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Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

Location: The Innhouse, The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

Time and a hot bath helped ease the nightmare. The scars were old ones, yet they felt as raw as the ones he'd earned just yesterday. He washed them all the same. It was odd how quickly he'd adjusted to the feeling of pain in Pariah; he'd gone from losing his shit to shrugging it off in, what, a couple'a hours? He had to wonder if being Graves had helped with that. Pain was his build's forte, after all. It was a curiosity to mull over, at least, as he got ready for the day.

He climbed out of the bath only to find that the one pair of clothes he owned were shredded and stained beyond saving. The armor would need maintenance, too. He'd gotten the suit commission way back in Theremia a lifetime ago. It wasn't like most armor. It needed a specialized touch. There was a particular shop in town dealt in lamellar that he'd drop it off at on his way to the Worg.

The night he'd spent there was a blur, if he was honest. He'd gotten blackout drunk with Alja trying to forget the dungeon and its horrors. It hadn't worked, but the two of them'd had a blast anyway. Graves grinned to himself remembering the pieces he could. She'd told a lot about herself- far more than he'd given back. Should he call her Kelly when they met up again?

'Would that be weird?'

After scrounging through what few belongings he had on him, Graves came up with the needle and thread to make his pants wearable and a vest that would- for now- function as a shirt. Clothes shopping was on the TO-DO list too, he supposed. That got a groan out of him. He could barely be bothered to buy new socks in the real world. Why'd it have to follow him here, too?

Just before he stepped out into the street he tried to pull up his console one more time. Nothing. It'd been a full day and they hadn't heard a peep from the game masters. Try as he might, Graves just couldn't shake the feeling that they were in for the long haul. 'Right, adapt. Okay.'

The trip to the Worg was approximately twelve steps across the street, but he took a brief detour toward the Town Square to finish up his chores first. He had some things he wanted to purchase if they were going to be here awhile, on top of everything else he'd already mulled over.

And then he ran into something else he couldn't stop thinking about.

"You a monkey now or somethin'?" Graves called up to Rael. "If you're not too busy bein' a do-nothing, I got some errands to run. Wouldn't mind the company."

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

Location: Westwood, Indiana, U.S.A

---

Andrew sat alone in the dark. It was quiet. Quiet, save for that high-pitched ringing in the back of his head and the blood pounding in his ears. There was nowhere else in the house he could hear himself think. Nowhere else he could go to work through the pain he felt in his chest. The argument kept playing in his head over and over. He kept wondering if he could've said that differently, or interrupted there, or if he'd known just a little bit more...Could it have ended differently?

Light entered the room as the cellar door creaked open. He pulled his knees up to his chest and held his breath, waiting. A figure descended down the stairs with the thudding of heavy boots. They shut the door behind them. Andrew waited for the yelling to start again-

-And then Anna pulled the chain on the cellar's only lightbulb, washing the space in a dull glow.

"Knew you'd be down here." She rasped, seating herself on the last two steps across from him. Anna was ten years his elder, with the same mess of black hair and eyes tinged with mischief. She was the second oldest after Jess, and had come back to Westwood for Christmas. Anna was the only one that had come back.

She set two shot glasses against one of the stairs and pulled a bottle off a nearby shelf, and began pouring two drinks.

"You heard dad?" He sniffled, wiping the snot and tears from his face with the back of his sleeve.

"Whole damn neighborhood could hear him," she snorted. "Old man whipped out the King James n' started shouting about hellfire n' brimstone. Its been...Jesus, its had'ta been ages since I last heard him quote the word at one'a us. Was the first night I brought a girl home, I think. So, how'd you fuck up?"

Andrew just shook his head. He let the conversation play through his mind like a track set on repeat. If he'd just been a little smarter, a little better with words, a little more insistent...He didn't answer her question.

The two sat in silence for a moment, staring at the same bit of dirt on the ground between them.

"Here." She leaned forward suddenly, pressing a glass into his hand. "To loosen the tongue."

He just looked at it. Dark liquid swirled in the glass. "I'm not old enough to-"

"-Do it." She insisted, taking a shot of her own. "Its fine, I promise. You'll feel better."

It was the worst thing he'd tasted in living memory. It was all Andrew could do not to let it come sputtering back out. Anna's giggling at him was the only thing that let him force it back down.

"Do you give this stuff to your students, too?!"

She shook her head. "Its only for people I give a shit about." She paused, looking at him. Looking into him. "And I give a shit about you. So tell me what's goin' on, Andy."

