatch, slithering through the air and outside with nary a whisper of displaced air. Formora delicately stepped after it; she couldn't feel her other wards being sprung, but the few that had had still carved a path straight to the craft and left her blind in that direction. She couldn't trust that the outside wasn't crawling with more undead things - like Skuldu had alluded to.
To that end, what even was Skuldu's companion? The skull had been dead too. And now-
Now the dead had arisen to haunt the living. To haunt her.
There was a roar from outside. One of the Scorn was howling - and was abruptly cut off by a sizzling explosion, followed closely by a scream. A scream that sounded conspicuously like sharp, sharp laughter - knives drawing across the surface of her mind.
Madness.
Formora waited for some minutes before following Skuldu and her pet outside - and when she did, she found the surrounding fields clear of Scorn-beasts and scarred over with deep scorch marks. Not from fire, no; from raw magic. Power thrummed in the air, resonated from around the three-eyed thing as it floated in the air before her, and the stench of rot had quickly been overcome by a sharp smell close to that of the aftermath of a thunderstorm. The victor raised its new lance and sword in the air and twirled them both, holding them like it was born to wield them. Lightning framed its head and danced between its horns, giving it a makeshift crown of pure power, and Skuldu flew beside it, studying the... Formora hesitated to call it a battlefield - if only because she sensed the fight had been so one-sided that to call it a battle would have been to overexaggerate the effort given by the creature's contemporaries. There wasn't even a single bloody remain to mark their passing - no fingers or claws leftover, no clumps of discarded shell and spoiled meat, no knocked-out teeth, not even burnt tatters leftover from their ragged cloth coverings.
"Now this is a conundrum," Skuldu said. Formora looked at her, but the eye was speaking more to her macabre companion. "Astral bodies don't match my charts. Magnetic fields are different; this ain't Earth, honey. Venus neither."
The creature said something. Formora couldn't decipher it.
"No idea." Skuldu turned to Formora. "Where is he?"
"Where is... who?" she questioned right back.
Skuldu indicated with a horn to the craft behind her. "The man, the myth, the high bastard himself - the self-appointed handyman of the universe."
"I don't know what you speak of."
"Ikharos Torstil."
Formora just gave her a confused look.
"Okay, Granny's not usually one for gossip, not even Ghost-vine, but even I've heard all about him," Skuldu said, growing impatient. "You can't not."
"I don't know who you are referring to."
Skuldu hovered closer. "... Huh. You really don't. Where've you been living? Under a rock?"
Formora said nothing.
"Everybug and their pet Thrall's heard of... nevermind. Look, a man. A man. That's his ship you were stranded in. Ring any bells?"
A man. The figure bedecked in white and gold, with amethyst for a visor and gems along the length of his robes. "Yes," Formora said, almost croaking; her throat ached. She wasn't used to so much talking. Not with Enduriel, not with Agaravel, no one. Not since... a long time ago. "He marched to the sea?"
"And?"
"Dove beneath the waves."
"... Oookay." Skuldu turned back to her creature. "He's done a runner. Might be best we do the same."
The three-eyed thing growled.
"Yeah, I know, but queenie's not here. Can't hear her voice neither. This isn't like any body in Sol I recognize, kiddo; best we hightail it and find a better vantage point."
"Erishkraaaa-"
"I know, but he's a keen little primate and I'm not partial to runnin' against him a second time."
"Arash-kilarvi."
"Yeah, honey, I'm aware, and it would be great if we could, but last time he almost turned you into a jar of light. And that was with yer whole garrison chipping in. He has no chill. None. The man's got a death-wish but death's his mistress and she don't want him just yet. Kiddo, listen to me-"
"Arakh. Aiat."
"Exactly - but on his end, not ours. I love you, you're mine, and out of my love for you, I'm not letting you do that. We go the opposite direction. Capiche?"
"Coooowardiiiiice," the three-eyed thing said - this time in recognizable, if faltering, common speech.
"Better than dead," Skuldu chirped back. "I'm floating, you're breathing - let's count our blessings and beam outta here, ASAP." She turned, then, to Formora. "How long's our dreamboat-but-mad been gone?"
"The... man?"
"Yeah. That's what I said."
