Shuffling. Shuffling. Hobbling in the sand. Leaving a trail of tightly spaced bare footprints in the dirt behind him, an Old Hermit Wanderer shuffled. Within his frail old hand was a stick, probably suited to walking, but he was probably not averse to hitting things (or people) with it, either. For now, he used it as a support to prop up his thin, gaunt frame as he shuffled. He didn’t seem to have a heading; he just walked. His smoke-grey beard had become unkempt and far too long for his own liking, but there was little to do about that; his cheekbones had become more pronounced than they had ben in recent years, but it would have been impossible to tell as he always seemed to smile. Somehow.

He had been humming a long forgotten ditty to himself for the considerable count of four days before he found another among the rolling hills. It wasn’t something he had expected, so he stopped. It made him feel strange to not be humming, but he dare not make a bad impression by introducing himself with bad manners. The young man seemed to be in distress, kneeling on the ground and talking to a map, as though it were to offer him answers to whatever questions he may have. He was turning it every way, this way and that, and the Old hermit was so focused on the hypnotic spinning of the paper that he almost toppled over just watching the lad think.
He seemed perplexed by the lay of the land; perhaps the hermit could help? Maybe they could help each other. Maybe the confused boy would be able to offer a solution to his predicament.

“Fancy meeting you here!” he shouted from a distance, smiling to the man who would have looked up at him in some wild confusion. The Hermit waved as though the two knew each other prior, and began to shuffle faster to close the distance. Shouting was such effort.
It took him not a minute to get close to the man, whereupon he ceased his rapid shuffle and commenced his slow one once more, breathing heavily to regain his breath after such strenuous shuffling. “You seem somewhat lost, my lad!” he said.

He came to a complete halt, and did not allow the man to speak before he started at it again.

“I think I can lead you out of the hills if you are willing to walk with a man at a slow pace! I have found myself it a bit of a pickle if I do say so!”

He allowed the man to compose himself and stand once more; he towered over the Hermit, but most people did. He had once been a stone of a man (or so he thought, the ravages of senility had done him no favours) but since then, his weakening body had continued to shrink and shrivel. Kind of like a grape he thought to himself.

“You see, i’m looking for a strapping young lad just like yourself to help me find someone!” he said, jolly as ever. But he leaned closer, his eyes lost their jovial light and for a very brief moment became like fixtures of onyx within his whitened face. “There is a man walking these wastes, obsidian armour glittering as new. He towers above any other man. He has recently found himself with the company of not one, but four souls of sound mind.”

He allowed himself to rest upon his stick once more, urging his muscles to pull back to avoid him falling flat into the ground. He probably would have never been able to right himself after such a horrendous fall.

“He does that from time to time. He rounds up people like you, makes them trust him, and he then kills them for their memories. Scared of emptiness, I think. It's terrible, I know, but I do believe that these people are in trouble. I think we have a chance at saving them. He did it not but five weeks ago! And eight times before then!”

He perked up one more, his back straightening against the walking stick once more, rather than fulling hunching over it like a flaccid strip of damp fabric.

“So what do you say!” he cried to the confused man. “Would you like walk an old man through the hills and back into the valley? You may just find your way out of here,”

The Old Hermit smiled rather heartwarmingly, and gestured for the man to follow. He turned his back and began to shuffle back the way he came.

Having been ready to leave, Pick turned towards the sound of a voice which after so long in silence had startled him. Another man, off in the distance and across the rise of an uneven ridge had called Pick's attention before he could retreat back to lower ground. For the time being, Pick's thoughts of this land and the map were moved to the back of his mind as he watched the old man hobble closer. As he neared, Pick had taken the time to put away his map, don his helmet, and pull his shovel from the earth then could only listen as the stranger began to speak.

Pick nodded slowly at the mention of being lost, but what small hope that had given him began to fade as this clearly delusional man started to babble about some wandering murderer. Somewhat concerned, now not only for the man but practically everything, Pick opened his mouth to speak but the stranger turned away and motioned for Pick to follow as if he had agreed to do so.

"Um, I'm sorry?" were the first words that managed to find Pick's tongue as he rushed a few steps forward to catch up with the old man, an easy task to say the least. "Sir, you'd be right in guessing that I'm lost but I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about. Are you native to this region? I can't say I've ever been here before. I'm- how did I get here..." Pick had inquired, his words trailing off as earlier concerns began to plague him. "Sir, where are we?" Pick then asked, his tone slightly panicked as for once he began to think. He'd been underground for how long? How many times had he woken up with cold stone to his face and put back to sleep with hot teeth in his side? How?

Pick addressed the man again, "Sir?" as his pace slowed to a stop, twisted and unhappy thoughts entering his mind. Suddenly everything he'd ignored before revealed itself to be as nonsensical as the map he'd been reading only a moment ago, and just like the map when he looked at things as a whole they made no sense. Pick's face noticeably grew paler, and he felt sick to his stomach as thoughts of the horrors he'd escaped from began to creep among his blurred mind. Again the pain in his ribs returned, in an effort to keep himself upright Pick drove his shovel into the earth to use as a support.

Someone has been following them. Someone stupid enough to reveal their position. Multiple creatures, hard to tell how many based on the distance. The black knight was the first to respond. Stupid. Let them come closer, make them think you have the upper hand. Too late now. A plan. Maldron needed a plan. Something in his head clicked on like a switch. A job, a purpose. He can unleash his inner beast now, a calm, calculated, ruthless beast.

"Make them focus their attention solely on you." He told to the group. "I will flank them." He then turns to the knight. "Say "Begone, strangers!" loudly, and it will be a sign for me to neutralize them. I will not attack unless you say these two words." Plotting both the fastest and most concealed route, Maldron was finally at peace, for this moment. A stalker, the apex predator. For all that remained of his memories, he knew he was raised to be just that. And he enjoyed it. That thrill of the hunt. This land sought to deny him just that, but a hunter shall not become the hunted that easily. Perhaps even the rest of the group could see it. The change in his eyes. A subtle change, from the eyes of a man to that of a killer, hunter of men. Even his voice changed to something more monotone, devoid of any emotion behind it.

Sticking to the shadows, however scarce they were without any actual visible source of light. His attire also helped Maldron to hide pretty well, his dull white, or rather grey-ish cloak blending in with the land. Circling around while the rest of group do whatever they are doing, the assassin was preparing his blades. Though he had no memory of the small vials strapped to his chest, he knew they contained venom, and what kind. Since he wears his cloak like a robe, all of this usually hidden from sight. It was like his hands were moving on his own, like he did it hundreds of times already. He chose the paralyzing venom, as he could not know if the creatures following them were hostile. Coating his dagger and a few throwing knives with a thin layer of venom, the assassin was almost in his destination, currently not spotted yet. If the knight makes the call, Maldron will need just a graze, and the venom will kick in swiftly.

Finally in position, there was two of them. A human with clothing that suggested some pedigree, and some sort of animated stone creature. The man was seemingly annoyed by the thing. So they were not allies? The man also had a sword, though his stance betrayed the fact that he wasn't very alert. Even if he spotted Maldron now, he would be hit before he was able to grab the hilt of his sword. The stone being didn't seem very threatening either. Whatever happens next, is up to the knight and the rest of the group.

What do I do? Perfect pondered, clenching his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering, pressing heavy, occasionally trembling body flat into the cold, hard ground as he peered between the leaves of a little tuft of yellowish growth, hidden behind two outcroppings of rock that now served to prevent anyone from spotting him past the furtive little plant... unless they peered over it, of course, which was quite possible. Laying flat as he did, still and unmoving, simply endured the cold and peeked at the people he had been following for nearly two days now. It had taken all this time to catch up to them, and another long while for him to maneuver - mostly by inching across the ground from cover to cover, flat on his stomach as he was now - to this position, where they were unlikely to spot him. He was still too far away to hear what they were saying to each other when they spoke - in fact he could barely hear them speak at all, as long as they voices remained at normal speaking-volume - so they were very unlikely to hear him, but even a psychopath knows that sometimes caution is the better virtue, especially when one finds oneself in a strange land one knows nothing about. And especially when the people one was spying on were... well, like those people.
The strange man with bells on his clothes seemed, if intuitively rather odd to look at, like the smallest threat out of the four, about as poorly armed as Perfect himself, if not even worse than his own armaments. He had spotted a sickle in the man's possession - a tool for farming, ill-suited for hurting people, he reckoned - and a broken sword, neither of which seemed like they posed a significant danger to him. His own sizable knife was still clutched in his right hand, blade resting snugly in its sheath, and the sharpened sticks lay beside his left hand, ready to be snatched up and used as needed. Perfect was much bigger than the bell-wearing fellow, too; the little guy seemed like he could be knocked over with but a casual wave of the great serial killer's hand, so Perfect was far from intimidated.
Then there was a guy in black leather armor, who struck Perfect as logically an easy target as well, but his instincts warned him to make a final decision about how much of a risk this person was. He had not actually seen a weapon in that man's possession at all, which made him suspicious to say the least. What kind of person would have the common sense to don armor, but not to acquire as much as a basic piece of weaponry? It could be that he had simply entered this world with armor but no weapons, of course - Perfect had no idea what determined which objects were in their possession upon coming here - but even then... nothing? Perfect had just come here, and had managed to craft some additional basic weapons already. It did not make sense, which probably meant that it was not true; he was bound to have a weapon hidden somewhere. Either that, or he was unbelievably stupid. He was small as well, and immediately unremarkable, but he was a difficult target.
The woman was, intriguingly, of more concern than the two men. She was tall and sturdy, though not quite as tall or as sturdy as Perfect, and carried a sword and an axe with her. Never mind whether she actually knew how to use those weapons, both had longer range than anything at Perfect's disposal (unless he opted to throw his knife), and were ultimately very dangerous in even inexperienced hands. She was pretty, though, at least from a distance... Perfect liked her.
But what really motivated Perfect to keep to the shadows, and to keep respectful distance from these people out of fear that they might notice him and either drive him away or downright kill him, was the armored figure. Forget about the fact that they were potentially four against one, that they had food and water (unlike him), that they were all armed, and that this particular behemoth of a man wielded a halberd that was a deterrent against approaching them by itself; what troubled Perfect most of all was the armor. Everything else were odds he could, in theory, overcome by sheer strength, speed and wits, but platemail armor like that? Neither his knife nor his sticks could ever hope to ever reach the man inside that suit, no matter how much he stabbed or slashed at him. At best he could maybe manage to land a blow against the warrior's head with the butt of his knife and knock him out through the helmet, but even that would be a troublesome feat to accomplish. That one was dangerous... exceptionally so. If just one piece of armor had been missing, or the shape had shown any signs of the existence of a vulnerable area, things would have been different, but as things were...

Not that Perfect actually meant to kill these people, or even fight them at all if it could at all be avoided. Why in the world would he want that? The most important resource they had that he needed - their experience with and knowledge of this world - could only be acquired from them as long as they were alive, after all, and preferably amiable to and honest with him as well. And aside from whatever meager resources the four of them could be lugging around, what reason did he have to kill them? To remove the threat? It would have been a wiser and simpler course of action to wholly avoid them, if that was his intention, rather than stalk them for the better part of two days' trek through harsh terrain and heat-that-turned-inexplicably-to-cold. He wanted to approach them openly if at all possible, to take advantage of everything he could garner from interacting with them, but he did not want to die (again) because he did so. It was not fear; psychopaths were not very susceptible to that, nor was Perfect. It was simply the logical conclusion that his chances of surviving the encounter were not very good, if they proved hostile.
Not that he would have much of a choice, soon. The fact that he had caught up to these people at all was - as much as he wanted to accredit the feat to his own physical shape - mostly due to him being newly awakened and not as ravaged by the reckless environment of this dreadful place, and thus in possession of greater vitality and stamina. Over the past couple of days, however, their situations had reversed; they had food and water, while he had not. Their condition had presumably been maintained relatively stably at the stage they had been on when he had first spotted them, whereas his own thirst had gone unquenched and his hunger unsatisfied. The thirst in particular was bad; already he felt himself weakening, and he knew rationally that he would only grow weaker the longer he went like this, and would ultimately not last long without water. It helped that the heat had given way to this infernal chill, but he still needed something to drink. He already felt downright sick from time to time from sheer thirst, which was a much more troubling notion than the feel of hunger gnawing in the pit of his stomach. Already his limbs grew heavy, and his mind did not function as well as it could have. The water-situation needed to be fixed - soon - or he was really going to die.
Not yet, though... first he needed to make sure. Either he had to end up in a situation where he literally had no other recourse than to approach these people for help, like finally being on the brink of succumbing to thirst altogether, or he had to witness some kind of confirmation that these people were not hostile to strangers.
And a chance for them to prove whether they were hostile or not, as luck would have it, was exactly what occurred now. Perfect did not smile; he simply stared. Still. Watchful... desperate.