Then the flood gates opened, and everything he'd kept dammed up inside came spilling out. "Ray kept bugging me to let him come over. Said we'd been hanging out too long for him to have never met my family. I told him it was a bad idea. Told him what they were like, but he's a stubborn idiot and he wouldn't give it up. We weren't even doing anything when dad came in."

Anna nodded, slowly. Her voice was a soft rasp. "Yeah. I heard what he called you."

"Why?" The tears flowed freely down his cheeks. "Why's he hate me?"

His older sister sighed, a hand moving to rub her forehead. She couldn't look at him; she looked so uncomfortable he thought, for a moment, she might just get up and leave. People were never something she was good at. Instead, she whispered: "I don't think he hates you."

Andrew just looked up at her, confused. Confused and hurt.

"I think..." She sighed. "I think in his own, fucked up way, he cares. He just doesn't-"

"How could you say that?!"

"-He just doesn't understand and I don't think he ever will." Anna looked back at her brother, her own eyes going misty despite herself. "He's an old man, Andy. He grew up in a different kinda place in a different kinda time, and the world's changed. It changed around him and he refused to change with it."

She pushed herself off the stairs and moved over to where Andrew was sitting against the wall. She fell down beside him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. He was a total mess, now. Anything he tried to say just came out as more tears. "I know." She muttered to him. "I know it sucks. But you can't fix everything, Andy. You gotta learn to accept that sometimes- sometimes things just are a certain way n' you've gotta change around 'em. Adapt. That's how you survive."

The rest of the conversation began to blur, like he was looking at the memory through a broken mirror. Anna was explaining to him that she and her husband were moving up to Michigan; he'd gotten a big promotion and this was their chance to get a real, honest-to-God place. She was going to leave town, and she was offering to let Andrew go with them. He wasn't going to take it. He was going to explain how he couldn't leave the others behind. He couldn't leave Lucy or Karen or even Will in a place like this; he had to protect them.

It was all a blur.

.

.

.

A blur of excuses, of half-truths.

.

.

.

Of words he didn't really mean.

.

.

.

Andrew looked up, and he saw someone else standing at the top of the stairs. Someone that hadn't been there when it happened. It was a man. He came stumbling down the stairs, a trail of blood left behind him. It was a man Graves recognized: a man with a hole plunged through his chest.

Location: The Innhouse, The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

And Graves woke up, screaming.

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

Location: The Dungeon, -- The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

“You’re thinking it, too, aren’t you? How this could be it.”

It had crossed his mind more than a few times. If the glitch was easily fixed they never would've heard about it. Nobody in their right mind would admit the players couldn't be logged out and that they were at risk of death unless there wasn't an alternative. The situation in the real world must've been untenable. It was the only thing that made sense. So what then? What were the chances they were stuck in Pariah for days, or weeks? What if they were stuck in here for the rest of their miserable lives? Graves should've been frightened by the thought, but instead all he felt was...

"They don't deserve it." He breathed, watching Benkei hit the floor. A panic attack. He'd seen 'em before. He remembered one night William came home with eight different drugs in his system and spent hours freaking the fuck out. It hurt to watch- just like this did- but there was nothing he could do. Nothing he could do but ride it out.

"They have somethin' to go back to." Graves sniffled, wiping his nose. "People. Lives. I-I mean, Aags and Luci were gonna be together for Christ's sake. They had so much. So much ahead of 'em."

He felt like a monster for laughing after everything that'd happened. After all that was still happening. There wasn't an ounce of joy in the sound; just pained, angry resentment."What- what the fuck did I have, y'know? Without this stupid game I might as well be..."

Graves never finished the thought. He climbed back to his feet, and shook it all off. Took all that shit he'd been moments from letting fall out into the world for the first time in his life and put it back where it belonged. There was still work to be done. Still bodies to be buried. They could deal with what came next later.

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

Location: The Dungeon, -- The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

The void embraced him. It came rushing in like a flood, drowning everything else out: drowning the pain, the weariness, the dull taste of regret. There was a gentleness to it. A quiet sort of reassurance in the emptiness of it all. It reminded him of being tucked in at night and drifting off into sleep without dream. This time, though, there'd be no waking from it.

Then somebody kicked him.

Graves's eyes jolted open as the world came rushing in. Every sound, every smell, every dull ache battered against his senses in his sudden, violent return to the land of the living. Rael was standing over him, covered in the black-as-night blood of the titan. Graves sat up, glancing about the room. There the demon lay in the center of it all, its head lopped clean from its shoulders. It took a moment for him to process that the thing was gone and, yet, he wasn't.

