"What is your problem?!"

Fauna yelled at Lamphrey as she shook off the blood from the Hoplax abomination, applying some of the Spirit Cores she'd gained from the kill absent-mindedly.

"Hm?" she asked casually. "Currently our greatest woe is the separation of our band. Together our spells are formidable, but our weakness is in our lack of melee defense, especially against greater numbers of fast-moving foes. Perhaps –"

"No!" Fauna shouted, her voice echoing through the blood-drenched cistern.

"No," she repeated quietly. "I mean – how can you be so nonchalant about using a teammate as bait like that?"

Lamphrey blinked her amber eyes down at her Hopla companion.

"You are alive, are you not?" she asked.

"Well, yeah, but –"

"And was it not I who healed your wounds so that you could rise to fight on for your Archon?"

"Sure, but –"

"Then you should learn to hold your tongue, Hopla," Lamphrey finished. "You take things too personally."

The Tialax mage began probing the wet walls of the cistern for an exit, some crack in the Duskmetal walls that could reveal a way out of this hell hole, or another tunnel that would take them to their separated friends.

But Fauna grabbed her staff. She wasn't backing down.

"Personally?" she echoed. "I'm wondering if you've got any idea what that word even means. People are nothing more than a means to an end for you, aren't they?"

Lamphrey twisted away, but Fauna kept on.

"Even back in Sanctum, whenever you helped out on the farm, it was always so you could teach the children your own brand of magic. So they could carry on your legacy."

"If my services are not welcome, then you are free to tell me to go," Lamphrey replied, cold and unfeeling.

Fauna held her gaze. Right now, without Ethan here to mediate, she could feel rage burning in her bones.

But she could also hear the voice in her head telling her that such rage would do nothing. It would be pointless to attack a fellow mage here, and have that evil Doctor, who was probably watching them right now, laugh at their dispute.

"What do you care about, Lamphrey?" Fauna heard herself asking. "Is there anything, or anyone, you wouldn't sacrifice?"

The Tialax stared right back at her companion before responding, in a grim voice that echoed through the chamber and chilled Fauna more than the mutated creature they'd just felled moments ago.

"I care about one thing only, Hopla. The same thing you care about, though your own personal biases clouds the path towards our shared goal. I care about the future."

"Our future, Lamphrey? Or yours?"

"What does it matter whose future it is?" the lizard-mage countered. "In the grand scheme of the world, our lives are nothing but fleeting drops of rain battering on an uncaring mound of sand. In the great wheel of time, we are naught but spokes, constantly treading on hard, unfeeling stone."

Lamphrey rounded on her suddenly, and Fauna felt a deep dread come over her.

"You think I saved you for my own gain," Lamphrey continued. "Because this is what you think of me: that I am devoted to myself, and the preservation of my life. But the simple truth is this: we all have our part to play in the war to come. And come it will. Everything we do now – this trek through the darkness – is but a prelude to the great crusade that shall soon be upon us. When it comes – and it will come – we must be there to see it through."

In the slitted eyes of the Tialax there burned a secret, terrible knowledge. Fauna could see it then, hidden in her words, hiding beneath her wavering pupils. She could see it as only another mage could.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"You're talking as if you've seen the future," Fauna murmured.

Lamphrey blinked, and then moved away.

"I have seen many visions in the dreams of the living and the dead. Some of them speak of what once was, and others of what may yet come to pass. We all have our part to play," she added, with a touch of weariness. "If we are lucky, we fulfil our role and then we die. Your part in this is not yet done, Fauna the Wildglance. There is not more that must be said."

"And you think that makes us unimportant?" Fauna pressed. "You can't believe that. In fact, I know you don't. You wouldn't be whispering in Ethan's ear every chance you got if you thought like that."

Lamphrey touched the corners of a loose piece of wall and sighed, looking back over her shoulder at the frowning Hopla girl.

"It matters not what I believe," she said. "Only that we keep moving forward. And we must do so together, Hopla. You know that, even if you deny it."

A spectral silhouette shone around the crack Lamphrey had energized, and with a swift punch of crackling energy she broke it down, revealing another corridor that led into the Delve's lower levels.