"M-Mother!" John called out as he gasped, awake now in the forever twilight that was The Land Betwixt. He grasped his chest as he panted, trying to push through the confusion that was his second Awakening. It was similar to the first time, except now he knew something was wrong. As if he had forgotten something important, but at the same time felt warmth and calmness from something in his hand.

A locket. A simple one, something a farmer's wife would buy for only a few silver. Even so, the intricate carvings showed that someone had put a lot of work into it. The wear and dirt on it showed that it had been around for a long time. Still, it was something to hold onto. John knew instantly that it was something from his past life. A memory, tangible and lasting, unlike the slivers in John's own mind.

The words "Dearest John..." were carved into the top of the pendant, bringing a chill throughout John's body. He remembered back in the crypt. That thing had spoken to him in her voice. The chill seeped through his bones until John opened the pendant, gazing upon the image inside. "Mother," he mouthed silently, before noticing his surroundings, including his newest companion.

The darkness hides all manner of secrets, and all manner of nightmares – and, as some would like to believe, all manner of truths to be unearthed by those who would dare find it. The nameless vagrant stood at the precipice, hunched like an animal ready to pounce and pressed against the wall, as she stared down the black corridor descending into the bowels of the crypt from whence terrible noises escaped. Though distant and muffled, she interpreted the cacophony as the sounds of a desperate battle, where something – or someone – was being slaughtered. Perhaps somebody foolish enough to have believed the tales of those who claimed to have ventured into the darkness, and have escaped being all the wiser and more powerful for it. She had been in the darkness before, she knew it was all fabrication – there was nothing in the black corners of this land save for one’s own nightmares, and the deaths that followed. If there was somebody down there, they were long past salvation, and she had no business trespassing further.

Shaking her head, she removed herself from the mausoleum entrance and returned to the carcass of her fallen prey, one of her largest kills yet – and also one of the most tragic. “What’s done is done,” she muttered under her breath as she drew her iron sword and leaning the glaive on the monster’s flank. Eyeing the monstrosity’s muscular arms, she settled for taking meat from those first. Like a butcher in the slaughterhouse, she began hacking into the flesh and cutting, trying her best to free as large a chunk of meat as she could with the inadequate tool she had. A large axe would serve her much better here, she knew.

“M-Mother!” a juvenile voice called out some distance behind her, and immediately the sounds of hacking and wet, ripping meat ceased. Bewilderment and surprise gripped the vagrant’s mind as she spun around so quickly that her cloak and hair briefly fluttered in the wind. Gritting her teeth, almost snarling, and staring forward with a squinted, singular eye, she saw them – two persons, sitting on the ground not far from her in between some ancient, crumbling headstones. How was this possible? How could she have missed them? Careless! Stupid! Had one of them not called out, they could have gained even more ground on her. Too dangerous. She dexterously unbuckled the shield from behind her back and donned it on her left arm before taking a few, small steps forward and stopping again. Who were these creatures? Were they mere shells of men, lusting after her memories, or were they survivors like her? Was it even possible, that she was not alone in this place? Or was she simply deluding herself into wishful thinking? Whatever the answer might have been, she stood there, poised to strike should the need arise, sword and shield in hand.

Artimus swooped down and landed upon the hunter's knee as he looked around the cemetery, his memories now further blurred by his latest death. The only way he knew this fact is because he remembered having the memories from his past life, but perhaps the day would come when he forgot them all and forgot about having them, turning into a husk. A shell of his former self wandering these wastes in pursuit of those with memories, taking them for his own and forgetting who he once was. Who's to say he hasn't already done that and has already forgotten who he was? Maybe he came to his hellish land a completely different man than he is now. It does not bode well to dwell on these kinds of thoughts though. His attention snapped to his young companion and former prey; the boy had yelled out upon his awakening from the temporary grasp of death in this land. The hunter dove at the boy, slapping his gloved hand over his mouth and shoving him to the ground in fear he would cry out more than the one time.

"G-get off, you'll break it," John said harshly as he wriggled out of Rook's grasp, angry and clutching something important to his chest.

"Shut up. What if that thing is still pursuing us? Break what? What do you have," the hunter asked as he raised to a crouch and grabbed his crossbow, scanning the cemetery once more. His gaze fell upon a shape near the center of the graveyard; it was human in shape, but he couldn't discern too much from it other its stance. It looked ready to fight. He brought his crossbow up to aim at the shap, standing slowly and watching it for any violent movement.

John ignored Rook's question, opening his hands slightly to peer at the locket. It felt good just to touch it. To hold it. To remember. Mother. Then he remembered the hell he was in, cursing under his breath as he shoved the locket into his pocket, noticing Rook's crossbow bearing down on someone. John's eye was caught by the mass of flesh and bone that sat, dead, behind the stranger. "Be careful," he said as he stooped to pick up his cleaver, no longer trusting it to keep him safe. "D'you see that thing behind it? The dead thing."

"Aye. I saw it, boy. That only means whatever it staring us down is strong enough to kill that mass," the hunter responded, his crossbow never waivering from its aim of the shape before them.

Slowly inching closer, the vagrant’s one eye observed the two ill fortuned men with care, examining every last detail as well as the dim twilight allowed. They seemed unaware of her presence for a brief moment, and unaware of their surroundings in general as they recollected their consciousness and sense of self. One of the two, after silencing the short outcry from his companion, lifted a strange, alien-looking device in front of himself, seemingly aiming at… her. Expecting some kind of ranged threat – perhaps akin to the bow that her culture was more familiar with – her knees bent and she managed to contract her entire body behind what remained of her shield, save perhaps for part of her feet or legs occasionally being exposed during her sluggish forwards advance.

The vagrant swallowed a small lump of saliva to wet her parched throat before calling out: “Art ye sane?” to the two men, voice clearly different from the city folk.

John swallowed the lump that was in his throat upon hearing the person. No doubt about it, it was a woman. A woman wearing armor and hefting a sword and shield. Though, he couldn't blame her in a world like this. "A-Aye. We're sane. Can we please put away the weapons? I don't wish to fight anymore."

"Aye. We're sane like the boy says," the hunter called out, but did not lower his bow any. His years of hunting game of all sorts had engraved the instincts of the beasts he hunted into him. His instincts told him to keep the bow raised until he had definite proof that there would be no harm in lowering it.

“This world knows not peace nor trust; it offers me none, and I offer none. Not until you’ve earned both,” she replied, a hint of bitterness in her tone, “How did ye get here? Why did ye creep up behind mineself?”

"We... we died. We died down there in the crypt. We only just awoke, here above ground. I promise you we mean no harm. I know not if laws still mean a thing here, but 'love thy neighbor' is something I wish to follow," John said, letting out a sigh as he dropped the cleaver and sat on the ground, starting to pull out his journal. "I'm tired of fighting. That... thing down there... It was too much. I only wish to rest and write."

"The boy speaks the truth. We did not creep upon yeh. We awoke here after the monstrosity resting in the crypt killed us," once again Rook spoke to strengthen John's point but refused to lower his guard as his instincts urged him to stay on his toes in this land.

Fools, both of them, she thought. Fools, but not liars. She had heard the sounds of conflict in the crypt, and they appeared ill suited to combat the darkness of the land betwixt, and so died as they deserved to. And no amount of foolishness could obscure the fact that they also appeared truly sane – still filled with memories of some kind. The empty ones she had encountered, they were not this clever, could not ruse her so.

“Cease pointing that thing at me, and I shalt lower my blade,” she commanded with confidence as she reluctantly straightened her legs once more to stand upright.

Pausing a moment to think about the woman's command, the hunter did eventually lower his bow ever so slowly. He only did this because he was confident he could raise it quick enough should the woman charge at them through the headstones.

John opened the journal to the hastily drawn picture of the Lamentor. He would have shivered if not for the warmth that emanated from his coat pocket. "Come, maiden. We'll all sit down and share our tales. You... wield weapons, I've never seen a girl with any. Isn't that only for men?" John asked as he started gathering twigs and bits of wood from the ground, forming them into a small tent. Then, he noticed the bird on Rook's shoulder. It was beautiful up close, he smiled as he held out an arm to the creature, letting it jump onto him. "Artimus. She's even more beautiful up close."

Rook kept his gaze on the approaching woman warrior, still paranoid of attack as he spoke without turning to the boy,"I wouldn't make a fire, lad. There could be things out there lurking about," he felt Artimus hop from his shoulder to his companion, surprised she wold trust someone so readily,"Aye. She's a beautiful bird and a loyal companion. She's helped me on many hunts."

The vagrant snorted with amusement when she heard the term ‘maiden’. It implied a certain innocence, or at least evoked images of a reserved, juvenile daughter in her mind; certainly not the kind of woman that her life had made her to be. From what place did this mere boy hail from, she wondered? To hold such a naïve view of the world, it was nigh on inconceivable for her, wielding a weapon was second nature to her, they were a part of her body. It could all still be a ruse to fool her, but she allowed her senses to become lulled in the illusion of security, and her posture became notably less tense; sword hanging low, though shield still raised as she casually walked towards the two.

“No need to be a man to run someone through,” she commented dispassionately. If all went well, she would eventually stop about two meters from the two, now more clearly visible to the naked eye; splattered with filth-ridden blood, one-eyed, unwashed and dirty.

As the armed woman came into view with her comment about not needing to be male to kill, the hunter gaped at her appearance as unnoticably as possible. How long has she been here to be marked so? It had to be longer than the boy and himself; either that or she had worse luck with the creatures lurking in this land and came upon them more often than they had. Though, she seemed to have learned from these experiences, if the pile of flesh behind her was any sort of indicator. The hunter had only met two hostile things in this land, and they had both killed him. The crazed and dillusional cries of the warrior in rusted armor still reverberated within his skull. Would he some day become like that poor soul? The thought sent a shiver through him.

"Why did you kill that beast?" John asked as he began to take out the quill from its slot and dabbing at the next page of paper, starting to draw the locket from his pocket without realizing that he probably shouldn't. "It would've been easier to run away, or just leave it be."

“I want to eat it,” the vagrant answered plainly, raising an eyebrow as she observed John. She had never seen someone draw on paper, and could not quite fathom what he was up to.

"...Eat it?" John asked, cocking an eyebrow as he kept drawing, pausing every so often to scratch the chin of Artimus, who eagerly watched from his shoulder. "Why would you eat that?"

"Aye, boy. Eat it. She's a hunter. What else is there for us to eat in this land? Roots and berries? You can't eat those forever. You need meat."

“Eat your enemy and you eat his strength, I say,” she almost absentmindedly added, perhaps more to herself in an effort to recall an old adage, or perhaps a lesson to the others.

"An interesting mantra to live by. Personally I just believe in eating and using whatever you kill out of respect to Gaithea," the words left his mouth automatically. He barely realized what he had said.

In a different world, she might have shared his view, recalling the faintest memory of having hunted at least once in her youth. But respect was dead in this world. There was only strength, and not dying like all these antiquated concepts had.

“What art thou doing there?” she asked, nodding towards John.

