Farren walked up to the suspicious wall and cautiously stretched out his hand toward it, with Torquil trailing behind hesitantly. As his fingers reached what appeared to all of his senses as an obviously solid stone wall he found that rather than actually feel that wall upon reaching it, his sense of touch did not recognize the existence of the wall at all; as if it had been but empty hair his hand simply passed right through it.
Of course, while Farren was reservedly testing the nature of the wall like this and Torquil was nervously observing from a distance, Ophelia and Gerlinde wasted no time but simply walked face-first into the wall and vanished into it.

To Ophelia it was as though the second her perspective shifted past the wall, it was as though it ceased to exist entirely. The instant her eyes passed the surface of the wall it was as though transitioning to the other side of a two-way mirror; if she looked back she would have an unobstructed view of Farren and Torquil still on the outside of the wall, and the pale light of the rising moon fell into the alcove as if it, too, ignored the existence of the illusion they had just passed through.
Being familiar with this kind of arcane trickery from the witches, who had taught her to render small objects imperceptible to those with low insight by crushing an empowered Madman's Eye, Ophelia would likely be in awe at this illusion. Not only was this a much larger area of effect than anything she had ever seen the witches conceal, let alone managed to do herself, but it had also been entirely convincing even with her now-considerable insight and familiarity of the phenomenon. Had it not been for the Guidance sprites betraying its otherworldly nature, even she would have had no way of seeing through it short of stumbling through on accident. The eldritch power responsible for this would have to be great indeed.

From past the illusory wall, Ophelia and Gerlinde were finally able to survey this hidden alcove. The alcove itself appeared to be something approaching a rectangular area, with the real, physical walls they had been following outside simply taking a ninety degree turn inward. It appeared to be about thirty meters deep or so, and ended in a sizable gatehouse of sorts that took up the entire width of the back of the alcove and stood ten meters tall. The arched gate itself looked to be about fifteen meters wide and looked like it probably allowed access to the interior of Yahar'gul... except that the opening seemed to be obstructed by some manner of dense, billowing whitish fog that seemed to conform perfectly to the gateway itself.

Immediately in front of this gatehouse and fog wall was something just as immediately noticeable as it, though: a beast, unlike any Ophelia had ever heard of before. It was nearly six meters from head to toe, covered in long, weirdly thin and flimsy fur that was one of the purest shades of white she had ever seen, hanging off its body limply. Its scalp had particularly long fur, like actual human hair; so long, in fact, that it fell to the ground beneath its head and pooled in a messy bundle of hair mixed with the ever-present dust of the area.
The beast lay draped over and clutching what appeared to be a large tombstone of sorts... except a second glance would make it obvious that it was not draped over it at all, but rather impaled on it through its chest, as the long, sharp point of the almost blade-shaped tombstone was jutting out of its back. Heavy metal chains were wrapped around the tombstone and the beast's torso alike, preventing them from separating.
Though it appeared to be clutching the tombstone piercing its chest, a closer look would reveal that this, too, was incorrect; rather, both of its arms appeared to have been pinned to the ground with a meter-long stake of stone of the same shape as the tombstone through its chest, with the stake going through both of its wrists and into the ground. Its hind legs were similarly secured in place, with another, identical stake pinning its feet to the ground. Both of the stakes were bound in bulky chains to the wrists and ankles of the creature, respectively; it was quite clear that it could barely move at all.
The beast looked thin and emaciated, with patches of its fur missing and its bones showing clearly through its skin; it looked both famished and atrophied, as if it had neither eaten nor exercised for quite a long time. Its hands were unusual in that the fur on its fingers was dark crimson rather than white, but also in that it did not appear to have any claws. Besides being misshapen, furry and with palms the size of a man's chest, they seemed almost human.
As Ophelia looked at it, the beast, slowly raised its head from where it had been resting on the ground, its snout veering in her direction as it sniffed. Its jaw hang slack, revealing a maw full of large, jagged teeth, and behind the veil of its hair Ophelia would find that hollow, gaping holes looking back at her; this tortured creature had no eyes.

Each of the stone stakes impaling the beast's chest, wrists and feet appeared to bear some manner of inscription on them, and the chains that bound them each also seemed to connect to something else. The chain going from the stake through its wrists stretched upward and outward, eventually wrapping around a thick wooden beam that seemed to connect the outer edge at the top of the two walls of the alcove. The stake through its feet had a short chain that attached to the bottom of the wall of the gatehouse, just next to the fog wall. And the big stake through its chest, with the heaviest and sturdiest chain of them all, seemed to run up to the roof of the gatehouse and out of sight.
To Ophelia's eyes, vast numbers of Guidance sprites seemed to flow from each of the stakes and along these chains. From this perspective, it would seem obvious that the sprites flowed from the beast and up to the wooden beam, from which they spread out to form a curtain of moon motes where she knew the illusory wall was. Other sprites flowed into the lower wall of the gatehouse and seemed to blossom out to swarm around the fog wall. And yet more Guidance sprites followed the chain toward the roof of the gatehouse, toward an unknown destination.

