"It started with the disappearance of our scouts," Nolan muttered. "No matter who we sent, they never made it back. Team after team was sent into the mist, and each time not a single person returned."
"That was until Kalish's team."
"We found him at the base of the Upper Citadel, covered in so many blisters he was nearly unidentifiable with skin that looked wrong, like it had tried to tear itself apart. With his passing words being an unintelligible ramble about a tunnel in the eastern section that would consume the world."
"It didn't take long before a small group led by Caster was sent in to search for what he'd found."
At the mention of the name, Sandra stiffened.
"The slums were beyond anything I had ever even imagined," Nolan shuddered. "I thought we might find mass graves of our own people, but in truth, that would have been a mercy compared to what we found. They'd all been changed… changed into something so abhorrent I can't explain how wrong it felt. Men, women, and children alike stretched beyond anything human."
"Everywhere we went, they lined the streets. Living walls of flesh and bone. Faces morphed into the surface, some of which I had known since childhood."
"They begged us. Not to be saved. But for the freedom of death, so in turn we granted it, we burned them all, freeing those trapped in that eternal suffering so they could return to the all mother.
"Casters' form blazed with light as even the fog began to recede from his flames, entire blocks engulfed in fire, and when the flames touched the flesh of all those around us, they screamed. Not the screams of humans but of a single living organism screaming through the mouths of the many as it breathed its final moments."
"When it was finally over, everything turned to dust. But it didn't end there. The deeper we pushed, the more abominations came for us. But no matter how many came, they were nothing to Casters Annihilating flames, passed down from father to son, generation after generation. How many he killed, I do not know, but despite everything, the writhing mass only continued. Whole sections of the city were reduced to fleshy heaps that screamed out names from place to place. One moment, it was a dear friend I had once known screaming at me to stop this madness, to a stranger wailing at us to join them, even when they were turned to ash.
"And finally, we found the entrance to what had caused all this pain and suffering. At the entrance to the sewers, writhed the bowls of a giant. Tenril after tenril of pure flesh flowed out and into the city like an infection spreading through the body from a festering wound."
"Inside those tunnels," Nolan continued, "pulsed the lifeblood of countless souls. Every step we took was across the flesh of something vast. The walls themselves throbbed, rising and falling to the beat of a distant heart."
"We walked those halls for what felt like an eternity, deeper and deeper, until we found ourselves within a massive chamber. The space was filled with people standing perfectly still, all of them staring toward nothing at the center of the room."
"Despite our attempts to wake them from their conditions, they continued to stare onwards as if that was their singular goal in the cursed existence."
"Along the walls were ten more, what had once been people. Their bodies had withered down to bone, their stomachs grotesquely swollen and stretched thin. Through their translucent flesh, a single worm swam lazily inside each of them, drifting through murky red as if cradled in a womb."
"Their bodies were intertwined, arms wrapped around themselves and the thing growing within, as though protecting it."
"But that wasn't the worst of it."
"When we pushed past the motionless crowd and rounded the chamber's edge, we saw something that shouldn't have existed."
"A portal."
"It hovered just above the ground, opening into another world made entirely of flesh. The land on the other side breathed in and out like this whole world was one, while countless eyes followed our movement, curious at watching something that didn't belong."
"We crossed without realizing it. Like insects drawn forward, at the strike of a match, we moved to our doom, stepping into a place I still can't fully describe."
"The sky was stained red, the light sickly and wrong, as if the sun itself had been smothered. And beyond it…"
Nolan's voice faltered.
"…we found a god."
"A god…if that word still means anything. High above us, within that murky sky, was the eye of something so vast it encompassed the horizon like the rising sun. And in that moment, I understood the truth."
"We were nothing… just insects that happened to wander within its realm."
"But before we could even begin to understand what we were seeing, it attacked."
"One moment, the air was still, then something blurred toward us, so fast my mind couldn't keep up. My men began to fall, one after another, cut down by an enemy none of us could truly see, let alone comprehend."
"The ground split beneath us as fire erupted across the land."
"Being the only one capable of keeping up with our unseen enemy, Caster fought as fire and flesh collided, their clash ripping the world apart around us. Each strike sent waves of force tearing outward, flattening everything in their path."
"The flames didn't just burn—they raked the land. Entire stretches of ground were stripped bare as the fire scoured away flesh and soil alike, peeling the world open and revealing dark, ancient stone beneath. The earth screamed as it burned, a deep, resonant sound that shook the air and rattled my bones."
"The ground writhed beneath my feet, convulsing like a living thing in pain. I was thrown down hard, struggling to find purchase as the land bucked and twisted, as if trying to tear itself free from whatever curse had been laid upon it."
"They fought like demigods."
"Every time Caster struck, shockwaves split the terrain, entire portions of the landscape collapsing into molten ruin. And every time the creature answered, flesh reshaped itself, swallowing the damage as if it meant nothing."
"Even then, Caster couldn't hold it back for long."
"With one final, desperate surge, he poured everything he had into a single blow. The force of it obliterating everything around him as a second sun blumed into existence, wiping out everything but me as I wrapped myself in that unnatural stone, its strength unlike anything I have ever seen, as if it had been compressed by thousands of years of flesh, each moment making it into an unbreakable substance. And when the fire subsided, I moved the stone from my view to catch the briefest glance at the thing Caster had been fighting this whole time."
"...It was almost beautiful in a way," Nolan said quietly.