"... Since noon," she reluctantly answered.
"And what time is it now?"
"Past midnight."
"More'n twelve hours. Helluva swim. Hope he gets stitches."
"He fell from the sky."
"Huh?"
Formora gestured back to the craft. "This fell from the sky. He emerged from it."
"Ah. Yeah, figured." Skuldu looked her over. "You use your psionics on him too?"
"What?"
"Your mind and fire and force and all that whatsits."
Magic? Formora though. "I did not. No."
"Am I just a special case then?"
"I didn't-"
"Tried to break into my memory drives if I'm recalling correctly. Played a ditzy lil' Psion well enough. Pity you don't have the Y-eye."
"What?"
"Makes 'em look pretty fierce for such soft things, don't it? Might've raised one up eventually if it weren't for this hunk of sweetness." Skuldu tipped towards her companion. Who was, at that moment, regarding both of them with what Formora deciphered to be utter disdain. "'Course, you could be a lil' Vex foolery. That would be funny. Don't have the augments - or hue - for Her Reefy-ness's techies, none of the squeak of a cyclops, and all the lost puppy look of a human whose never been Earthside."
Formora gave her a blank look.
"That expression!" Granny Skuldu cackled manically. "Oh, if only. Vex with humour's like a wildfire but ticklish. Traveler above I wish... Anyways!" She looked around. "We shmoovin'?"
The three-eyed creature shifted.
"That's my girl. I mean, you're looking the wrong way, but I love the enthusiasm. It's-"
The creature's sword shot out and in Skuldu's way. "Nirraaak," it snarled, and pointed ahead of it with its lance. Enduriel's lance. "Hirothira, aiat."
"Oh my. Little Formory-doo, looks like we have another visitor," Skuldu said cheerfully. "Friend of yours?"
Formora followed where the lance was pointing - back the way she and Enduriel had come from, with a pack of feral undead on their heels. "Another?"
"Yeah. Here, looks like..." Skuldu trailed off. What stepped over the edge of the ridge there was no Scorn-beast - not as the others were. No, Formora reflected with a feeling of sinking dread, it was the true beast. The real beast. The metal sculpture with the head of a dragon. It stopped at the lip of the small valley and gazed down on them. Formora could feel its cold eyes settle on her and she shivered for it. "Sweet Traveler above," Skuldu whispered not so quietly. "If that isn't just the coolest Exo I've ever seen..."
The beast took one step forward, then the other, and began marching down towards them with its sword dragging after it. Dark blood was streaked across its otherwise perfect silver hide and in its other hand it clutched the crushed head of the undead ghoul that had set upon it at the barn. Or, at least, Formora thought it was; it could have easily been another monster closely related. The night had been full of them.
Shadows in the water, Agaravel suddenly intoned, loudly enough to reach even the metal dragon-man. It faltered and slowed to a stop; similarly, both Skuldu and her pet paused to turn and stare at Formora.
"What was that?" Skuldu asked in a low, sweetly-dangerous voice. "Dearie?"
Formora took a step back. The beast, she saw, took up its approach once more. Another step on her end. It picked up the pace. The three-eyed creature glanced between them and in the end settled for facing the golem, but Skuldu watched her closely.
"Dearie," she said, floating towards her. "Who was that?"
Formora clenched her teeth. A third step back.
"Dearie-"
"Thrysta!" she snapped, flinging Skuldu away and buffeting her pet. Formora took off sprinting as fast as she could, only pushing herself harder when she heard from behind her a furious scream sharp enough to shatter glass - and then the dull roar of the living sculpture. She didn't look back; just made for inland, all but throwing herself behind the shrubs and rocks to keep their line of sight off, to keep them from throwing spells her way - and then she closed in on the forest in the distance. Inland, she decided, was a better bet than the coast - from whence the other creatures had risen. Inland had a city to lose them in. Inland was the way of the poison in the air; let them choke on it. Her wards would protect her for a time.
She hoped.