Ophelia almost staggered in awe at the scale of the illusion, immediately looking around the location of the illusion from past the strange threshold that they passed over. She knew it was possible, of course, to layer things beneath gossamer sheets of Nightmare to hide them from those whose eyes were insufficient... but something of this scale? She'd not suspected a thing--it was truly only Mother Moon's light and her blade's cosmic power that had availed her of the illusion... and she wondered who could possibly have created such a thing. Naira? If that was true, her grasp of things had accelerated at a rate Ophelia balked at the idea of... but they knew that long-lost Great Ones had become active suddenly, and if what Harold said was true, they were trying to beckon one into the Waking World here. Perhaps it was something to do with them? A Great One's work seemed much more likely than a mere mortal having this kind of affinity with the Arcane... though her awareness had expanded recently, and she knew that beings like herself and Gerlinde existed. One would need access to something like the Doll, or... or perhaps with enough minds' study and enough sacrifice mortals could create things like this.

"What an exceptional weaving of the Nightmare... The Witches taught me to shelter objects of importance in layers of silk-soft Nightmare, to cloud them from the eyes of the unseeing, but this is on another level. What incredible works they are capable of here... Gosh, we'll have to learn how they did this before we resort to murder. I'd love to know..." Ophelia sighed breathily, clearly most overtaken by awe of the craftsmanship of what she was observing. She followed the glimmering moon-motes next, seeing them siphoned from the bound beast along chains and up to the various other bits of architecture--a wooden beam, clearly for maintaining the illusion of the wall... and then again to the Gatehouse at the end of the alcove that they'd found themselves into.

She found herself oddly drawn to the beast, though its uncanny look of being almost-human elicited in her a strange sympathy rather than her usual antagonism towards beasts. She could imagine a person transforming into something reprehensible like Izzy had, of course, but she could also imagine its inverse: one who did not want to become a beast, and resisted it as best as they could. While she would mercilessly put down practically anything that gave into the base and savage nature of truly embraced beasthood, something that resisted... Well, to them she would offer aid. She walked towards the creature, its eyeless face shifted in her general direction, and she approached it until she was a little less than the length of the Holy Moonlight Sword away from it. She hefted the blade very gently towards the beast such that the glimmering light could illuminate its stark and sparse fur, hovering just above its snout, though held very delicately. It could not see, of course, but Ophelia did not emanate any desire to do the beast harm--she did not know if it could sense such a thing at all, but here where the Nightmare was close she thought perhaps her sympathy might be felt on a level beyond the norm.

"You with no eyes to see... I wonder, can you see them? The motes. The guidance. Can you see her, shining there in the dark?" Ophelia whispered, hoping to offer the best some semblance of the comfort she knew in the dark. Mother Moon's light was always there, playfully dancing, revealing truths and the path to glory. After the profound agony she'd felt in the Nightmare here earlier with the Dream rune... she did not want to add to that song, but weave a new one. One of understanding and illumination under the gentle embrace of the Moon, an age of light that could reveal as well as hide... and every song that had ever been made was composed of individual notes like this one. If the beast acted aggressively towards her at all she would suddenly take a very different attitude, of course, but for now it had her sympathy.

A weak, pathetic sound emerged from the beast's throat, resembling something like a mix between a whimper and a moan. It hung its head, seemingly recognizing that Ophelia had no violent intent, but also seemingly unaware of the nearness of her radiant sword.
One of the chains rattled a bit as if jostled subtly, but otherwise nothing seemed to happen.

“How weird,” Gerlinde chirped happily as she walked up to the beast's hind body to examine where its feet had been staked to the ground. “I've never seen anything like this before.”
Again a chain rattled slightly.

"No... you are lost to her light. Well, loves, I can see the flow of power from this beast up towards the wall and down to the alcove. It's... powering something, chained and impaled here--the illusion on the wall outside, yes, but more. Further in. I don't know how wise it is to make so irreversible a decision, when we don't know where this power is flowing yet. What do you think?" Ophelia asked, turning to face the group, though she kept the beast in enough of her periphery to be able to react suddenly. When the chains jostled she looked about the beast curiously, wondering where the movement could be coming from--was it making a conscious effort, or were there tremors in the ground, or a sudden gust? She didn't know what to expect, so remained open to every possibility.

"Life contains power; the traces of power we find most commonly are parts of things with a touch of Nightmare about them, because whatever bore them had some affinity for the energies of worlds beyond. To maintain an effect of this scope... it makes sense one would require something powerfully connected to the Nightmare, no?" Ophelia mused in response to Gerlinde's question, and again turned her gaze to the beast and addressed it, withdrawing the Holy Moonlight Sword as she did.