The work was done yet he remained. He remained when other, more worthy men had not. It left a bitter taste in his mouth. Bitter as old steel.

"Thanks." He muttered to her after a moment's silence, still laying in the dirt. She'd put herself in a hell of a lot of danger to pull him outta that one. Thrown herself right in the enemy's face and just narrowly dragged them both to safety. If she'd been even a little bit slower they both might've been laid to rest by Enos and Aaginim. Graves had gotten angry with her earlier for doing the same thing he had- for all but throwing her life away to kill some stupid bat.

She was staring at him, her expression empty. He stared back.

It was a stupid thing he'd done. He told himself he was just trying to finish the fight. Told himself it had to happen to get them all outta there before somebody else lost their life. He'd made a promise to himself to keep these shmucks alive, after all. That was why he'd done it: To keep a promise. To protect people.

'Anna always said you were a terrible liar.'

He sat up, let his his arms lay against his knees and his head rest on top of them. "Didn't think I'd leave this room." It left his mouth before he could think better of it. His voice was hoarse, broken.

"I'unno what I'm going to do when I wake up." Graves blinked a couple of times to get somethin' outta his eye.

He watched Priscilica open up the exit, but he didn't move to follow her out.

He was afraid of what was on the other side.

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

Location: The Dungeon, -- The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

Hell rained from on high. Magic flung from all corners of the room, detonating against the monstrosity's chest like a series of atom bombs. Boom, boom, boom. A fireball the size of semi-truck. A giant, crescent-shaped slash that consumed all light. Arrows that hit like cruise missiles. An earthen cleaver, aimed to split the demon in half. A curse so foul it crumbled even rock. And a thousand frozen teeth delivered from the sky like judgement from God.

Snow fell all around Graves. It gathered in fine piles 'round him, stained red. Every breath was a labor. Every attempt to push himself back to his feet ended in him collapsing back to his knees. It was all he could do to keep the darkness from closing around his vision. Pain wracked every inch of his body, digging its cruel fingers into every nerve it could find. Needling him. Prodding. Searching for that place to destroy him completely-- that spot it could carve into to keep him down.

That was a fools' errand.

"Hell of a haymaker you got there." He sucked in a breath, leaning his weight against Alja's. She was nearly as beaten up his him, though little of it showed; all the damage she'd done was on the inside. But it was worth it. God damn had it been worth it. Arnaakus s was stumbling, now. Its armor cracked, its will to fight diminished. Everyone still standing was wailing on it with all they had left.

He wrapped a hand 'round her bicep best he could, pulling up on it. "How 'bout we kill this thing n' go get that drink you talked about, huh?" He sniffled. The bloody gauntlet wrapped around his hand shifted, shrank, tightened. Part of it folded away into his pores and flowed into his bloodstream, granting new life to a battered body. Bits of ice were pushed out of his back by regrown skin and muscle. She had a hell of a haymaker, for sure. "Up we go. Together."

More of the gauntlet broke off, flowing up around his shoulders and down his other hand-- restoring Alja as best it could. Fatigue wasn't something he could fix; not as well as Sif could. But he hoped what he knew of restoration magic could get one'a their best and brightest back on her big, ugly feet so they could finish this monster the fuck off.

Graves stuck his sword into the stone and lifted himself back to his feet. Everyone else was hitting the demon with everything they had. They were working themselves to the bone to tear off layer after layer of its arcane armor, hoping to expose whatever core lay at its center. Whatever bit kept that creature going. There had to have been something fleshy in there; the thing had eyes like anything else.

It was the only vulnerable bit that he could see, so that was where he'd be going. He hefted that great, wicked blade onto his shoulder and began his march forward. He picked up speed as he went, getting faster and faster as he grew closer. The other front liners would ensure the center held-- they had to, or every single one of them was going to die. Most of them had lives to go back to. Most of them couldn't risk losing it all in a hellish place like this.

Rock climbing wasn't something Andrew did a lot of back on the other side. Once or twice he'd gone with his older brothers, only to get humiliated each time; he wasn't strong enough to pull his weight up like they could. Wasn't dexterous enough to leap like a fucking frog up a vertical cliff.

Graves bounded up Benkei's pillar with one hand behind his back.