Doru Araeba was dark when she stumbled upon it. Lifeless but for warped fauna. Spectre-owls shrieked above, disturbed as she ran through the dilapidated buildings and rotting gardens where they'd made their roosts. The noise of them was soon overcome with the scream of her pursuer - vengeful and murderous, promising a violent end. Skulda and her creature were fast. Faster than Formora had hoped. They pressed her into running down narrow alleyways and cutting sharp corners, risking a sprained muscle or broken ankle at every turn. Formora's heart thundered in her chest and she was almost afraid it would burst out of her altogether; she couldn't keep going. She couldn't. She was tired, she was stressed, she was alone.
And they were gaining on her.
"Dearie!" Skuldu shouted.
No. No, she wouldn't submit to that - not those pair of horrors. Just more undeath. Just more... other. One was mad and the other a monster. She couldn't. She wouldn't.
The only issue with trying to outrun them was that neither of them were actually running; they flitted through the air like wraiths or ghasts, seemingly tireless and without a need to follow the same routes as she. From the crashing and roaring, Formora didn't even stop to consider if the three-eyed thing respected walls; it sounded like it just barreled right through every building in its way, clawing through the stone as if it weren't even there. Her only consolation was that the beast had apparently given up on the chase. In which case she'd just traded one torment for another - and this one would finally have her.
Formora dipped into another alley lined with a cobbled stone pathway, and slid to a stop when she realized it ended in a wall - smooth-cut grey stone, dwarven built. She twisted around to back out of it-
But they were already there.
"There," Skuldu said crossly. "Enough of this foolishness. That was a very sneaky thing you pulled. Very sneaky indeed. Plenty suspicious too. Like you have something to hide."
"Leave me... alone," Formora panted. The building at Formora's back creaked with the wind.
"We only ever wanted a word, dearie," Skuldu snapped. She sounded angry. "Is that really so difficult to grant? We saved your pitiful mortal life-"
"But that does not make it yours." Formora furiously shot back. She was running on adrenaline alone at that point. She tapped into the garnet embedded at the base of her shortsword's hilt in preparation for a spell. One to kill them both. One to circumvent any wards they possessed. She began pulling words from memory and piecing them together into one of the most long-winded, inconsistent incantations - and she kept finding parts she was uncertain of. If she only had one shot...
Another creak. A storm was picking up.
"Of course it does!" Skuldu fired back. "What use is a life debt otherwise?"
"I saved you first."
"Only because you were too stubborn to listen and kill that Raider proper."
In a fit of anger she pulled her bow free - the new one, she'd dropped her warbow back at the craft - and pulled an arrow free of her quiver, fitting it against the wire. "Stay back," Formora warned. More creaking. It was beginning to be difficult to hear what was being said.
Skuldu just snorted. "What, that's your solution? It took two whole Nova Bombs and a Chaos Reach to take Agnisia down - and that on behalf of the Kingkiller himself. What's a dinky little arrow going to do? Put it away, dear. Just think for a seco-"
Formora loosed. The arrow flew fast and directly at the head of the three-eyed creature, but it almost lazily swatted the missile out of the air with its sword, which glowed even brighter a green as it did so.
"Now you're just asking for trouble," Skuldu said coldly. "Dearie, my patience is wearing real thin. Agnisia's all but ready to tear you apart-"
The creature muttered something.
"-and I'm the only thing keeping her reasonable. Put the bow away. Put down your bags and your weapons. Be sensible."
"Never again," Formora whispered. "Brisingr.
The arrow caught alight-
And burned away entirely, searing her fingers. Formora loosed more on reaction, taken by surprise, and a new projectile shot from the ashes of the previous, separating into three and closing in on the three-eyed monster. The first was again deflected by the sword, the second found a solid space near the head of the lance and disintegrated on impact, but the third buried in the creature's stomach, below its cuirass. It looked down at the glowing arrow, then back up at Formora and glared.
Formora cradled her burned hand against her chest and glared right back.
"We gave you a chance," Skuldu said mournfully. "Little humans never know when to give up."
Another creak from behind her - but this time Formora actually processed it, because it did not sound like stone. It sounded like the groan of a great tree bending beneath a violent gale; it sounded like boulders shifting, giving way to a landslide; it sounded like bones breaking and just as quickly resetting. She threw her mind out-
There was a sensation on the back of her neck. A little sting - like the pinprick of a tiny insect's bite. Formora frowned, reached back, but her hand wouldn't lift so far - and very soon fell back by her side. She looked ahead, saw Skuldu and her pet staring past her, at something above her, and they very quickly began flying back.