"Would you like me to put you out of your misery, dear? I will end your suffering if that is what you want."

_Farren

had expected it to cede to his ‘touch’ as it had for the two women, but still it made his brows rise quickly as his hand passed and then waved through the wall. Or, rather, he supposed it wasn’t a wall at all, but just a visual illusion conjured by some unknown power. He felt nothing even moving his hand through it, only open air, and so after a moment he nodded to Torquil after Gerlinde and Ophelia had passed through and he’d heard them speak on the other side. “Seems safe enough,” he commented simply–his blue eyes on the other man–then he turned from Torquil and pressed through the illusory barrier, entering the alcove beyond.

His eyes began to scan, but as soon as he saw the withered beast, a hand went to the hilt of one pair of unified blades, the one on at his right hip. However, as he watched, Ophelia–then Gerlinde–approached it, and the thing barely reacted except to release a frankly pitiful sound as Ophelia attempted to address it. His blood calmed and his brief anxiety–channeled into caution–faded and then sputtered out, becoming only practiced wariness.

Farren’s fingers relaxed on the hilt, but he didn’t release it as he walked forth. Whatever was happening here, the creature appeared thoroughly immobilized, and honestly rather pitiful. In fact, oddly, Farren almost felt bad for the thing. Almost. The fact that, if it were free, it could likely tear them limb from limb with surprising ferocity despite its withered state kept him from feeling entirely sympathetic towards the strange emaciated thing.

Glancing about, Farren took in the massive chains that stretched from its form and the stakes that kept it in place. Yet…somehow it seemed less that the stakes or chains kept it there, and rather something else. He didn’t know why he thought that however, but given Ophelia’s words, it seemed his intuition–or was it insight–wasn’t entirely unfounded.

Looking past the pitiful beast, Farren took in the guardhouse, its impressive gate, and the strange barrier of fog that had formed in the small opening between the slightly parted doors. His brows furrowed for a long moment as he fixated upon that point, eventually coming to a stop to the left side of the beast (from Farren’s perspective), though he gave it a wide berth of roughly 3 meters. He knew that if it were suddenly able to move…and perhaps pushed to aggression–for a force could likely compel it so if it so desired–that he’d still likely be within its reach. Equally though, he would be close enough that dodging either away or closer would put him out of harm’s way quite easily.

If anyone noticed, they might appreciate the precision with which Farren’s instincts–and experience, remembered and otherwise–allowed him to tactically position himself in space.

“I’d definitely be prudent to know what else this creature is…powering, I agree,” he concurred, though his eyes didn’t shift from the fog gate. “More pressingly…Gerlinde, have you ever seen anything like that fog before?” As he asked the question, Farren gestured at the fog gate before lowering his left arm.

When Ophelia asked the beast if it wanted her to put it out of its suffering, it simply exhaled deeply, producing a sound that had an uncanny resemblance to a human sigh. It did not raise its head, nor did it seem to track Farren as he moved around the alcove or Torquil as he entered; it appeared that it simply lied there, breathing slowly and mostly silently, ignoring their presence.

“Nope!” Gerlinde giggled in response to Farren's question, bouncing up from where she had been examining the stake in the beast's feet and running over to the fog wall, where she promptly attempted to whack the fog with her threaded cane. The cane stopped as if impacting something, but the sound it made was more akin to impacting a soft mattress than a stone wall. “Never seen anything like this!”

Again there was a subtle noise of a chain shifting, but since Ophelia was making the effort to track the sound and identify its source, she would look and realize that the thickest of the chains – the one leading to the roof of the gatehouse – was moving slowly, gradually going more slack, as if the chain was getting longer... or whatever it was connected to in the other end was getting closer.

Ophelia followed the movement of the chain with her eyes, quickly leaving the beast to its consignment--when she realised what was happening, that something was being brought closer to them.

"Look, the chain... it's getting more slack. I'd say something is headed our way, loves, the promised batch of followers Gerlinde prophesied not too long ago? Perhaps we should get in position and ambush them, take them out with the element of surprise. We should also observe how the mechanisms work--even if we die, that'll be useful to know for next time. Let's hope we get through unscathed, but, you know..." Ophelia observed, looking immediately to Farren and waving her Evelyn-wielding hand at him to draw his eye to the chain.

She then put the gun away, hefting the Holy Moonlight Sword with two hands to best wield its radiance and ensuring that her chamber of quicksilver bullets was close by--she wanted to show off a little, and make them each aware of the presence of glory they stood in. To bring that glory to their enemies, to awaken them from their path of folly and usher in a new age of light. Or something far less grand, but Ophelia's mind was moved to grand fantasies as she made herself ready and looked to see where the others wanted to go before she decided on optimal positioning.