Fauna shook her head as Lamphrey offered her her hand and began to move off without looking back at the abomination that was still twitching in its death throes.

"How do you know the dreams you've looked into really show you what's coming?" she asked as they moved down the tunnel, the flickering magelights on the tips of their staves acting as their only light source, this time.

"I'm no Oneiromancer," Fauna continued. "But isn't it possible all you've seen are bad dreams?"

Behind her, she heard something she never thought she'd hear in a million years: Lamphrey letting out a hoarse chuckle.

"I hope you are right, Fauna," she said. "I hope you are right."

***

Ethan blazed a trail of electrified flame across the tunnels of Griffon's Watch. The first floor seemed entirely comprised of nuisances, really. A few mutated creatures here and there that tried to grab at his ankles and slow his progress, not realizing that every attempt they made to restrain him simply burnt away more and more of their skin.

Ethan didn't stop to finish them off. It was pointless. This whole game of cat and mouse with this lunatic Blood Mage was beginning to feel pointless. He'd liberated a village, crossed the seas of Argwyll, assaulted an unassailable fortress and now here he was, in its dark innards, speeding through the place towards the screams of his dying Remote Host while Sys screamed for dear life in his mind.

You know, I do not remember your predecessors placing much stock in the [Skitter] skill! Perhaps because they associated it with weaker creatures.

"Is it any wonder that they lost, then?" Ethan shouted back over the din of his vibrating legs. "Any gamer worth his or her salt knows that sometimes the Tier One skills end up being the best once you invest into them enough!"

After an inordinate amount of time spent sprinting through darkness, Ethan finally came to a room that looked like a central hub of this floor. A wide square of metal suspended high above the choppy Argwylian waters below. It looked like some kind of cove hewn into the heart of the island itself.

And at its very center lay the Frostbound King: Lysandus.

Ethan canceled his [Skitter] and re-acclimatized to normal walking speed, fixing his eyes on the expanse of shadow that covered this place, and the sounds of choppy waves below. The metal floor was encased in Lysandus' ice blasts, as though the knight had carved a crater in this place as he landed. Pieces of his spiked body were strewn across the floor. Even had to step over his sword arm to get to what remained of the man himself – nothing but a broken torso and lop-sided head, with a single sapphire-encrusted eye gazing up at him with hatred.

"All…must…die…"

He whispered those words like they were his personal family mantra. And for all intents and purposes, they might as well have been.

"The King of Westerweald," Ethan said as he bent down and stared back into the monarch's slowly closing eye. "Bet you never thought things would end like this for you, huh?"

I believe many hybrids would have predicted a far more painful end for the King than this.

"Good point," Ethan replied as Lysandus stirred, acknowledging his presence. "You know, I've half a mind to drag you along with me, heal you up, just to let the Hybrids of Sanctum have their way with you. After everything you've put them through, hell, they deserve it."

Lysandus tried to rise, propelled by nothing more than his fury in this moment.

"A-Ar-chon."

Ethan grabbed his neck and pushed him back into the metal floor of the platform.

"I've seen into your mind," he told him. "And I know that you're just as twisted by the lies of Kaedmon as the rest. Doesn't excuse what you've done. But it does help me understand. You weren't born like this, Lysandus. You were made into this. The good Doctor Haylock just brought out all your coldness, and all your disdain, for us all to see."

The head of the monarch jerked back, then forward, as though attempting, still, to fight back against the object of his anger.

Then, almost as quickly as it surfaced, the hate, and life, in his eyes died away to nothing.

"But it doesn't matter now," Ethan finished as he retracted his claw from Lysandus' frozen heart. "All that matters is that you pass your life on to someone who can actually do something good with it."

Skill Transferal: Complete!

Remote Host Skill list integrated:

Ice Barrage (Grade B)

Winterbreath (Grade C)

Ethan felt the energy of his Remote Host transfer to him as a rush of intense power spreading through his oaken veins. He kept his eyes on that of the King as the latter finally fell back, muttering something vague, and left the world of Argwyll behind.

And a voice, much crueler even than his, rang out from high above Ethan.

Splendid, Archon Ethan, it said. I do so hate to see good material going to waste. Don't you?

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