"Oh shi-" Skuldu started to say before disappearing with a flash of green light. Her three-eyed companion dipped out of sight. Formora tried to turn around, to see what they'd seen, but her legs crumpled underneath her and the ground rose up to meet her. She didn't feel the impact, though she tasted the blood where she'd bitten the inside of her cheek. She saw the entrance of the alley - and then a shadow cut across it, almost blotting out the moonlight entirely. It was tall, it was big, and as it stepped around her it did not make a single sound but for a low, sibilant hiss. Oily liquid drippled off its frame, diluting the edges of its silhouette - but its head was sharp and long-snouted, like a serpent or eel, and its body tapered off into a long, long tail. It moved like a serpent, all but slithering through the air like the three-eyed creature, but this was no more than an illusion, because she saw its legs. She saw its claws. She saw how they pressed together as each foot was raised and flexed out as they noiselessly hit the ground.
It stepped forward, as if to check that Skuldu and her creature had disappeared, then turned back around to her - and it was then that she saw its eyes, pale yellow with the vertical diamond-shaped irises of a viper. It made a deep clicking sound in the back of its throat and inched in, lowering itself onto its clawed hands, leaning close to her-
The quiet of the night was pierced by a series of thunderous cracks and flashes of light. The new beast rose up and growled, twisting about; there was a figure at the end of the alley. Humanoid. Hooded and cloaked. Holding a long grey device with a yellow circle of light flickering on the top of it, through which they peered at the unfathomable thing. "If you're wise," they said - she said. Whoever it was, that was a woman's voice. Nothing like Skuldu's either. "You'll leave her be."
Another low hiss. A moment passed.
"Don't test me," the woman quietly replied.
The thing huffed. Watched her. Looked back at Formora. Turned to the wall of the alley and... seemingly melted into it. When it disappeared, the last of its long tail sinking after it, there was a brief patch of shadow on the stone before that too disappeared and it was returned to its prior state - completely unbroken.
The other woman waited a second. Five. Ten. A whole minute - and it felt like eternity. Formora could hear her heartbeat, she could feel her lungs expanding and shrinking, she could blink but... she couldn't otherwise move. It was as if all feeling had left her body. She couldn't get up. She couldn't draw her sword, couldn't even mutter a spell. But she could think it.
"Gone," the woman said. She shoved her grey device over her shoulder and approached. The closer she came the more Formora could make out; the sharp spikes along her elbows, the white glow of her eyes, the extremely form-fitting attire... and the strange, exposed elbow and knee joints, where she saw not skin nor flesh but metal. And the woman's face-
It was no human. No elf. But after the night she'd had, Formora couldn't find it in herself to feel surprised anymore.
"Are you alive?" the not-woman asked.
Formora blinked. She tried to send out a mental probe, but even that was beyond her reach. The world had shrunk to her.
"Good," the woman exhaled. "Thank goodness. I'd worried... well." She stepped around Formora and bent to pick something up - her packs. Agaravel. The stone. When she returned into view, she had them strapped over her back with her other object. "I'm going to lift you now," she warned, and knelt down, slid her arms under Formora's legs and shoulders and almost effortlessly picked her up. The woman turned them about and began marching them away. Out of the alley. Out onto the broken streets. Southwards.
Back the way she'd just run from.
If she could have, Formora would have screamed with rage. As it was, she couldn't force her lungs to do anything other than draw air in and out and her lips and tongue were too numb to cooperate.
The woman left the city behind, pushed through the brush of the forest, and marched without a hitch - bearing Formora's weight and that of her belongings as if they didn't weigh a thing. She walked and walked and Formora despaired in her bodily prison, brought low at last. The night sky, she saw over the woman's shoulder, had begun to shift and lighten up; dawn was approaching.
She wasn't sure she had it in her to face another night like this.
At long last they returned to the craft - to that hated, terrible craft, that prison ship, that cell for monsters and victims. They did not enter, though. The woman brought her to the far side of the ship, the one facing the sea (what about the rotting undead you fool!) and laid Formora down against the craft's flank where it had lodged in the earth. The stranger delicately pushed her neck to the side, leaned in, and inspected the back of her neck.