Fatigue and pain tore at his fingers but he kept holding on, forcing himself to climb. He planted his foot in the pillar just as he reached its apex and leapt up toward Arnaakus. His fingers brushed stone yet they found no purchase. Panic filled his chest. He dropped his sword, flinging his other hand 'round to grasp the beast's leg. There he dangled precariously, blood pounding in his ears. This was maybe the stupidest thing he'd ever done. He swung up, grabbing onto the torso, and continued to climb.

Something was screaming at him from down below. What they were saying was lost on him; lost in that pounding headache and the screeching in his inner ear. Something deep in his center kept him pressing ahead, despite it all.

Climbing wasn't the hard part. There were plenty of handholds on its body- plenty of sharp, craggy bits to stick himself to. The hard part was holding on for dear life as the titan flung itself around in the midst of battle. It was like they'd taken the rock climbing wall, put it on wheels, and shoved it down a hill. That wasn't even to mention the thing clawing at him all the while. Tearing, snapping, trying to get a grasp on him. Graves shrunk as best he could, pressing ahead.

Graves scrambled up its back. He climbed, dodging past another claw. Just the wind of it swinging by his head was damn near enough to send him tumbling off. He gripped his handholds all the tighter, pushing on until he reached its head. A hand went to his belt. Shaking, terrified. He could see his sword laying on the ground far too many feet below. Heights. Fuck.

The only weapon he could find was a glass bottle full of odd colored liquid. One of the potion he'd snagged from Rael. It'd have to do. He broke the thing in his hand and reached up over Arnaakus's head, shoving a bunch of glass into its eye with all the strength he could muster. The demon let out a roar to shake the world and finally got a hold of him. It pulled Graves off its back and began to squeeze his tiny, fleshy body.

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

Location: The Dungeon, -- The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

'I'm too late.'

Enos lay motionless atop a stalagmite, the rock jutting through his chest. Blood washed down the side of the stone structure- fresh, slick. The light had only just left his eyes before they'd arrived. Death was not an unfamiliar presence in Andrew's life. He'd been to more funerals than he cared to remember. But that was always so...sterile. A body in a casket didn't bleed. Didn't still have that look of terror and fear and regret trapped on its face. Graves had promised Andrew he'd save each and every one of these people, and he'd already failed.

A scream echoed from ahead of them, further in the room. It was Luci's.

'Not again.' Graves sucked in a breath. His body was shaking- all adrenaline, all rage, all regret. He started walking toward the door, slowing even as everyone else sprinted ahead. He reached an unsteady hand out toward where Enos lay. He was already gone now, both here in Pariah and in the real world beyond. What was his body but an empty shell of code?

An empty shell. That's all it was.

An empty shell full of blood.

It came tearing out of him in long, dancing streaks. Light glistened off it from fading torch light. The wound in Enos's chest expanded with a sickening series of snaps, opening up further avenues to drain his arteries dry. It all gathered around Graves's hand, crawled up his arm. It formed something akin to a dense gauntlet of not-quite-liquid that reached just below his shoulder.

"Sorry, pal. I'll...I'll keep the rest of 'em alive for ya. I promise." The words trembled upon his tongue. A hurricane built up in his chest. Emotion raged like torrents of rain, tore through his body like whipping winds. The enemy they faced was far greater than anything they had taken down so far. It was a demon of earth, of green, of ravenous hunger. And it had killed another man right in front of them.

Aaginim was tossed aside like a broken toy. Limp, unmoving, and covered in his own blood. He'd fallen trying to protect the rest of his party. If they'd been there even a few minutes faster...

No time to think like that. No time to think at all. So many of the others were either fallen or close to it. Kazuki was rushing in to get at Priscilla's side. Alja was all fire and fury as she charged the creature head on, even as it reached out for her-- to do to her what it had already done to Aags. She was strong- stronger than most of them- but that towering titan of stone wasn't something she could muscle her way through. Not alone.

Graves ran forward to her side, slamming his shoulder into the demon's earthen grasp. He didn't bother with his weapon; it wasn't much use against that armored hide. His hands wrapped about a pair of the creature's fingers, each of which was maybe the size of his head. And he pushed back against it. Straining, screaming, pushing with all his might. Every muscle in his arms and chest burned, straining until they threatened to break.

Enos helped him hold the line.

"Nuke it!" He bellowed at the woman beside him. "Nuke it with everything you've god damn got!"

