Julia stared at the glowing ground, a heat haze distorting the air above it. She'd done it—she was victorious. Yet it didn't feel like a victory. She felt no triumph. She only felt sick.

"You're so strong and smart that it's easy to forget how young you still are," Cass said as she yanked her ax out of the ground and sheathed it over her shoulder.

Her entrance was not a surprise to Julia. She'd recognized the ax the instant she'd seen it.

Cass wore her usual getup of a sleeveless tunic—though this one was buttoned in the middle—and loose linen pants. The only thing unusual about her was the enormous book she carried tucked under her left arm. It was so thick that she couldn't palm it, even with her abnormally large hands.

She must've noticed Julia inspecting it, as she held it up.

"This is what I came for—Vinren's notes. Damned if you didn't do your best to blow it the fuck up, though," she said with a chuckle.

"You knew him?" Julia asked.

"The Lich? No. I knew the guy he possessed," she said wistfully as she stared at the glowing patch of ground.

"He was one of my oldest friends. Real stuck up prick, that one," she said fondly.

"I'm…sorry," Julia replied, unsure what condolences to offer in this circumstance.

"Thanks. Fortunately, he managed to write down everything I needed, so it's not a total loss. He was a stuck-up prick that thought everyone else was beneath him, to be sure, but damned if he didn't do good work," she remarked, walking toward what used to be the balcony overlooking the Etherium—now just a hole in the wall.

She skimmed the pages of the book, though it was clear she'd already read through it.

"Don't see what experiment specifically led Vinren to summoning a Lich and binding it to the Etherium, the damn fool. A Lich with Etherium for its phylactery…" she visibly shuddered. "I hardly even want to think what a creature like that could do. Fortunately, this one was a bit…unimaginative, let's say."

"Wait, how did you get here? That barrier was—is—functionally indestructible," Julia reasoned.

"I already told ya it'd take a great deal of force to get through, didn't I?" Cass asked, not taking her eyes from the book.

"Meaning you could've broken it at any point. Why didn't you?" Julia inquired, becoming suspicious.

"Was a last resort. I wouldn't have done it now either if you weren't trying to vaporize everything in this fortress.

"Using that kinda power will draw…unwanted attention. My time here's limited now," she explained, closing the book and looking the crystal up and down.

Julia was…uncomfortable. Her nausea had been replaced by a deep pit of anxiety in her gut. Why was she nervous? She'd defeated the Nashiin—fully and completely. The Jadhariin, as well as the elves of Vazreth, were saved, weren't they?

So, why was she so nervous?

"Here's some sisterly advice: don't ever hesitate—especially at the last moment," Cass suddenly said, turning around to look Julia in the eyes. "You came here resolved to kill the leader of the Nashiin, didn't you? You were aware of the terrible evil he had committed, weren't you?

"Then why does it matter whether he was fighting or cowering? Why hesitate? Does his fear justify the millions he killed? Does his fear undo all the terror he inflicted? No? Then don't hesitate.

"Your hesitation at the final moment, against a clear evil, is not from the moral ambiguity of the situation. It's merely a lack of resolve."

Julia winced. There was much to unpack there, but she felt Cass was right about the high-points. She knew she couldn't allow him to live. The amount of evil he'd unleashed—there was no going back, no redemption…right?

And he didn't even want to be redeemed. He was clearly only interested in killing Julia or taking over her body, though she also recognized that she could be rationalizing.

"Are high-level adventurers sisters, then?" she joked, attempting to divert the subject from her failings and internal conflict.

"I don't know, but you and I are sisters. We've got the same dad. That's the definition of sisters, ain't it?" Cass asked with a small smile.

Julia's eyes widened.

"You—the Founder?" she stammered.

"Ha! Always testing the waters, not wanting to reveal your hand. That's wise, but you don't have to play coy with me. I'm aware of what he really is. 'Founder of the Guild' is the least notable.

"He called himself 'Threindil' when I was a girl. Long blonde hair, pointy elf ears. What was his name while raising you?" Cass asked, her mood light.

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"...Braden," Julia finally said, the breath she hadn't realized she was holding escaping her.

"Huh, strange name. Must be one of those, 'It was common where I came from,' situations," Cass muttered, a hand on her hip.

Julia was dumbfounded. So many unexpected things had happened in just the last few minutes, let alone the entire day. She was struggling to process everything, and Lumenfall was comatose—she would've really appreciated some 'wisdom of the ancestors' right now.