And exhaled hard.
"I'll be a moment," the woman - or not-woman, metal woman, lesser living sculpture - said brusquely before walking off, disappearing from Formora's line of sight entirely. She couldn't turn her head either. All she could do was blink, breathe and hope her heart didn't follow the rest of her. It... was another hell entirely. The immobility, the helplessness. The sheer fear. Too late for the dragon-headed golem, but the others... they could strike at any moment and here she lay, all but dead to the world. Trapped in her own body. Reduced down to nothing. All it had taken was a single night - just one. Just one to destroy all she had left to her; her freedom and her last sane companion.
The woman returned before long, as promised. She carried with her a box of some kind, and as she opened it she produced two needles - one empty and one filled with a clear golden liquid. She held the latter up, scowled, and muttered something under her breath. It sounded remarkably like "-going to kill him."
She shuffled over to Formora, paused and said, "You've been stung. The wound isn't bad but the neurotoxin's paralyzed most of your system. I'm going to take a sample of the venom and then I'm going to apply this. It's a panacea filled with- we'll get to that. It's going to make you better, but the things it has to fight in you will make the process... not so quick. Blink once if you understand, twice if no."
Formora blinked. Had she any choice?
"Good. This might sting. Probably not, but don't panic if you feel anything - it's harmless." The woman leaned past her again. Formora felt... something at the back of her neck. There was no sting, just the slightest, slightest pressure. It did not even take a moment. "That's the sample," the metal woman assured her. "Applying the panacea now. Please don't panic. It'll feel strange."
Another light pressure. Was the needle plunging right into her neck, or was it... no, she didn't need to know. Formora scrunched her eyes shut, but that turned out to be worse with all other stimuli lost to her, so she opened them back up and tried to focus on the sea down the hill - and so far as she could tell there weren't any other Scorn-beasts.
Agaravel wasn't speaking either. Now whether that was an aftereffect of... whatever had befallen her or no, she wasn't certain, but she hoped it was a case of the latter. Smoke, Formora mused grimly. Shadows in the water. Mist-walkers and dark liquid entities. Figments of a dream having taken a turn for the worse. Dead things - rising from the grave. Serpents - slithering out of solid walls. Metal sculptures - as alive and conscious as any organic thing. To think it all began with a meteor shower...
There was a tingle from her fingers. Formora tried to move them. She managed to wiggle the tip of her index finger and twitch her thumb. The not-woman noticed. "Good," she said, sounding relieved - though Formora couldn't understand why. "Don't test your body too hard. That neurotoxin was potent. Let's avoid causing irreparable damage where we can."
Her lips were next. Her tongue after that. Formora found her mouth dry and attempted to swallow; the motion was painful, like sandpaper in her throat. "I..." she rasped.
"Yes?" the other woman questioned.
"... Cold," Formora said at last. It chafed on her pride - but that was a well-broken thing anyways, wasn't it?
The metal woman nodded and held out a hand. Something... manifested there, on the ground under her palm. An object, grey and cylindrical but with slanted shutters on its sides. She flicked something on the back of it and the middle lit up a dull orange - and, Formora realized after a moment, had begun to radiate a wave of comforting heat. The woman stood up and disappeared again, but this time Formora could pass the time by urging her body to obey her once more. The tips of her fingers began, the entire digits and the toes followed soon after. It wasn't long before her arms and legs began to follow suit, if stiffly. Formora tried to lever herself up, though, and found she hadn't the strength before allowing herself to once more sit back against the craft.
That accursed foreign structure.
Another while passed before the other woman returned. She stopped on the other side of the heating device and sat down, wrapping her arms around her legs and propping her chin onto her knees.
"Who..." Formora started to ask. The not-woman's pale white eyes followed her. They lacked irises, she saw. All they were was light flared through a lens of glass each. "Who are you?" Formora finished with some difficultly.
The other woman took a deep breath. "Elisabeth Bray," she said at length. "Or Elsie-56. I think."
"What... are you?"