"I'm drawing. Isn't it obvious?" John asked as he held up the journal page, exposing the partially finished locket image. "I've drawn more than just this. This land is full of strange things. Places, creatures I've seen, objects," he flipped backwards to a drawing of the cabin that seemed so far away now. "See?"

Intrigued, she bent down slightly to take a closer look at his partial drawing, lowering her shield in the process. The artwork was reminiscent of her people’s etchings that they might leave in wood or stone, but much more detailed and sophisticated. She had never made one, did not have the steady hand or artistic mind for it.

“Ah, so thou art a chronicler. Rather young, for one.”

Rook glanced down at the unfinished drawing of a locket as he allowed himself to drop down next to John in a sitting position, only now noticing the tears in his trousers from the skeletal puppet that had attacked him. The wounds beneath the tears had since scarred over. The rips were what bother him though, and so as he sat down he pulled his rucksack from his shoulders and rumamged through its contents. He eventually pulled out a needle and spool of dark thread. With barely passable skill, the hunter began weaving the needle through his trousers, closing up the rips while still wearing them.

"Chronicler? Do you mean... a bard, or a writer? I... I guess that could be what I am. It's the only thing I'm good at," John said as he returned to the locket, sighing as he made a slight error. He then noticed Rook sewing up the rips in his clothing. "You know, Rook. I could do that for you. I don't have many memories, but I'm fairly certain I did my fair share of fixing things." John blinked before speaking again. "Oh, I almost forgot. I am known as John, and this is Rook. The bird on my shoulder is Artimus."

“A storyteller. One who remembers one generation’s exploits of the clan to share it with the next,” the vagrant elaborated, paying only loose attention to Rook repairing his clothing. She had done something similar many times, only she lacked a needle and thread. All of a sudden, John chose to introduce himself and his companion to the vagrant, who now simply stood there, uncertain what to do with herself. Names. Huh. Had been a while she was last made to even remember one. They certainly expected a name from her; but she had none to give. Long seconds went by before she eventually, and reluctantly spoke up:

“Very well. None in this land saw fit to grace me with a name, so I have none.”

"No name, eh? Well with that beast dead behind you, I'm tempted to call you Huntress," Rook spoke up in the midst of sewing up another rip near the knee of his trousers, pricking himself in the thumb. He cursed under his breath and stuck his thumb in his mouth and sucked at the blood in an attempt to stop the flow. She shrugged. Huntress? She was not much of a huntress, she thought. A wolf pup in a forest of giants, who eats those few weaker than herself whilst living only by the fortune that the true hunters paid her little heed. John grabbed the needle and thread from Rook with a stern look, getting to work with a much more dexterous hand. "Huntress isn't that great a name. You seemed amused earlier at my calling you 'maiden.' Why not that? It's ironic, and I'm sure it will send your foes running in fear." He chuckled as he finished up mending the tear, moving onto the last one.

“Perhaps if I was young and innocent, it might be a descriptive a name. I am neither,” she commented with regret. John looked up, "Under all that mud and gore, I don't doubt that you're quite the sight. That eye might serve a few problems if you were to court someone. What happened to you? Were it beasts that gave you all of your markings?"

“Lost it. An eye for an eye, if thou wilst.” John’s attempt at flattery found no soil to grow on as she chose to ignore it. He was much younger than her for sure – it was natural for him to try and gain the favor of women, she thought.

"Yeh don't remember losing it? Must be the land taking your memories for itself...," Rook trailed off after his interjection, taking his needle and thread back from John as he finished mending his trousers for him. He set to rummaging through his rucksack to take an inventory of what he had.

“I remember enough to know not to lose the other. Thou wouldst do well to remember my lesson too. Thou hadst no business in the darkness below.”

Looking up from his rummaging, the hunter responded with, "The only reason I was down there was because the boy was following me, so I set a trap for him below. Then the monster came..."

He set a trap for his own companion? She was sure to remember that. Was there some underlying tension between these two, a dispute that she was not aware of? She would have to be wary of these two after all – no surprise. Exhaling a deep breath through her nose, the vagrant bent down to ram her sword into the undisturbed soil so that her hands might be free to buckle her shield behind her back once more.

John stared at Rook a bit angrily. "You shot me, and I was following you because there was nothing else for me." He returned to the journal, setting the finishing touches on the picture. "It might not have been for naught. That thing down there... it spoke to me. In Mother's voice. I woke up with this."

He pulled out the locket, feeling the warmth between his hands. It made him smile at how closely he had drawn the locket, the picture resembling it perfectly. "I have no clue why... but it holds power. A lot of power. It might hold a clue as to the meanings of this world."

“Oh! Oh child!” the Hermit shouted unusually loudly after only shuffling a good ten steps. The young man had already begun to question him and his intent. He did not see that there was no time for talking, there was shuffling needing to be done. “I did not mean to startle you!”
He began once again to shuffle through the sand after slowly turning back around to face his heading. He liked to kick up the sand as he shuffled, the small eruptions of dusty grain soothed his frail mind and made a crooked smile stretch across his withering face. His teeth were crooked, rotting and full of eminent gaps, but he smiled anyway and without reservation.
His euphoria was cut short once more.

“Sir, you'd be right in guessing that I'm lost but I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about. Are you native to this region? I can't say I've ever been here before. I'm- how did I get here…” the young lad asked.

The Hermit stopped dead in his shuffled tracks. He planted his gnarled walking stick into the dust and leant on it once again. He pivoted slowly to face the young man and do his best to answer his questions as best as his puzzled and cryptic mind would allow.

“A native? Oh, heh heh heh,” He cackled, coughing dryly as he did so. “I do say! There are no natives here! Don’t be so silly!” he began to crack up again. “I am here for the same reason you are here! Heh heh heh,”

He stood upright again, as though he were a different man entirely, one who did not need the support of a walking stick to prevent falling flat to the ground. “I say! What a lovely day it is out today!”

There was no wind. The cold had once again begun to creep upon the dunes, enriching like some snake of bitter chills, weaving between the horizon and the disturbed land masterfully and easily, as though no obstruction could keep it from it’s goal. “You are here because you, like everyone else, got into a pickle. You managed to die. But that’s okay! You are just transitioning. Like a pilgrimage.”

The man was clearly confused. He continued to question where they were in the world. As if a specific point here could be pinpointed. “Well! he shouted unusually loudly, as though he were screaming for no apparent reason, “Why don’t you look at your map? Can you see the wide open plains? We are in the wide open plains before the smoky forest before the castle before the mountain before the-“ he stopped. He did not wish to continue that train of thoughts.

“You are between. Between worlds. Betwixt some sort of eternal light.”

He spun inhumanly fast to face his heading once more, before regaining the composure of a frail old man. He began to shuffle. Shuffle. Shuffle. Shuffle through the sands. He gestured the same gesture from before, beckoning the man to follow.

“Come, I’ll do what I can to explain. But for now we have to find somebody else to fight off the Knight! There is a man. I haven’t met him yet but I think his name is Remly… or… Renny. Or… Rider. Riley? I’m sure he will be dying to meet us too. But we have to shuffle fast to get to him, the turn of the light approaches.”

Pick's head was swimming, and he held tight to his shovel to keep from falling over as his mind tried to filter through the old man's answers. He felt sick, horribly so, and the pain in his ribs had flared up incredibly. With an alarmed gasp Pick lost his grip and fell to his knees, one had clutching his chest to try and help with the stabbing ache beside his heart.

"You were nothing when you came with us. Nobody'll know yer gone. Why share?"

The words echo'd harshly in the back of Pick's mind, like the claws of some creature which delighted in slowly ripping apart his skull. The old man's words were only distant now, but one thing was able to work it's way through the echo of faded memories; "You managed to die."

With those words Pick's vision shifted to flow with the imperfect memory that had only now begun to plague him. He was in another cave, alone, and down on the ground. The ache in his ribs had dulled, and he could only watch through his own eyes as the image of blood pooling beneath him caught the edge of his blurred vision. He could feel it coming from his mouth, leaking slowly onto the cold, almost frost bitten stone- and in the distance the shrill echo of someone whistling grew quieter and quieter. It was a joyful tune, one he recognized but was unable to properly remember, and as the sound was lost so was all warmth Pick could feel.

His vision returned to him, and Pick found he was still on his knees and coughing blood. It was a small amount, but the little flecks of red now spattered onto the grey sand told him all he needed to know. Whoever the old man was, he was right: Pick had died, or rather had been killed. Only able to wish he could ignore the aching in his ribs now, Pick straightened his back and looked behind him as for the first time he recognized the source of his pain. The rusted metal tool was dug in nearly all the way to the handle, angled downward to pierce what he could feel was his lung. There was no blood that he could see, but Pick grimaced at the thought of how much there must have been when it happened.

"Come, I'll do what I can to explain," Pick then heard the old man call out, he having turned away and begun to walk again. Watching as he began shuffling away, Pick's mind began to return to the here and now while his subconscious tried to sort out all that it could. "I died," Pick managed to mutter as he began to stand, using his shovel to steady himself. Whether what he'd just said was more an admittance or statement remained unclear to even Pick himself, though to him it couldn't mater a whole lot either way. So, for the time being shocked into thoughtful silence, Pick pulled his shovel from the earth and began walking after the old man, not wanting to ask any more questions for now. Regardless of what happened next all Pick could hope for was to avoid being alone in this confusion, lest it destroy him when more questions returned to plague him.

So the dark knight thought he was here because he had renounced his king? Did each of the people here hide some heavy deeds in their past? Some greater than others, apparently... The former assassin bearing the worst of them, by at least her judgement.
(But what had she done? If everyone else remembered something sinister from their old lives, why did not she? Only common, ordinary, mundane things? Was she misplaced, a guide, or did the world have other plans with her? Why was she possibly the only one to have been marked by this place so clearly?)
Nevertheless, was renouncing one's king really worthy of being thrown into this ... place? (Was anything she herself had done?) She knew nigh nothing of kings and how they functioned besides that they were rulers of entire lands. Not even knew knew. Was this "renouncing" an offence punishable by death? Was this how he had died? Certainly, there was also a reason to such an action, and if the reason was good, then it was a justified action, no? Kings were people, too, and thus as capable of being evil as any other. If that was the case, then renouncing said kind would have been the honourable thing to do. A less honourable man would have simply ... stabbed the king in the back or something, and even that would probably be more justified than just continuing to serve under an evil leader.
It had been mainly curiosity that led her to ask why had the dark knight enquired about their kings, but seeing the massive man actually turn his head towards her, just look at her without a word spoken, observing her without her being able to see is face in turn, made her question her decision. The silence grew uncomfortably long, and for a moment, in the light of his recent admission, a part of her even began to fear that she truly had asked something she should not have. Her pale face was concerned, eyebrows furrowing in confusion.
It was almost startling when the knight did reply at last, turning his whole body to face her. The only way to tell who was sane and who empty? Surely, one could ask almost any question that would have required rational thought. Asking whom one served was ... loaded. It almost sounded like there was one "correct" king to serve, and followers all others would be considered enemy. Or maybe they came from a free tribe with no kings? She shook her head slightly, barely perceptibly, for once lowering her gaze rather than looking wide-eyed at the knight.
"Surely, Sir, even not all sane people think alike..." she muttered, quietly, hesitantly. Was 'I don't think there are any kings here, and it is questionable whether I've ever been a hundred miles from one' equal to 'I don't know'? And strictly taken, the jingling madman and the former assassin had not even replied.
If her prior question had caused the dark knight to liven up, then her attempt to assure him that reaching the mountain again was possible seemed to make him withdraw and return to staring at the sand before his feet. He did not believe he could reach the mountain again because he was missing something he could not find again - a key, perhaps? In her admittedly rather simple and straightforward imagination, it made sense - for there to be a gate or a door and a key. Or at least something that stood in for them; who knew what apparent forms things took in this twisted world.
"Could be bad luck... We all know this place is adamant on making everyone suffer," she noted, now once more looking at what would have been the knight's face, had the helmet not been in the way. Sometimes things just had only dumb mundane coincidence as an explanation. "It was here, though, wasn't it? You can recall your death here, but not what it was? ...I don't know. Maybe, if any of us finds this ... a key, then you can come with us, Sir, if that place is really the only one fit for a home in this world? Walk in alongside us? You would not know you can't before you have tried. Or if it was left behind in there when you were killed the first time, then maybe we can bring it out for you?"
It was a strange, careful and tentative hopefulness she displayed; it did not quite fit this place, but she genuinely wanted to help, and it was all she had to offer at the time being. Without hope, what was to stop people from simply ... giving up? The desire to live told people to fight, but not fighting took less effort. She might have been utterly clueless about many things in this world and feeling at a loss, but at least she was still intent on fighting on. That had to be worth something.
"That is the thing," she, however, had to admit to the jingling madman, who had opted to join the conversation, too. For the time being, he seemed quite sensible, actually... But yet the assertion that she would probably remember deaths did not seem to click. "I recall stepping out to confront ... something that was after me, but I can't for the life of me remember how that fight ended. I remember a dark, damp cave, but I don't remember how I got out of it... Such things. There are pieces missing from this world, too. Only the last couple of days before meeting you lot are really clear."
The jingling man sighed, and clumsily scraped his fingers over his mask before removing it altogether. Had he been crying? He also looked a lot older and wearier than she would have expected. Guess she should have been able to tell from his voice, but still...
All of a sudden, she found herself out of things to say. Instead, she just carefully reached out a hand and briefly attempted to awkwardly pat the man on his shoulder or upper arm.
He sung a song after that. A sad one. The surrounding silence was contrasting and almost ominous. (Might something hear?) The rest of them had nothing more to say, it appeared...
She was ... thinking.