"A tall, skeletal humanoid emerged from the chaos, floating effortlessly above the ruined ground as if gravity itself had simply ceased to apply to it. Its form was long and impossibly slender, like a man stretched too far. And yet its skin clung tight to that frame, muscles wrapped so perfectly, as though no part of it was accidental."
"Behind its back drifted segmented halos. Rings upon rings that moved independently of one another, like the workings of some sacred mechanism I couldn't begin to comprehend."
"I remember thinking, just for a moment, that it looked like an angel of old."
The admission hung heavy.
"Its face was smooth and devoid of features, save for its eyes that ringed its head. Like those of the Worms, they regarded everything at once. I had the overwhelming sense that it wasn't looking at me so much as acknowledging our existence in passing, the way one might notice insects crawling across stone."
"Then it struck again," Nolan said quietly. "A blur of yellow light so fast I only registered it the moment it stood before Caster, its long skeletal fingers closing around his core as he gasped his final breath."
"For a moment, I thought that was it. That he was simply… gone."
"But the core didn't accept it."
"Even as Caster died, the light within that crystal flared brighter, pulsing violently in the creature's grasp. It was like watching a dying star refuse to be contained, as if whatever powered it would not allow something like that to claim it."
"The glow intensified, brighter and brighter, until the air itself seemed to scream. Then it erupted into an impossible flash of light that raked across the land."
"I tried to use the terrain to my advantage, but this time, it wasn't enough. The moment the force touched it, the stone shattered into a million fragments, torn apart like it was nothing."
"And just before the blast reached me…"
"It stopped."
"It simply ceased, as if time itself had frozen mid-breath."
"The explosion began to pull back on itself, light folding inward, rewinding in slow, agonizing motion until all that remained was a blinding radiance in the shape of a core."
Nolan's voice faltered.
"And that's when I realized the thing was still alive."
"Its flesh folded in on itself, the rings behind it completing their slow rotation, opening like a window, allowing its god to examine what had been unleashed against it."
He swallowed.
"That was when I understood. There was no victory to be found there."
"So I ran."
"I ran through tunnel after tunnel to the scorched streets of my home and past."
"When I reached the castle, I begged the lord to evacuate," Nolan continued. "I told them everything I had seen. I warned them what was coming."
"But did they believe me? No. They called me a traitor. They said I abandoned my post. That I fled instead of standing to defend my home, despite the fact that there was nothing I could have done."
"And in the end, they locked me away like some criminal awaiting judgment. But that time never came–"
"That's when I found you," Sandra finished.
He nodded.
In the aftermath of his story, we all sat there in utter silence, each of us taking it in our own way. To me, it sounded like some fantastical tale someone would make up, but when I looked at Sandra's and Nolan's faces, I could see it was no story to them. They had lived through something so atrocious that no one would truly believe it unless they experienced it themselves.
But one thing kept nagging at me. That portal. Was it the same one I had seen in the forest, or something different? There were too many ties for it to be a coincidence. Each led to another world, each affecting the next in turn. The thought of that flesh expanding farther and farther, spreading through the world until nothing but it remained, unnerved me to no end. Now that they were here, what was to stop it from spreading?
Then again, if this city were located in the Barren Sea, what were the chances it could reach very far?
As if reading my mind, Sandra spoke. "So it needed a host to spread beyond its cage, and that's why it let you live."
Nolan nodded. "I thought as much."
Suddenly, Sandra sprang to her feet. "Then we need to get out of here."
Tilting his head, she blurted, "Don't you get it? If you're infected, then many more of our people might be. And if I'm even close to understanding its plan, then it intends to use us as its way out of its prison."
Nolan's eyes widened in realization as he shot upright. "Atlas, we need to get out of here as fast as we can. I need a hammer."
Realizing the dire situation we were in, I summoned one without hesitation. With a mighty swing, he shattered the layer of resin, freeing us from our temporary respite.
"Graveborers are weak to internal injuries. Their mouths or bellies are your best bet," Nolan shouted.
At Sandra's signal, I transformed the hammer into a bow and arrow. A second later, a Vesh'Khar fell from the ceiling just as it began to wind up.
Absorbing the information, I watched as something else began to make its way toward us. Mimicking Sandra's earlier timing, I unsummoned the bow, and a small blade appeared in my palm.
Boom.
A maw burst from the ground as before. Sliding through the sand, I dragged the blade along its belly, where it glided freely across its entire form as it soared past me, then crashed in a heap.
"Good to know," I muttered.
And with that, the hunt began.
Every corpse felt like another tick in the countdown toward the fifth trial, every injury a near-death escape. But before long, nothing remained but bodies. All around us, the towering columns crumbled into dust, revealing either the corpses of men and women who hadn't survived the earlier trial or those who had hidden within the stone, hoping to escape notice.
Now stripped of their protection, they watched as the arena changed once more.
Platforms burst upward from beneath the sand, rising higher and higher until they formed scattered islands in a churning sea of grit. With nowhere left to hide, many stood frozen, trembling with fear, unsure of what to do.
Then a deep rumble rolled through the arena, signaling the fifth trial.
…But nothing happened…
Minutes passed, and when no creatures emerged. Some around us began to murmur, mistaking the silence for victory. But something inside me screamed at me to move. To get on the platforms. Now.
A moment later, I realized why.
Along the edges of the arena, the sand rippled, like something swimming just beneath the surface of a pond. It circled us. Then, slowly, two eerily familiar sails rose from the depths.