"Exomind," the woman - Elisabeth or Elsie? - instantly replied. "Robots. Synthetic. Personality-clones with top-of-the-shelf bodies."
Formora digested that. She understood all too little of it. "And what," she started to ask, "attacked me?"
"You'll have to be more exact," Elisabeth replied.
Formora watched her so, so carefully. "How did you find me?"
"You almost made it to the Rock. That's your go-to, when things go south. And this..." Elisabeth looked all around. "I know for you this is a surprise and a half. Probably not a good one."
"It's a nightmare."
"I wouldn't..." Elisabeth trailed off. "Yes. It's a nightmare."
Formora paused. "What do you mean?"
"About-"
"I go to the Rock?"
"Rock of Kuthian," Elisabeth replied.
"The Rock of... where?" Formora tried leaning forward, but found the effort too taxing so she remained where she was.
"It's... or Moraeta's Spire, rather."
"The Spire? Why would I go to the Spire?" Formora frowned.
Elisabeth looked away. "You know, you just aren't aware of it yet."
"What do you mean? Speak sense."
"I am. Your mind is just scrambled. No fault of your own, but... no. Leave it there. You don't want to know anyways. Not with how it ends."
"How what ends?" Formora pressed.
Elisabeth shot her a warning look. "Are you sure that's the question you want to be asking?"
"I don't know who you are-"
"I've told you."
"-or why you're here."
"... Ah. That." The strange woman drew out the word unpleasantly. "I could tell you, but that would just waste both our time. There's other people who can explain better."
"Other people?" Formora echoed. She felt a pang of worry - atop all the other fears and reservations that had so recently settled in. "What do-"
"What do you think I mean?"
"Skuldu."
"I... have no idea what that is," Elisabeth deadpanned. "What's a Skuldu?"
"It was small. It looked like an eye-"
"A Ghost. You mean the... the witch's Ghost." Elisabeth grimaced. It was strange to behold; her face was just too different. Her jaw tightened and eyes narrowed, but those were only cues Formora picked up on. "He's an actual madman. There's not a single synapse in his brain that can run the concept of common sense. I can't believe he ported in an actual..." She sighed again. "No, I wasn't talking about… them. I'm sorry you even had to meet them. I hadn't thought anything like that would happen. What is wrong with him-"
"Like what? They would break free?"
"That they'd even be here in the first place." Elisabeth looked up, as if to petition a god from above to hear her unspoken pleas. It didn't look like anything answered her. "What's the Ghost's name, again? Skuldu?"
"It called itself Granny Skuldu," Formora tiredly clarified.
"Granny?"
"Yes."
"That's… odd."
"It was all odd. You're odd. Everything's odd." Formora closed her eyes. "What happened? Why are you here? Why is everything like those… why are they here? What's happening?"
There was no answer. When she opened her eyes, she found Elisabeth staring at the heater pensively.
"What about the creature that struck me?" Formora asked. "What was that?"
"A misunderstanding."
"A misunderstanding?"
"I'm going to have to apologise for it."
"What do you have to apologize to me for?"
"Hm?" Elisabeth looked at her. "No, I didn't mean you - but yes, I suppose I should apologise. I should have reached you sooner. But I still shot her. To little effect, but the intent is what matters. She won't be quick to forget."
Formora just gave her a befuddled look. "Pardon?"
"Never you mind."
"You were... actively searching for me? And that thing-"
"I said never you mind." Elisabeth paused. "How are you feeling?"
Formora lolled her head back, against the cold steel of the craft. She heaved an exhausted sigh and allowed herself to press even further against the ship. "I'm tired," she admitted.
"I know."
"I'm... I'm done."
"You're not done."
"I am."
"No. You're not. You're cold, you're tired, you're angry, you're achy, and you're feeling lonely. I get that. I do. But you're not done."
"I know my limits. I'm well past them."
"Formora-"
"I don't know how you know my name," Formora murmured. "I suppose that should surprise me, but I've had so many surprises already. I'm tired of it. I can't... I can't. This is a bad dream and I can't seem to wake up."
"You're going to change your mind. I know you don't feel like it, but you will."
"Why?"
"Because something could happen soon that'll give you the hope you need."
Formora made a face - a rueful smile. It took more effort than she expected. "Hope."