It took until the dark knight noticed something in the surrounding foliage when she was suddenly torn from thought with a start. With a reflex born from this land, her hands automatically closed around her axe's handle, eyes darting in the direction the dark knight was looking. Now that she was no longer buried under her own thoughts, she could hear faint voices, one male, one ... possibly male, but mostly oddly inhuman. Careful. Even with the dark knight remaining constantly vigilant, letting one's thoughts wander too far was not a wise idea.
Their plate-armoured companion stood abruptly, and shouted out. This time, the noise actually caused her to flinch, even as she quickly clambered to feet herself. Remaining squatted for so long had caused her legs to fall asleep...
"Sir, do you not think something else might also hear?" she enquired quietly once she was properly upright. She did not know whether it was her place to question anything the dark knight opted to do, but it was a valid question. Something could hear, and in this place, the somethings usually were neither kind nor fearful of humans. Once more she was gripping her axe in preparation of retaliating if necessary.
The former assassin promised to flank the newcomers and gave clear instructions on how to control them. Reasonable as caution was, she could not help to notice the change in the other's demeanour. This man is truely crazy. Killer? At that moment, she could believe it - and she did not like it the least. It stirred a slumbering sense of unease anew - the same unease that had first surfaced when the ex-killer-of-people first started rambling about being a weapon, and "losing edge". (Was this how 'empty' looked like? Was the man borderline empty already?)
An odd thought occurred to her as she was following the ex-assassins back with her eyes. He was a small man, one who relied - most likely - on precision and poison more than strength and massive damage. Even if he were to stab her, she could still kill him in turn. Even the strongest poisons took some minimal amount of time to work their way around the body - to be moved everywhere with blood. If he were to try and take her life, she would be certain to try to take his in return... There would be no point, only the satisfaction of the knowledge that the other did not win. For some reason, this calmed her a little. An eye for an eye ... no cruel deed shall go unpunished.
Reluctantly, she remained to wait for the newcomers' introduction. The axe was poised, even though they were still far.

Despite the axe-wielder’s objections, the Turncloak continued to shout out to the top of the valley unrestrained. He had assured her that nothing was listening out for them, and that the valley was dead, void of the beasts that seemed to stalk the world, but even he was unsure. His voice had carried too far now for him to take back his words.

“Show yourself!” he cried once more, his deep, thundering voice seemed to shake the very sides of the dusty valleysides and it echoed for what seemed like eternity, snaking it’s way through the narrows with startling power. He slammed his halberd into the dirt as if to symbolise his position in taking a stand to whatever had been watching them. He had heard two voices, two distinct, different voices. One of a man, and one of-

“The roses have bloomed. The moon will be full in an hour. The Turn of the Light matters not, what matters is your choice of trees amongst the forest.” Came a voice from seemingly nowhere. Just as suddenly as it had rung past the Turncloak’s cries, there stood Tomb not but ten feet from the Axe-Wielder and the Knight. It was a most unusual creature, draped in cloaks of shifting colours with an eye of pure, tempered glass peering from their bundled embrace. Its voice sounded like the harmonic song of grinding stones, distorted into the crude impression of words.
It was clear that this thing was one of the voices from atop the valley, and that whatever accompanied it did not do so willingly, as a head seemed to appear from the thin scrub above to analyse the situation below. A haggard yet handsome face, also clothed in a deep purple robe. Another wanderer to most, but to the Turncloak it held the unmistakable reminiscence of familiarity, even from afar.
The Turncloak looked to the Tomb - who had suddenly appeared before them, silently awaiting an answer to its cryptic anecdote - and to the man above. His gaze seemed to dance between the two for some moments, before he began to address the Tomb.

“The Hermit sent you, did he not?” He had to bend down ever so slightly to look level into the glass eye of the creature. “In the kingdom of the Blind, the one eyed man is King,”

Before the enigmatic beast could formulate an answer within its mechanical mind, the Turncloak had run his Halberd through the eye of the Tomb, conjuring a great, grinding shriek from the creature who promptly began to shrivel and deform. The rocks that seemed to make up his surface shrank and distorted in unusual, chaotic ways. Unusual hues of strange light glimmered from within as it’s bellowing squeal intensified the further the blade was pushed in to the fragile eye. Cracks like those in damaged glass began to spread sporadically across the beast, reaching far across his surface like the silent shadow of some mechanical assassin. A pulse of sound and a minor shockwave that dented the sand around it with a set of perfect concentric circles signalled the final moments of the Tomb, and the shrieking came to an abrupt halt that left the valley seeming quieter than it ever had been before.

No wind nor birds in the sky were there to fill the blank canvas of sounds.

The Turncloak looked the the Axe-Wielder, and back up again, knowing full well that the assassin was poised to kill. He could not allow this, not to the strangely familiar face of the man above.

“Life-Giver!” he shouted louder than before, shattering the eerie quite following the apparent death of the doomsaying Tomb, “Do not strike this man!” He seemed to be addressing the land itself, for he did not know where the skilled killer could have found to hide.

“And you!” he called directly to the Prince of Lies. “You must come down into the valley! He has been watching and he knows where you are. The Turn of the Light approaches!” he gave him little time to even raise himself from hiding before he hurriedly urged him on. “Hurry!”

The man was unsure as to what he should do, but found himself quickly scrambling down the side of the valley walls, half sliding, half climbing, plumes of dusty sand billowing in his wake as he rode the stony dune through the windless world. It took only a moment for him to cautiously reach the levelling bottom of the valley wall, where he began to stumble back to his feet and regain his composure, part of him shying away from the ominous looking group, and part of him wishing to join them with some semblance of reckless abandon. It had been so long since he had seen people…

But the Turncloak’s hunch had been correct. The face belonged to a familiar man… he wracked his brain to remember just a single detail, a glimpse of why and how.

A castle. A fiery horizon. A maze of doors. An open walkway. A watching statue. Midnight. Midday.

“We travelled together once before, to the castle…” he whispered under his breath, before snapping back into action.

“How did you find us here! Were you followed?” he aggressively shouted to the man, who stunned by the sudden display of aggression. The Turncloak ran to him, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and roaring his questions on repeat.

“Have you met an old man with a walking stick?”

The man seemed to answer his questions quietly, still shocked by the forcefulness of his greeting. he had not been followed but by the Tomb, he had not met a man matching his description. It was, for the most part, safe.

“Do you remember me?” he asked, almost in a whisper as he let the Prince’s robes slip from his plated, colossal hands.

He did not await an answer, instead turning to his assembled group of wanderers, and shouting (for the benefit of the assassin, who was still in hiding) “It is not safe here, we must make haste unto the forest before the Light can be allowed to turn!”



The Hermit and the Young Lad had been shuffling and walking for some days before they made it from the sandy dunes before the mountain. The younger of the two had clearly restrained himself from asking too many questions on their long trek, and instead had moved side by side in relative silence. The Hermit coughed a few times, but other than that their mouths remained sealed except for the consumption of the nearly absurd amount of rather delicious and juicy berries and mushrooms that the Hermit had seemingly accumulated at random. The hills had stretched on for miles upon miles, the horizon dead with their monotony. So when they had finally come to a sparse patch of trees, the Hermit had almost jumped up with joy - or as much so as he was capable of - as it meant they were making progress. he had leaned over to his newfound younger companion and mentioned something about not needing maps before laughing to himself in that dry cackle for several hours on end. If the man they were searching for was here, he could have made it to the treelike by now. Likely in search of water or food.

“He must be here somewhere,” the Hermit complained repeatedly. “Go on!” he urged his companion, nudging the backs of his knees with his walking stick as if to push him onwards. “Go see if you can find him. I thought I heard him a moment ago. Just go into the dead-tree forest. Shouldn’t be far. Go find him and persuade him to come back here.”

The Hermit grinned at Pick, his four or five teeth glaring in the dusty twilight. “Go on, lad!”

Just like that, the stone creature disappeared, reappearing right next to the Knight. As expected, it soon was turned into rubble by the Knight's halberd. It's dying shriek was unlike anything Maldron experienced before, before the stone thing shattered like glass. The knight commanded him to not attack the man. He was a little disappointed, but at the very least he had someone to take orders from, more or less. Just like old times. The man was quite shocked to find out someone was behind him the whole time, but all of that was interrupted by the knight as the man slid down the cliff. They knew each other, or rather, the warrior in black knew the guy. Previous acquaintances maybe? Lord and soldier relationship in life? Either way, they've got some fresh blood in their group.

They were being watched. By complete accident, Maldron noticed something watching him. Or at least he though he did. Between a rocky outcrop and a plant conveniently in the way, it almost looked like someone was there. No way to flank him. But if man is hiding, it means that he is of little threat, as proper sleep rotations are set up.

Sliding down the cliff, Maldron paid little mind to the Knight and the newbie, except positioning himself so the knight is between him and the suspected hiding place, concealing Maldron. Leaning close to the knight and the man, whispering quietly: "There is someone hiding over there" the assassin pointed in the suspected direction discretely. "I suggest pretending that we did not notice him. Should he continue to follow us, we can set up a trap." Though Maldron knew that the knight most likely will directly confront their stalker. But he had some hope that the warrior in black will make a smart decision for once.

The woman, every time Maldron was near her, had that glare in her eyes. That faint glare of caution. The eyes, the subtle movements of the face betray a lot, and while the assassin did not remember anything about learning that, he just knew. He just knew it was the look of someone weighting their options against him. Was it a skill he knew to avoid walking into a trap, into a place he was expected? How did he develop it? And why should he care if some random woman did not trust him? Whatever they liked it or not, they were a team. And nothing destroys a team more than distrust. Their chances of survival increase exponentially the more they work as a team. It was time to have a talk with her.

Maldron approached the woman, sitting down on a nearby rock. "I can see that at the very least, you don't trust me. Is it because I've killed people?" He remained silent for a few moments. "From what remains of my memories, I can tell that I was a street urchin. I stole, I pick-pocketed people, just to survive. And then I've stole from men I could not run away from. But those men did no harm to me. They gave me a chance to be... a part of something..." He looked straight into the woman's eyes. "The training I received was brutal, I think. Even if I don't remember it well, hints of anxiety, of fear still emerge when I think about it. Ever since those people took me in, I was trained to be "a weapon of unparalleled lethality", as they called me. I was not taught empathy, I was not taught mercy, for these only harm someone in my line of work." Maldron then shifted his gaze towards the ground. "It is only in this place that I've started experiencing emotions. After having those driven out of me, they feel so alien. But, at the very least, when the need arises, my mind can be clear of any distractions, just like now."