"How do you feel about Vazreth, Julia?" Cass suddenly asked.

"What? How do I—what do you mean, specifically?" Julia asked, attempting to rally her chaotic thoughts.

"Did the injustice bother you? Did your inability to solve it frustrate you? Did you feel hopeless or powerless when you witnessed the structural violence that you knew was wrong but couldn't fix?" she asked, walking slowly toward Julia.

"I—yeah—to all of it, I guess," Julia replied lamely.

She felt that Cass was working toward something significant, but Julia was so off-balance that she could barely follow.

"This is just one city. This kind of thing happens around the entire world, you know—and it's not even the worst. I've seen much worse throughout history.

"I spent so much time thinking about how I could change things, how I could make a difference. So much time and energy spent, yet I came up with nothing. I had small solutions, sure. I could help a revolution here, empower the right people there, but those were small-scale fixes. They didn't address the core—the root problem," she said.

"And what is the root problem?" Julia asked.

"This world, Julia. It is the problem. But I found a way to fix it. I have a plan to change things for the better—permanently. The only impediment was that I had no way to implement it. Now, thanks to Vinren's studies—his notes—I have a way.

"Join me, sister. Join me, and let's make this world into the kind of place we want to live in," she offered, extending a hand out.

She stopped and stood a single stride from Julia, her outstretched hand just an arm's-length away.

Julia's thoughts were out of control—disparate threads banging around in her skull like a caged animal desperate to escape. What was she being offered? How would she change things? And the entire world? What did changing the entire world even mean?!

Before her thoughts could coalesce into something coherent, she felt a light hand on her shoulder. Cass's proffered hand dropped quickly, and her gentle smile shifted into a wicked grin that was almost challenging. She placed a hand on her hip while the other dangled at her side.

"Well, look who it is. Long time no see, Sith," Cass remarked casually.

Julia looked over her shoulder to see Sith standing just behind her. Her hand was on Julia's shoulder, and her face was unreadable as she regarded Cass, though not from the usual practiced-neutrality. Her face seemed an infinite void of clashing emotions, a battleground where there was no winner, and everyone suffered.

"Cass, whatever you are afflicted with, please let us help you. We can—" Sith started.

"'Afflicted' with? Ha! Thanks, Sith, but I've already got all the help I need," she said acerbically.

She made eye contact with Julia, and her face softened briefly.

"Don't worry, sister. I will fix the world. I will make a paradise where none suffer. You have my word," she promised.

"Cass—please do not—" Sith started once again.

Cass disappeared in a blink, appearing before the crystal and placing her hand on it. A horrible, twisting sensation overcame Julia. It was so sudden and horrible that she'd likely have vomited, even as a spirit, if she'd had anything in her stomach.

The feeling slithered down her spine like a snake, its undulating, sinuous motion raising the hairs on the back of her neck.

She recognized this feeling.

Suddenly, she was back in the Striton outskirts, watching her newly-joined party be slaughtered.

This was it. It was the creature, the one that Braden sacrificed his body to kill—no, to chase off, apparently.

It was coming from Cass.

An energy of an inky black shot out of Cass's back, forming writhing tentacles and arms with hands of too many—or too few—fingers, misshapen and malformed. They spread until they covered the entirety of the gigantic crystal, and then—

Frroof!

It was gone. Cass, the horrible Abyssal presence, and the crystal disappeared without a trace.

Julia stared in shock and horror, again paralyzed by her jumbled thoughts. Sith grabbed her face and turned it so that they were eye-to-eye.

"Listen to me, dear. You must make for Durthangrim and reinforce Ravina. Waste no time. The clock has begun to tick, and the countdown is not long," she declared ominously before releasing Julia's face.

"Durthangrim—the clock? What? What countdown?" Julia stuttered, completely confused.

Sith, who was already walking away toward the former-crystal chamber, stopped briefly and looked over her shoulder.

"The countdown to the End," she said.

And then she too vanished.

Julia stared at the empty crystal chamber, her feet rooted to the ground as if her legs had become attached to it.

The ground began to shake—no, it wasn't just the ground. The walls and roof began to vibrate. The stones cracked and pebbles rained down around her. Her feet left the ground suddenly, as if gravity had simply disappeared.

You gotta be fuckin' kidding me!

The Etherium—the power source for the Stone, and the entire city—was gone. There was nothing keeping the barriers active or any other magic devices within the walls, nor was there anything keeping the Stone in the air.

The Stone was falling.

End of Book 3

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