"Yes. Hope."
"Enduriel hoped for a better life. Something more than surviving. Now he's dead and I'm... I'm not far behind."
"Do you want to dig him a grave?"
"No."
"No?"
"Let him rot."
"Ike won't like that..."
"Who's Ike?"
"A headache," Elisabeth grumbled. "I am going to kill that man."
"Should I know him?"
"Maybe. You stole his favourite bow. Broke into his ship. My ship, really, but he's taken over."
Formora let out a shaky breath. "The figure. The man. He walked into the sea."
"That's him."
"Skuldu asked about him."
"Did they?"
"She," Formora corrected.
"Did she?" Elisabeth persisted.
"Yes. She was worried about him. Her... her-"
"Witch."
"Her skull-witch," Formora decided, "wanted to... fight him? I believe, anyways. Skuldu convinced it, her, otherwise."
"Did the witch have a name?"
"Skuldu called her Agnisia. I think"
"Agnisia..." Elisabeth repeated. "I'm not familiar with it - but then Lucent Hive sometimes change their names on resurrection like other Risen."
"Resurrection?" Formora questioned sharply. "Risen? Lucent Hive?"
Elisbeth nodded reluctantly. "He'll tell you all about it."
"Who? Ike?"
"Ye- You would do better to call him Ikharos for now. 'Ike'... tests his patience - and you'll want his patience."
Formora didn't nod. Neither did she offer any protest. She was too exhausted for any of that. "You still haven't told me what attacked me."
"No. I haven't. I want him to reach his own conclusions first - and if you know you'll just tell him. Or Indilic will when you think it." Elisabeth stood up, stepped around the flameless heating device and pressed two small objects into Formora's hands. Phials, both of them sealed. "That one," she said, pointing to the one with barely a droplet of clear translucent liquid inside, "is the neurotoxin I pulled from your system. And that," she indicated to the second phial which was almost full of the stuff, "is what I managed to synthesize. You would be doing me a great favour if you handed these to him when he comes back."
"He's coming back?"
"Very slowly, but yes. Be it on radio or in person, his Cabal aren't subtle. They're all but blaring their current location to everyone listening in. Make sure he hears about that too." Elisabeth stepped away.
"You're leaving," Formora said. It wasn't a question.
"To deliver my heartfelt apologies," Elisabeth told her. "You should be alright. What Scorn came this way would have moved on - and if any are nearby, they won't dare approach with Ike so close. Not without numbers."
"I meant Skuldu. Agnisia."
"I don't know about them, but I can't imagine they'll stick nearby either. Same as the Scorn, they'll keep their distance from him. One whiff of his Light and they'll be halfway to Alagaësia in a day just for some breathing room."
"And what about him?" Formora questioned.
"Ikharos?" Elisabeth considered it. "He won't hurt you. He won't treat you poorly. He'll be upset only because he's confused too."
"And you aren't?"
"Oh, I am. Mostly with him." Elisabeth's steel face tightened. "Tell him Paladin Oran built everyone's haven after Vesta's end. Faulty orientation offsets latency."
"What?"
"You heard me. He'll understand."
"Who is Paladin Oran?"
"A mutual friend."
Formora grimaced. "Then I am to wait here for some stranger's mercy?"
"You took my mercy without complaint," Elisabeth pointed out.
"I had no choice. I don't know you."
"Can you get up? Can you walk?"
"No."
"Then I don't suppose you have a choice here either." Elisabeth looked away suddenly. "I have to go. Tell him about Paladin Oran. It's important." She paused. "I'm... sorry, for what it's worth. You don't deserve any of this."
"Don't I?"
"No, but I'm not getting involved in a debate about karmic justice. Not with you of all people." Elisabeth grabbed hold of Formora's packs and shoved them over beside her. "We'll talk soon. Good luck."
AN: Huge thanks to Nomad Blue for editing!
This one is long and I genuinely found it a little awkward to describe so many Destiny-things from the viewpoint of someone who is utterly unlearned in said Destiny-things and it largely boils down to them thinking "What the actual fuck?" but it was amusing enough that I wrote most of this in two days straight just to keep that feeling going.
Thanks for reading!