Maldron couldn't read the woman anymore, or more likely, he wasn't trying to. "I never even realized that simply talking can be so... liberating. Regardless, back there, with those people, which I've forgotten completely, I felt at home. I felt at peace. I met someone, an unique woman among them. Unlike any other human. Probably not even human. I adore her so, but I can't remember why. I can't even remember who she is. All I know that everything I did, everything WE did was for her." He sighed. "We can accomplish much more than our own. But for that, there has to be some level of trust, or we will just fall apart. And a weapon is useless without a hand to guide it. "

The passing of time for the duration of the journey felt quite skewed, as Pick felt hardly conscious or connected with the world around him. All that was constant was the pain underneath his shoulder blade, and the memory of why it was there replaying in his head over and over again. Everything was blurred and inconsistent, but the outcome was always the same and it left Pick in a sort of trance as he shuffled after this stranger. "I'm dead," was all he'd said since meeting the hermit, occasionally whispering it under his own breath like he was trying to remind himself. That was all that echo'd when he realized the old man had come to a stop, and his mind remained nearly blank as the hermit cackled for hours on end.

Pick hardly realized when the hermit had been begun speaking to him, but quickly got the point when the back of his knees were jabbed at. "Just- just find someone?" Pick questioned, sounding uneasy as the hermit responded with another, "Go on."

Pick grimaced, looking around himself as he once more took in the real world. They were at the edge of a dead looking forest, and Pick nearly cracked at the thought that it might be the same forest he'd started at. "Find someone," he murmured, the stupidly simple command being all he had to go on as he marched into the forest. "Hello?" he called out, listening carefully as he walked further out of sight from the forest's edge. The only sound however was the light crunch of sandy soil underneath Pick's boots, and beginning to get paranoid he took his shovel in both hands just in case he'd need to use it. "Why would you need to use it?" he asked himself, all to quickly reminded of his encounter with that horror living bellow. Worried that this forest was indeed the one from before, Pick's attention then became solely on the earth beneath him. Defensively he held his shovel pointed downward, eyes scanning for any hint of movement among the dead looking earth. All there was was silence though, and in that moment of uncertainty every negative emotion he'd been letting stew boiled to the surface.

Pick screamed, shouting at the forest around him like he could some how scare it off- scare all of this away. In his fit of anger he spun about, cursing as he slammed his shovel against the trees and shattered their brittle bark. The thick trunks crunched apart like twigs, there being no wood beneath the hollow shells though Pick hadn't noticed this until he swung hard enough to cleave one of the brittle trunks in two. His anger replaced by shock, Pick scrambled backwards as the tall shape began to crumble to bits, what part of the tree that stayed whole toppling over and crackling against it's brittle brethren. Pick was speechless, left staring at the mess he'd made for a good long while as the forest returned to silence. He soon came to his senses though, and one quick spin around revealed that he'd lost any sense of direction he'd once possessed. "Fuck," he muttered, his breathing having become heavy. In momentary defeat Pick threw has shovel against the ground and fell down with it, removing his helmet as he began running his other hand through his hair. Lost in the insanity of it all, Pick just sat and began to chuckle, forgetting even why he was in the forest. "Find someone," he managed to breath between fits of laughter, the words hardly having meaning at this point.

"Find someone," he then repeated, his demeanor suddenly becoming far more serious as if someone had flipped a switch in his head. Now acting with an air of purpose, Pick put his helmet back atop his head and scooped up his shovel, choosing a direction and beginning to march. "Find someone," he muttered again, huffing as he pushed aside any dead shrubs and kicked away the fallen branches that got in his way.

An exhausted, but fairly straight minded, fellow served as the solitary/silent audience to the show of madness before him. His eyes lazily moved with the man as his shovel swung about and bashed into the girth of a decrepit trunk. In many ways he found the seen familiar, a sort of deja vu struck him...hadn't this been him not moments earlier? Riley stared on, hunched over from exhaustion while his left arm shot out and pressed up against a tree helping to keep him steady. A look of partial surprise and concern overtook his features as the tree that had previously been assailed fought back, careening towards the Earth. This did not prompt him to move at all, he had clearly seen the man dodge right of it, he was fine. In all honesty Riley noted to keep a distance for now, at least until the lad had let out some steam.

"Looks like ah breathin' tart...", Riley commented under his breath.

He snickered silently at the scene, finding the whole affair really quite absurd. The amusement died off promptly as the boy seemed to breakdown into a fit of chuckling. Like an un-appeased toddler he threw his tool to the ground, and followed suit by his bizarre helmet. Riley could hear his muttering but could make no-sense of any of it, although he felt even if he was nearer not much sense would be there anyway. In Riley's time the sight of seeing men breakdown in this way was not too unfamiliar. Many including himself had succumb to this state their first time among blood. He extended a wary sympathy to the lad, his outburst having become more hopeless than blood-thirsty. Slowly, he began to approach the other, taking balanced strides toward him, making sure not to appear skulking but rather deliberate and obvious.

He paused before speaking, then opened up with a friendly greeting, "Hai there. I think ya might've just startled the whole wood.". To emphasize his good intentions he stretched a weak smile.

If fortune is good the man will come to his senses and from there they might find water, or perhaps he'll be given some sort of bearings. If this goes badly the man will be a crazed killer, or marauder and attempt to murder Riley in the name of whatever. Maybe even call upon some nearby friends...the worst case scenario. Riley may be a tough and sometimes rowdy chap, but he knew one tired body against four or five energetic ones was fool hardy at best. Dempsey stood straight as his tired eyes regarded the form before him, anxiety welling at the base of his stomach. He really needed a friendly face right now.

"I will flank them."


“The Hermit sent you, did he not? In the kingdom of the Blind, the one eyed man is King.”


“Life-Giver! Do not strike this man! And you! You must come down into the valley! He has been watching and he knows where you are. The Turn of the Light approaches! Hurry!”


“It is not safe here, we must make haste unto the forest before the Light can be allowed to turn!”

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<sub>you forgot the header





im sure the readers will be pleased</sub>

“Hai there-”

Every muscle in Pick’s body seized up at the sound of another voice, much like a rusted old tin toy that one day just decided to stop working. A few more words managed to reach Pick’s ears but he hadn’t registered them, only understanding that the sound had come from somewhere behind him. “You’re losing it. You’ve already lost it all but you’re still losing it,” Pick thought to himself, letting out a slow and uneven snicker as he became sure he was able to feel his mind drifting apart.

“Well hallo to yo-,” Pick began to reply, spinning on his heel to cheerfully greet what he had no doubt was only an auditory hallucination. His words were cut short the moment his eyes fell on the humanoid figure before him though, and now completely at a loss Pick could only stare. His breathing became uneven and stressed as he looked the man up and down, both impressed and fearful of how real he looked. He was only a bit shorter than Pick, looking fairly exhausted and wearing simple clothing; dirty white pants and a green shirt. On his belt he still had what looked like scabbards for a sword and a pair knives but the sword’s looked empty and the knives were barely in view being on his back. Pick took a moment to admire the attention to detail put into the little things like the man’s hair and his few minute sunburns, causing a throaty giggle to escape the exhausted miner as a grin cracked across his features.

Pick felt like his heart, containing his last bit of hope, had shattered to bits, and he began to question the reality of the hermit whom he’d been travelling with for days. “I wonder where I really am at this point, you know?” Pick laughed, waving a dismissive hand towards the man who had seemingly appeared like magic. “Maybe,” he then began, pointing his shovel towards the man as his amusement boiled into frustration and paranoia. “Maybe,” he then repeated, any shred of what he was going to say having left him. At this point all Pick could think to do was watch the man now, the part of him still believing it was rational wanting to see what his own mind would force this illusion to do.

Riley held out both arms in a defensive planking position, "Hoy there. We just got our reigns on reality back, reel it in then.", he ordered in a calm fashion.

"I saw you thrashing about over here. Heard some people talking, so I wandered back into the brush. I was just wonderin' if you had any water or could point me to some.", his tone was as reasonable as he could muster. Really the bequesting of water was more a ice breaker, Riley couldn’t think of many other ways to strike up a dialogue with at least some semblance of finesse.

The silence pervaded into the scene, the gravel and grass beneath their feet undisturbed by the lack of wind. Their interaction becoming an intense staring contest. One waiting for the other to say something in contest to the formers question. Light streaked quickly by bows and branches spilling mangled shadows across the Earth. The quiet seemed almost eternal at that moment; as though noise would never run rampant again in these lands.

Though he didn’t show it, Pick couldn’t help but feel amused. Every one of his thoughts fluxed wildly through a web of concern, twisting the outcome of every course of action he could conceive. For what felt like an eternity the two just stared at each other, Pick occasionally twitching as his muscles unevenly tensed and relaxed. The man had asked for water, and Pick knew he had some but was it worth sharing? He’d shared with the hermit, but he had food- what could this stranger have to offer? “Maybe, but in time. I’ll see how important your puzzle piece is,” Pick eventually replied, lowering his arm so that his shovel rested by his side. This prompted another fit of chuckling as he looked around himself, the laughter before long being consumed by the silence of the forest.

---

It was then that the static star hanging in the eternally faltering horizon had undergone it's systematic change. Without warning its surface had grown cold and dark, veiled in an inky shadow, marred with a darkness that was unlike any mundane shadow. In comparison to the darkness it now shrouded itself within, its previous state would have been grossly incandescent to any who were to gaze upon it.
The Hermit watched the star change, and the whole sky followed suit. He knew it was coming, he could always feel it, but he was not sure what would become of his new friend in such a maddening shadow. The forest was perilous, but Pick was required in order to bring low the Knight; as was the man that he was sent to find.
The Hermit momentarily felt somewhat guilty for sending the young lad to his nearly certain death, but then he felt frustrated at himself for not warning him properly of the dangers of the Land Betwixt. It was with some deliberation that he decided to throw caution to the wind, and began shuffling into the gloomy forest, occasionally calling for his friend.

"Pock!"

...

"Puck!"

...

"Pluck!"

...

Nothing. Echoes through the dead trees like wind through reed. He hadn't even been gone for that long, he couldn't have travelled far. Surely. But the Hermit had shuffled what what seemed like hours through the murk, dodging trees as they materialised from the obscuring darkness. His own voice was accompanied by the shrill cry of distant creatures roaring in madness and the sound of falling trees as they rampaged through the darkness themselves, searching for something to tear asunder. Some of them even sounded oddly human.
The Hermit shuffled faster, not knowing where to turn next, simply hoping that the young man would appear like a tree, as ready to leave as he.

"Peck! It is time to leave!"

...

"Where are you?!"

---

Tap tap tap went the slapping of hands against the squalor of mud, leaving prints of outstretched fingers etched in the filth. Sometimes it would push itself from trees and other times vault from haggard rocks jutting from the quagmire. Its body was cloaked with shadow from the black star above, shadows that melted and changed and recast themselves with each foul movement of innumerable limbs, each unnatural as the next. Each with hands of a man or woman, each a slightly different shade of skin, each with a faint scar line at the wrist where it had maybe once been severed. Where it had once been reattached to a body from which it had not originated. It moved quietly save for the repulsive slapping of dead hands against the mire, and it had a very specific goal in mind: two men, locked in a gaze, uncaring of the faded light above.
As to why they chose to stand still beneath the beating darkness, the creature did not understand; only that they were prey. to be consumed... devoured.
It slid from the penumbra of one rotted tree to the next, circling them slowly, watching, savouring as it gibbered softly to itself in anticipation.

There was a voice from the distance. A husky voice of a frail Human. It was hard done by to penetrate the thick darkness, but it seemed to be calling. Perhaps to the two that the creature sought to prey upon. Perhaps the voice would approach and deny the beast its kill.

But in the darkest of nights, no creature shall be denied its due in flesh of the wanderers.

It lowered itself, and slowly inched towards the transfixed pair. It made no sound, gave no indication of itself to them. It was so close that it could taste the blood. So close.

So close.

The dark knight had assured her no one but the owners of the unknown voices was there to hear his mighty bellows, but yet her uncertainty persisted. The knight was - or so she assumed - much better acquainted with the workings of this place than she, but could one ever be truly confident in anything in this world? She knew she herself definitely was not - and that was about the only thing she was truly certain in.
Nevertheless, she ceased voicing her worries for the time being, and simply drew closer to their armor-clad companion and also sole guide in this realm. Even though he, too, was searching for something, just as she was... There simply were different levels of lost, and some of them were more so than others.
- This world was her home now, but where in this world was her place exactly? The dark knight had said the mountain was to be their destination, and in the lack of any other leads, this was where she, too, was headed. Deep down, she hoped her dark knight was indeed correct, and she was not here just to become one of the many beasts roaming the land herself. To adapt to this world.
Uncertainty, in turn, was itself a vicious beast. It could erode the will of a human being until nothing remained, and then they broke - not in the way of succumbing to the eventual indifference of depression, but into something akin to manic psychosis. A person had to know something, have something to hold on to. A person had to belong somewhere.
Her hands kept clutching the axe, and her eyes kept flitting from one thing to the next, traveling all over the valleyside, looking, searching... The jingling madman - for whom she really should find a better name in her head now, she figured, suddenly deeply ashamed of her mere thoughts - moved to place himself between her and the origin of the unknown voices. Nothing, however, prepared her for -
Suddenly, a grinding voice spoke from practically next to her and the knight, and her eyes jumped for scanning the rocks ahead to staring at what appeared to be a stone pillar draped in ragged ever-shifting fabrics. It had a single round panel embedded in its "face", a glass circle that held disturbing resemblance to an eye and did nothing, nothing to alleviate the feeling that it - whatever it was or wherever it had come from so abruptly - was staring right back at her.

Rocks were but inanimate objects, entirely harmless. And there she was wrong.

She did not know why, but suddenly a foreboding sense of dread gripped her, and she froze in place. Whatever manner of being this was, it was not their friend. Its cryptic message did not help, either. Blooming roses? Turn of Light? Choice of trees? What? Why? She was vaguely aware that it was the same voice that had spoken before - the inhuman one of the two -, but now it was here, and she instinctively wanted it gone. By means of her axe, if not otherwise. Who knew what else it could do, besides teleporting? It was silent now, but it was still staring at her. And it was waiting.
“The Hermit sent you, did he not?” The dark knight's voice suddenly rang out from next to her, and she physically started. Somehow, during the past less than handful of seconds, she had entirely forgotten that the giant of a man was there, right beside her. “In the kingdom of the Blind, the one eyed man is King.”
In deepening confusion, she halted herself from performing any further action, but the dark knight did not. Before her eyes, the armored man's halberd pierced the little glass panel and penetrated deep into the pillar's innards. (Now it is definitely blind rather than one-eyed. And it can stare no more...)
It screeched, and without thinking she took half a step back and tried to cover her ears, one with a hand and the other with the side of her axe's shaft. She could not see the robed pillar's chaotic destruction, for she had closed her eyes - only hear it, hear its cry of death, hear the cry that seemed to never end. (Stop. Stop that!)
Until she felt an impact, shorter and sharper than a gust of wind ... more like a blow, but all over her body, leaving her breathless and dazed. And ... silence. Slowly, she opened her eyes and looked up, arms trembling slightly as she hugged her axe close and straightened her frame. The pillar was gone, naught but a dent in ground and some shards of glass and lifeless scraps of fabric remaining behind, and there was true silence. A part of her thought the inhuman scream was still ringing on, even without the physical manifestation of the being, and she had simply gone deaf.
The knight was still beside her. The ... man with tiny bells attached to is clothes was still there. But during the time she had spent taking in the presence of ... whatever that had been, the former assassin had disappeared from sight entirely. There was only the head of a young guy peering over the rocks above. The knight shouted out to him, telling the executioner not to strike. Oh. So she was not deaf, after all...
The armored man went on to give further instructions directly to the young man, but most it did was to add to her confusion. Not the bit about coming down - that was easily enough understood, but everything else. Who had been watching? The hermit-fellow? What did he mean with the Turn of Light? (Did he not say that he had seen six hundred of those before he stopped counting, before? But why were those important? Why did they have to leave before that? Why, why why, why, why... What!?)
"The hermit, Sir? Who is he and why does he concern you?" she tried quietly inquiring the dark knight as the newcomer was busy trying to climb down the steep valley wall. She was not entirely certain the man was even listening to her, but she had no idea what was going on, and she desperately wanted to make at least some sense in everything that ensued. Maybe he would just explain later, in his own time, as he had with the mountain-thing and the 'keys' to it... "And, Sir, what is the 'Turn of Light' you and that ... being were speaking of?"
"I don't understand..." she then proceeded to quietly admit after a brief pause, sadly. "I feel hopelessly lost."
She did hear what he was muttering to himself, though, just because she was standing so close. He knew the young guy - who, now that he was almost level with them, turned out to wear some quite fancy-looking garments that quite definitely had been expensive before weather and time did their work on them? If the newcomer had been a noble of some sort, then it probably made sense... Nobles and kings and castles and knights did go together, and in turn had little to do with - or so she assumed - folks like she had been.
She did not have the time to question the dark knight further, though, as he ran forth to question the young lad - rather aggressively, it turned out. She was in half mind to ask him to at least put the poor startled-looking fellow back on ground, but in the end decided against it, if for no other reasons then in order not to anger the knight further ... whatever it was that had called forth this display of borderline-violence. She had wandered a bit closer, but ultimately remained to stand by, looking clueless and even more at a loss than before.

It was only when the former assassin turned up that she moved closer, if still cautiously, and inched to right next to the assassin, who seemed to have business to discuss with the knight. It probably was not exactly appropriate, trying to listen in on what he was saying, but well, she was with the group, wanted to know what on not-Earth was going on, and being a head taller than the 'retired' silent killer and thus much closer to the dark knight's height made it ... sort of easy to pick up the whispering. If she had not heard, then the dark knight much higher up and inside his helmet definitely would not, either. In conclusion... There was another person there, and the assassin wanted to pretend they did not notice.
"But what if he has a crossbow or something and can just shoot at us from afar without us not being able to do much?" she whispered urgently in turn, not too fond of just pretending everything was fine until it was too late. She for one was not certain she would definitely spot something like that in time, or that something could be done before one of them had a bolt through the neck. She was quite certain that a crossbow-bolt could go through leather armor from farther away than a throwing knife could hit the mark ... and if the former assassin did not have throwing knives, then they did not have long-range weapons at all. "Or other people somewhere away that he will go back to and inform so they can go ahead and set a trap? Maybe they have more of these ... appearing things. I certainly didn't like how it stared at me." And it was not like confronting the man would cause any more attention being draw to them than there already was, not after all the knight's bellowing and that terrible shrieking the pillar-thing had produced in its dying moments.
Whether they agreed with her reasoning or disagreed, she drew a bit back and turned away from the knight's interrogation, going back to pointlessly scanning the valley walls. She could still not see a thing...

The former assassin apparently opted to follow her example, tracing her the few steps she had covered and sitting down on a rock next to her. She did not mind; she was still busy trying to find something of concern amidst the rocks and vainly attempting to sort through her thoughts. So much sense everything made...
"I can see that at the very least, you don't trust me," the man suddenly spoke.
She stilled for a moment, as she had not expected to be addressed, but after a moment of contemplation responded with another of her slightly stiff small shrugs. No, she did not really trust him. But then again, she did not think she really trusted anyone here. Either they were potentially crazy or armed and dangerous or both, and the knight was both far beyond her class and ... well, huge, and above everything else, they were all still but strangers to her. She did not really know any of them...
"Is it because I've killed people?"
There was a brief pause, then a slight shake of head. So most likely had the knight and any warrior and soldier. Even she herself had probably killed animals in her life, and possibly been forced to kill a person or a few during her time here. It was something else entirely...
And just like that, the man went on to describe something he seemed to assume was his life. Street child. Stealing. Some organization. Training he did not seem to even want to recall. Things like that. It was strange, and it was not something she could even remotely relate to, but she guessed she at least owed him an explanation. Or just her thoughts of him, for the matter. He had - presumably - been honest, so would she be.
"It is not killing people, you know. I figured you were a reasonable man - when you introduced yourself, even though you said you had been a killer. It was the things you said later that felt ... wrong. You don't learn empathy, you know. You either have it always, or you don't have it at all, and then you're only a part human. And assassin is something you work as, not what you are." It was probably harsh, but if she had already decided to be honest... But, how would she ever begin to explain why what the assassin had said felt so wrong?
"Many people have killed, you know..." she began, then fell silent for a second before continuing. "But it doesn't mean they don't have feelings. A hunter can kill no matter how many animals, but still sincerely cry and mourn when their hunting hound and long-time companion dies of old age; a warrior can kill dozens of men, but still go back to their family, and will still truely love them just as before." She shrugged. "That is how things are. That is how all humans are, unless they are broken from birth."
"You sounded a lot like those empty people Sir described, you know. Like someone who has lost what they actually were, and only barely keeps clinging to some rudimentary idea they got from what little remains of their memories. Like being a 'weapon' for you. I think you never didn't feel. I think you have just forgotten, and the ... people, those who you felt at home with, you actually did feel towards them as one normally does towards family. And you probably had other children on the streets. Friends. And you yourself said there was some woman you adored?" She sighed, and then suddenly whipped her head to the side - the dark knight had apparently finished his interrogations, and was now urging them to move on. (Again with that turn of light...)
"I guess I told you what I think the best I know how to. About ... it not being about killing people, and you sounding like ... one of those empty people who have lost themselves. That is all, really. Above that, we are all just strangers to one another. We don't really know each other. Guess some of it can be amended just like that - talking to others. And I guess you're right - about us having to rely on each other, no matter what ... staying alone, we'd all soon just become beasts. Maybe? I don't know. I only think so. But we can discuss later; apparently it is just another bad place to stay..."

Her eyes had found the tips of her boots as she was wrapping up her speech, but now she turned back to look up at their armored companion ... just as the bell-man opted to comment on the light turning. ...Already? Did the pillar-thing not say they would have an hour? Or was it about the moon... Were those different things?
She spun around again, now observing the surroundings rather than looking at any of her companions... Indeed... The... Something was definitely happening. Did it mean they had to hurry? What would ... oh, her bag. Things. Right.
She hurried over to the bag, hastily slinging it over shoulder and switching her axe-hand to get the other of her straps over her shoulder, too.
"Should ... should we move now?" she stumbled over words with uncertainty. Or was it already too late and they should fight instead? Whatever it was they would be fighting... In any case there was darkness, and it was coming towards them. Any undesirable potential spies were forgotten for the time being; they had to move, do something, anything...
The tension was too much for the bell-man, for he was screaming to the skies ... the light was turning, the light was turning. She could see that! But what, when, where!? The forest?!? ...Onwards? Desperation shone on her face as she took long strides towards the dark line on the horizon, halting, looking back at the knight... Was he coming? Were they all moving? (She should stand and fight. They would just track her down, she knew. Running was futile now.)
She was beginning to heard sounds. Growling, running, stampeding, an unstoppable mass of flesh and bone, their impending doom. (They are running blind. They are not tracking. And they are many. She may fight, but she cannot win. Can she outrun the destruction? Doubtable, but she can at least try... Fighting? Against those beings? Together, they were unstoppable. Unstoppable.)

Unstoppable.*

If they linger, they would be done for. (She would not go down without a fight.) There was the same sense of inevitability she remembered in one of the episodes that did not belong, though now the roles were reversed... (But she knew what it felt like to be a monster herself. It was ... empowering, but she was not at all certain she as herself liked it. Yet, would she always like to be the one hunted?)

Adapt.

But for now, she would be taking the bell-man's advice and run while she still could. For while you could still escape something, you ran, and you hid. If you did not have the speed to get away, and if you were not all that good at hiding, however... Then ... then you fought.

---

* Go away, Unreal Tournament announcer voice...

Both still stood firm, for, to them, what had seemed like hours. Neither gent really knowing why, but simply doing so as if by some unspoken rule. It was only with the sudden blanketing of shadow that either tore their eyes away and began to survey the environment.

To Riley the darkness was unsettling, regardless of its abruptness it almost appeared to be...pulsating and writhing about them. Far-off, distorted voices howled throughout the wood, and a stampede of bizarre strides grated against the gravel, unseen to Dempsey.
His right arm rose shakily in the direction of the fellow man. In what seemed a futile attempt to bridge the eight foot gap between both. As he did this he was turning his head about trying to follow the encircling movement, hearing taking up the slack where eyesight now fell short.

Pick on the other hand was only distracted by the light for a moment. His gut twisted as his mind made a connection almost instantly to the one thing that had changed recently, and so his attention became fixed on the shadowy stranger before him. For a moment, Pick thought to light the lamp on his head but instantly thought better of it as he remembered the last time he’d tried to see in the dark. The sound of his guts spilling onto cold stone echoed within his mind and he shuddered, still refusing to remove his eyes from the stranger. “Puzzle piece,” he muttered, a mix of pleasure and disgust in his words.

In a serious and stern voice he muttered just loud enough for the other to hear, never letting his head turn from the direction of the noises. “We are being stalked. Do not pick up tail and run…”.

Riley paused for a moment before speaking again in the same tone, “This...thing is not too small, take your spade in hand...then slowly get up against my back.”

He was acting on old instincts, a mental muscle which was still very taut. As memories grew clearer again both hands slowly but surely made for the two daggers sheathed behind him. He took one upright by the grip in his right, and the other flipped to the blade, taking a stance as if ready to hurl it. Initially this movements where not all his own but as clarity returned he remembered the sort of man he was and still must certainly be.

Pick listened to the man’s request, a grin now spread across his face as the aching in his back began to flare up again. “Yeah, so you can kill me instead of whatever’s out there. Right?” he accused, his breathing becoming uneven once more as he took his shovel in both hands. Pick lifted the shovel over his head as he prepared to cave in the man’s skull, ready to strike him down for being stupid enough to turn his back in expectancy of cooperation. Before he could swing though, Pick’s eyes caught a glimpse of the tangled mass he had in arrogance mistaken for part of the trees. He’d become frozen, shovel still over his head but eyes fixed on where he had last seen movement. Whether the thing had become still or moved fast enough to now be part of another shadow Pick had no idea, and nervously swallowed as memories of the last thing he’d met in the dark continued to flood back. “Okay. Okay puzzle piece, for now you have my back,” Pick muttered, eyes darting about fearfully as he turned around so he felt a pressure in his ribs. The handle of the tool in his back pressed lightly against the bare flesh of the other man, pushing the tool at an odd angle which elicited a grunt of pain from the larger of the two.

Riley omitted a soft growl, "Good to see you're hearing reason. No sudden moves, keep your senses sharp.", still facing away from him.

Muttering. Muttering. The two had begun to see some sort of reason, to unite against that which would be their killer. But the beast was not a hunter of opportunity, and would rather strike it’s foes in a moment of zealous fury than wait for them to show fear and to run. Swiftly it strode between the umbral shapes of trees cast upon the dirt, twisting between light and dark inwards to the centre of the dead arboreal circle - where the two men conspired to survive. They watched.

It watched.

Both knew of the others’ presence.

And for a moment, there was silence.

…

Quietly, it edged through the murk. With one spindly and unimaginably long arm that had been furled between folds of dirtied flesh, it struck to the side to distract the shovel-holding man before dashing forward to strike the other.

Dempsey heard the assault long before it was seen; the dirt kicking up behind its frenzied lunge. Moments, precious moments taken to judge the direction, cogs beginning to slowly gain momentum in his head. His body was twisting left, before he even knew it, as the arm wound up in preparation. The man at his side was blindly swinging now, far off enough to not bother Riley's movements, but still haphazardly. A stone cold gaze met their attacker's; if there was enough time to think, he would've thought about how ghastly the creature was. Yet there was not.

"EeeeerrRRRRGGHH.", was the only thing to leave his throat. In part to sheer mindless frustration and also due to having to force sore muscles into movement.

Riley's comrade was just coming to the realize their enemy’s new route, slowly turning his head. Eight...nine...eleven...some uncountable number of eyes met two eyes, both filled with a different sort of fury. The beast was extended to deformed arms towards his torso, trying to disable Dempsey, but the left arm was a few seconds quicker; launching the dagger in full force careening for the main body. It quickly cleared the two meter wide distance well before the abomination could. Riley watched and waited as seconds ticked by ever so slowly, formulating contingencies and counter attacks to be used on a seconds notice.

Within seconds the beast was upon the faster man, who had impaled the beast through the rib with a small blade which had brought forth a small torrent of thick, black ichor which did not quite seep due to its viscosity, rather it bubbled forth from the wound, consuming the hilt of the dagger almost entirely. But this was but a flesh wound, one that would do little to subdue the madness and hunger of the creature that was upon them. Using its full force in the realisation that it had lost the element of surprise, it crashed into the assailant, slashing and stabbing with all of its wicked limbs in some attempt to rend the man into slivers. It was far larger than he, and would be nigh on impossible to push it from his body unassisted as the two exchanged torturous blows. If nobody were to aid him, he would surely be killed…

But he was not alone. The beast did not care to consider the second man.

To anyone person not versed in fighting, the scene would’ve been that of something alike to a frantic dance. The one on one battle was not long lived but was quite the rare sight. Riley could barely throw himself to keep up with the beast as his ally stood frozen by the sight for some moments. The creature in its full stature was at least a few heads taller, and nearly as fast as the worn down man in his prime. He twisted about the ground maneuvering around the beast’s thrashing appendages, while occasionally parrying off an arm with a quick swipe by his right hand blade.

He turned to the dumbfounded fellow, “OI!”, he looked back to the monster, then back to Pick, “By the lor-”, he dodged left of a shooting limb, “HELP ME KILL THIS, LAD!”.

Pick’s mind swam, the tangled mass of shadows before him bringing back the most unpleasant of memories. It was the shadows, all this darkness belonged to the creature and they had broken one of it’s rules. They wouldn’t tolerate rule breaking- no, if you did one thing wrong that was it. It wanted them dead- they were dead- they…

Pick screamed as the fear in his belly boiled up through his being, charging forward and shouldering aside a set of grotesque flailing limbs. They paid no proper mind to him, moving almost independently of one another while the majority of them focused on the puzzle piece they had bellow it. “IT’S MINE!” Pick screamed, grasping his shovel tightly before driving it upwards into the creature’s side. He’d hit a sweet spot; the shovel dodging bone and pushing through the horrid mass of flesh like it were soft earth as hot ooze bubbled from the massive gash. The spade was gone, inside the creature, and trying to do something helpful Pick tried using this leverage to push the thing off or away. The creature’s life blood spat from the wound with the application of the force, splashing out over Pick’s arms and onto the ground as he desperately tried shoving the thing off.

-

”Pock!” came a voice from afar, lost in some hazy shadows that obscured the source of a familiar utterance. ”Prack, are you there?” it called out frantically.
The beast wailed and thrashed in pain as the black lifeblood poured from multiple gashes across its central mass. Slashing, slashing, striking, punching. But it seemed to recoil from the voice every time it pierced the night as though it struck the beast like an ethereal blade. Its resolve weakened under the heavy presence of the Hermit’s voice which now seemed to echo with the raw power of elemental thunder.

”Pick!!” he called once more, emerging from the darkness, his gaunt frame accentuated with thin slivers of light that danced from dewy reflections of the black sun from the dampened mud underfoot. His undeniable shuffle advocated the truth of his presence, but upon laying his eyes upon the brutal scene before him, his entire demeanour changed…

”Foul beast, lay not your hands upon these men!” he cried with a fury unbeknownst to those he sought to aid. The voice he shouted with was not one associated with him normally, instead taking on the form of a much more youthful, intimidating man. It rumbled and shook the rotted trees, and the air seemed to shimmer in response to him. His walking stick glowed dimly, washing away a thin field of the darkness with a dull, dusky amber light. The beast that was upon the younger men was flung from its position of power, as though it were swatted away by a much stronger, unseen force, slamming against several trees, smashing their rotten trunks to pieces.

When the beast had been slung away, Pick’s shovel had almost gone with it and in an effort to hold on he was dragged forward a few feet which left him stumbling to avoid falling flat on his face. “Edge pieces,” he gasped, rolling his shoulder to be sure it hadn’t popped from it’s socket while the one hand that still held the shovel clenched. The black ooze squelched between his fingers, running down the length of his spade and onto the cold, dead grass beneath it. “Corner pieces are important,” he murmured, thoughts beginning to haze as he looked on towards the creature which was now softly illuminated by the light of the Hermit’s staff. It flailed wildly among the bed of shattered bark that had been created for it, many of it’s limbs working to try and right itself while a select few grasped tenderly at it’s open wounds.

Riley stood there as the beast writhed about on account of the elder’s presence. In the minute that the beasts attention had been averted from ripping him a very fresh new one, he had simply observed it, almost totally unfeeling. But as he watched it squirm, an animalistic rage had welled up inside him. To tell truth he would normally never be too crossed with a beast like this, it wasn’t anything personal he guessed, just a bloodthirsty ghoul acting on instinct. But his rage seemed far off, miniscule, it was anger directed to his own frailty, weakness. He wanted this thing dead. He needed this thing torn asunder by his hands alone...he needed to watch it squirm under his blade. Thoughts of shoving aside the old man and lunging for the final blow came to mind. His features tightened, a blood thirsty scowl bearing the tiny canines of man stretched down to his chin. Eyes shrank away under the furrowing brow; his face showing signs of a return to instincts. An energy unlike any before reinvigorated his body; he felt taller, stronger, keener, and hungrier than ever in his natural life.

“Bloody- fucking- mess, this is,” Pick groaned, trading the shovel between his hands as he tried to shake off what blood hadn’t yet dried over them. For the moment he ignored the man he’d been sent to find, looking towards the hermit and smiling for a reason that wasn’t hilarity for the first time in what felt like an eternity. “Thank you. I should have said so earlier, but thank you,” Pick told him, believing still that all this was mere delusion. Whatever mental trap he’d fallen into, inside this world that defied possibility, Pick believed perhaps escaping only required the right pieces to fill in what was missing. The hermit was one, an edge piece, like those on a puzzle that you always find first. This other man had a part to play too; otherwise, Pick reasoned, his mind wouldn’t have constructed such a character. “It’ll all fit together,” he breathed, his words nearly inaudible even to him. He felt relieved, and now that his mind had time for other thoughts Pick’s attention was drawn to the other man who’d now noticeably tensed. “You okay there, puzzle piece?” he asked Riley, placing his free hand upon the man’s shoulder.

The voice of a kins-men...a hand held by reason, Riley remembered what he is and what he had always been. Hunger shrank away, leaving him with only the exhaustion. Riley’s entire body relaxed as his senses came back to him.

Slowly he nodded his head, “I’m..aye yeah I’m alright.”, turning, he looked to face the other two members of this small triage. “I s’pose we should make way from here then? If it is a ,“we” ,then?”

From there, the Hermit shuffled from the dark, the illumination of his staff fading back into the gnarled wood. He seemed to have returned back to his old self, not one wracked with some arcane power of the most eldritch kind.
When it was visible, he pulled a crooked smile, his sparse teeth forming a somewhat heartwarming grin.

“Hello young’uns!” he cried. “It looks like we should get going! Shall we make haste to the canyon? At least before the Spider awakens again from its slumber?”

“Gladly,” Pick replied, his joy having faded as his mind once more became occupied with the riddle of this land. Despite the ache in his back and the vice on his mind, he was still feeling somewhat better though. As the hermit started his shuffling once more, Pick began to follow after, feeling lulled into a sense of compliancy that allowed him time to think. Briefly he looked back to be sure the man they had retrieved still followed, but otherwise let his eyes rest on the invisible path ahead. I never really liked puzzles, he thought to himself, huffing in displeasure at the thought.



The Turncloak could not remember, for one reason or another, why the star hanging there, so lonely, captivated him so. Even amidst the chaos that encapsulated the scene so rapidly and without warning, he took more than a few moments to watch the darkness swirl across the star, like a drop of ink dropped into clear water. It consumed, devoured, swallowed the light. Just like that, they were plunged into darkness. It was a familiarity that the Turncloak did not wish to recall. He had died once when the light had begun to turn. He remembered that much. But maybe once in a time where he was not of this land, he had died whilst the sun had fallen just below the horizon; shadows marking death. Shadows.

Death.

He furrowed his brow, still unfeeling to the situation unfolding around him. He stood there like a bulwark as the trampling of hooves and crashing of rocks sounded closer and closer by the minute. Screaming, growling, hungering.
He had always felt like his memories had been on the tip of his tongue, a half-remembered dream whose content was but a single prompt away. And perhaps this darkness, surrounded by so many, would be the prompt he so desperately required. he closed his eyes, squeezing them tightly shut as if to cast away the chaos, if only for a moment so that he may clear his head for what was about to come.

A cloak flapping in the wind of some highland plain… At a sunset. Darkness falling. Beside another.

”I give myself to you…”

His voice would sound. He knew this.

“Until the end of time.”

“Are you sure,” she asked. “T-t-“

"͏̲͎͎̗T̨̮͇̹̣͚h̨̙͓̦ḙ̩͚r̬̤̖e͖̬͔͓͠ i̠̳̦̪̙̲̦s̹̖͉ ̺̲̩͉̤̯̫n̻̗͍o̶͎̤͔̠͈ ͉͍̱̯́ǵ̠̮o̹̰̠̠i̪͖n̲̯̹̺͝g̴̯̠ ̱̳̀b̰̙̺͙͖̹͔a̹͙c̳͇̬̥k̭͖͇̦"̪ ̤̘̠̺̣͕͓

͔͍̤"̘͕͚͈͠D̴͖o̷̯͓̺̱̠ ̴͔̘͕͖̭͍̰y̬̹̩̰͘o̥̻̮u̧͖͔̺͈̝̺̜ ̹̩̹̭̬̝r̘̗̹͍͡ͅe̱͔̻̟̖ͅn̨̦̪̙̘ou͚̭͝n̟͖͇̝̞̮c͢e̲̘͓ ̛̪̗̳̥͔̬y̦͎̝̜̝͟o̢͇͚̬̹u̘͚̮r ̖̹͖̖͉͓͢ͅK̴̮̤̟i̝͇̰͕͇̝͞ņģ͍̦̹̳̖ ̞̰̖̥̲̻̺f̜̞o̺̳̖͜r͓͟ ͔͙͚͇m͓̞̥̹͉͈̻e̟͜?̮͓"̺̳ ̨

”I do” he had said, and then… nothing.

No. No. This was not right. This memory was not his.

Think. Think!



He opened his eyes, the chaos now flowing all around becoming once more a part of his mind. But it all seemed to flow so slowly, as though his epiphany had overshadowed the the relatively insignificant matter of the Turning Light. How could this be? Was this memory his? This memory was his. He cast the doubt away in his mind, for a false memory and a real one felt different inside one's self. It was like a puzzle piece missing from his mind and his sanity. Everything had become clear. The mountain. The mountain. The key.

For him, this was not to be. But the others could have a chance if they were to be set on the right course. Maybe they would be the ones to break the cycle. Loyal subjects and kingslayers alike, those Men and Women who were to break the flow of eternity and death, to break free from the encroaching darkness. He knew what had to be done. He would not see them all die. Not here. Not now. The Blood Golems had arrived.

They snarled with inhumanity and evil, blazing down the valleyside walls from the puzzled haze above. They were huge and fearsome, unlike the weakened and frail empty men of the land. Their arms were adorned with vicious weapons of bone, sharp as razors. The fury in their vacant, black eyes spoke verses of their intent to use them. They circled the group as only pack hunters could, their heads lowered and their jaws slick with saliva, hanging open in expectance of the meal to come. The Turncloak King raised his halberd, stabbing it into the ground as a sign of defiance, and unbuckled a yet-unused shield from his back. He raised himself to his full height, and step forward from the group, whose panic was evident in the face of such brisk danger.


he cried to those he had gathered.

He killed him.

The armored man had run him through and cut him down.

Well, he was more of an it, but the voice was masculine sounding, albeit inhuman. The Prince was struck with a pang of conflicting emotions- in a way, he almost mourned for Tomb, who was, despite being unsettling and cryptic, at least alive or was very good at appearing to be so. But the screech; so inhuman and chilling was it that the Prince began to wonder if his initial judgements of Tomb were accurate in the slightest. He was all at once grateful and angry at the armored man for running the stone being through, and these emotions ran their course as he carefully slid down the valley, placing his sword on his back once more and hoping that his fate was different than that of Tomb's upon reaching the party. They certainly seemed a capable lot of defending themselves- two strong looking ones in the armored figure and the axe-bearing woman, and two quick and deceptive looking ones in the bell-hatted and black-clad one. But these were just first glances- he had probably misjudged them all, as he was certain he had Tomb.

Approaching the armored man the Prince said a silent prayer of thanks for not finding a new addition of bladed steel in his belly and had begun to formulate an appropriate introduction and questions in his mind- surely he shouldn't introduce himself as The Prince of Lies, should he? That'd be an awkward start. No, simply The Prince would do. But would these people mistrust him still, even for the word's connection to the crown? It certainly seemed the armored one would; he would, no doubt, question the Prince's successorship and ask what king he served. The Prince had no clue if he was even a Prince, much less who he may have been the direct heir to.

He had sorted that in his mind, he would introduce himself as the Prince, regardless, and play the 'royalty' card for as long as it could be of use, if there was even any use to titles in this land. If he had to, he was even prepared to create a mock image of a king in his mind; from one of his memories, he had a bit to go off of. But the armored man had mentioned something the Prince hadn't heard or, seemingly experienced; the Turning of the Light, he had called it. Didn't sound like the most welcome of things. Perhaps if the Prince could ask questions quickly enough, he could stave off introductions until he could create a better moniker in his head-

"How did you find us here! Were you followed?"

Damn it all, the armored man had beat him to it. The Prince flinched as he found cold metal gauntlets grasping the cuff of his robe, rubbing against his neck. The hair on the back of his neck stood up.

"Only-" The Prince had only gotten a word out before it felt like his mind exploded into a world of color- no, not just color, but shapes, sounds! He was remembering something! He remembered this man! It had been so long since he had experienced a new memory that he almost took the scene in his head for an intruder, some sort of fallacy the land was trying to use against him. But no, this was vivid; this particular memory made the Prince cringe.

The memory of his death.

Not his death in his past life, however, of which the Prince was fairly certain he already pertained. No, the Prince had died in this land before; how long ago, he was not sure. He remembered lying on a stone floor, this armored man there with him. The Prince was in pain, felt blood seeping out of him from somewhere. But most prominently in this memory was that thing. That stone thing that had followed him and was only moments ago cut down by the armored man.

The Prince played this new memory over and over in his head while the armored man looked to be asking him more questions, but the Prince was not listening. He simply stared back, flummoxed and at a loss for words.

"Have you met an old man with a walking stick?"

The Prince merely shook his head, almost more out of reflex than comprehension of the question.

"Do you remember me?"

I do. Thought the Prince. Before he could answer back, the armored man turned away and began addressing the Turning of the Light once more. Unfortunately, the Prince's new memory did little to lift his inquiry of the event. That mattered little, however, for it seemed that the Prince was about to experience it, in all of its horrid beauty.

The bell-hatted figure was shouting that the Light was Turning and, following his gaze, the Prince felt his heart sink into his stomach. He caught a glimpse of one of the most horrifying things he had ever laid eyes upon, and the bell-hatted one didn't need to tell the Prince twice to RUN. Glancing behind him everyone else seemed to be following suit, except the armored figure.

No! No, no, I can't let this happen. Not so soon. The Prince hesitated between strides, unsure of what he felt was the right thing to do.

"You must leave this place!"

The Prince began a steady jog, his gaze not leaving the metal bulwark.

"Find what I have lost."

He was unsure of what he meant- perhaps that was why the party had gathered, to help the armored man?

"Find the Crown, find your way Home!"

The Prince felt as though the armored one was speaking directly to him. Perhaps he really had been a Prince. He looked away and erupted into a full sprint.

"Tell me, creatures of the Empty Land- Which king do you serve?"

The Prince felt chills up and down his spine.

They had taken heed of his voice, shown initiative. They had turned and run. Run far from those things that had shown themselves in the dead of night, snarling and hungering for their flesh; creatures that discriminated not the might of a single man, rather showing equality in the moment that they would kill. What foul Empty Men had conjured such beasts from mere piles of ragged flesh, torn from an innumerable and uncountable myriad of hapless wanderers of a land that was beyond the hellish conditions of even Hell itself. Truly, this place was the end of all things.

Yet he stood defiant in the hope that maybe they, hopeful and together, would break the cycle of endless sorrows.

The bell-wearer had yet to turn and leave like the others had done. The Turncloak King did not immediately understand why until, behind his back, the unusual looking man fastened one of his own jingling bells to the length of the Turncloak's weapon. It was a sign understood by all, especially in the wake of the Jester's last words to him. The Turncloak King nodded, staring the Blood Golems once again as they approached in their animalistic fury.

"Listen for the tolling of bells," he whispered to the bell-wearer. "I will see you again when the night is darkest and the black sun breaks over the mountain. Do not let them go astray, and trust not the wandering man."

One of the Blood Golems began to charge, kicking up clouds of hazy dust in its wake, and the canyon shaking with the reverberating echo of its running hoofsteps. It screamed with the voice of a thousand men all amalgamated together, bound by the force of foul magic that tortured their very souls - their very beings - with every passing moment.

"Go! You must leave!" he urged the Jester, shoving him backwards, setting him on a running path with the others toward the Shaded Forest, the first step in their journey.

Crash. Was the next audible sound in the valley. The deafening connection of Golem and raised shield. The Turncloak King was forced backwards as he struggled to maintain his stance under the strength of the beast, who latched onto his aegis with a grip of iron. The King was a large man by any standard, but the Golems stood at twice his height, if not taller, and were augmented with inhuman, magical strength that the Turncloak dared not test. He steeled himself, gathering his strength and beating the Golem from his shield with a single push, feeling the sickening crunch of bones before it. The Golem stumbled back, shaking its head in animalistic confusion before regaining its composure. The Turncloak King had already lowered his body, taking to a single knee and striking with the stabbing point of his Halberd behind his guard, puncturing the Golem's mid-body. He drove the weapon hard into the beast, driving it deep, turning with his wrist, tearing the insides of the creature to pulp. It screeched again, its mouth like a gaping gateway to some realm of torturous screams.

For a single, fleeting moment, the Turncloak King thought that he stood a chance to be free from the beasts, that he could find the others in due time, and they would all be free of the Land Betwixt together. But as the second Golem circled behind and drove its bony claw into his back, burying it just as deep as the halberd in its brother, the King's briefly hopeful thoughts had been shattered. The first Golem collapsed, but it mattered little as the Turncloak was thrown to the dirt by the wound in his back by the second.
The pain was unbearable, indescribable. It was every time he died.

He looked up through blurry, bloodfilled vision, past the prowling legs of the third Golem - and remembered that the fleeting souls behind him had spoken of somebody lurking behind in the rotted shrubbery.

And he thought that, from this angle, he could see the stalker too.