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

Location: The Dungeon -- The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

Once the adrenaline- the rage- had faded, Graves could barely stand. Pain washed over the whole of his body, submerging him from head to toe. It dug deep- rooting itself in the depths of his bones and refusing to leave. It took all he had not to collapse in a heap once the battle was done; he tried to hide his limping as he joined the rest of the party around Kazuki. It was a brief yet all too welcome respite. Kazuki's healing was different than Graves's. His was a warm summer's light. It was a dance through a field of flowers. The snapping of bone and the scarring of wounds hurt just the same, sure, yet it was...duller. More easily swallowed.

When Graves healed himself it hurt nearly as much as the injury itself. Like he was reliving each stab, each bite, each cut again and again.

"You play well," he muttered once Kazuki set his lyre aside. A welcome reprieve, to be sure.

Then the talk of strategy began, and it was time to work again. They could hurt each other now in a way that had never been possible. Benkei's earthen constructs, Alja's ice, Kalie's...weird shit- it was all too dangerous to use without careful planning. Graves didn't say anything. He was pissed off that he'd been hit but he knew it wasn't worth getting into. They couldn't afford to be at one another's throats when they stood on the precipice of death. One wrong move meant the end of any one of them.

He looked to Rael, who's decision to play the big damn hero had nearly caused her to plummet to her own demise. If Seele was just a second too late, if she'd ran just a little slower...Graves shuddered. He wondered what it felt like. The pain he knew, sure, but what followed? Was it the cold embrace of the void? Or would Rael have woken up on the other side just long enough to feel the peripheral tear her mind asunder?

'Do you die twice?'

Graves tried best he could to shake the thought from his mind as he stood back to his feet, slipping his armor back on. He would know soon enough himself.

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

Location: The Dungeon -- The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

Steel clanged against rusted iron as the last of the gnolls met Graves in combat, unafraid of the death that awaited it. They were each exhausted, unable to howl at the other-- all they could do was stare hateful daggers and push. It was a tug-of-war match and whoever won got to plant their weapon into the other's throat. Graves was moments from overcoming the dogman just as an arrow soared right by his ear, burying itself into the creature's eye. It died with a whimper in its throat.

"I had that one-" He started to snarl, turning to face Alex just as the incident on the bridge reached its crescendo. Seele was screaming, Rael was following into the abyss's dark embrace and a heap of broken Dire Bat was moments from turning Graves and Alex into a pair of DPS-shaped skid marks. It was a lot to take in. A swirl of emotion, of fear and panic and rage, replaced the ecstasy of combat.

A quick look around and Graves took a dive toward the nearest bit of cover: those spikes Benkei had stuck him with earlier. What had been his bane would soon save his life. The bat tumbled, wing over heel, bouncing off the ground like a stone across water. It reached its apex when it impaled itself upon that spiky field. The beast's massive body lurched with pain. Blood spurted from its innumerable wounds. And yet, despite that, it raged on. All screams and howls of violent defiance.

Its unwillingness to die would've been something to admire under other circumstances. For now, Graves was busy pulling himself out from under its heaping mass, crawling along his belly until he was safely able to rise. It snapped its teeth toward him. If he'd been even an inch closer it may've gotten hold of him.

The killing stroke was quick, precise, but far from clean. Gore sprayed like a fountain all over Graves and anyone else in the splash zone, catching him in its innards. The thing went into its death throes, tossing and turning until it snapped the spikes inside of it and began to wiggle loose. He stumbled backward onto his ass to avoid catching one of those claws in his chest.

The Bat went still a few moments later.

And Graves was back on his feet, sword left in the dirt as he ran toward where Seele was laying near the chasm's edge. He saw Rael laying over her chest. He didn't see her moving. "Nonono you tiny moron, don't tell me you played hero and..." His voice trailed off, something else playing in the back of his mind.

'Don't fuck it up.'

The panic died in his throat once he was close enough to see Rael was still breathing. Just as he came to stand above her and Seele, Rael stirred awake from the daze.

“Did we—Did we get it?”

His shoulders sank a foot as he sighed out his response: "No thanks to you."

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

Location: The Dungeon -- The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

Packs of laughing dogmen came streaming into the chamber. Stumbling, leaping, crawling over one another to grab their next meal. All their beady, ravenous eyes were locked on the two smallest party members at the back-- Seele and Kazuki. Weak, vulnerable; easy prey. The gnolls bounded forward with such ferocious speed and singular intent that it was already too late. They were just too fast. They'd be tearing into their quarry before anyone could peel away from the dire bat. A perfect ambush, save for one, fatal flaw:

The screaming locomotive of muscle and steel charging right back at them.

"Come on!" Graves's sword sang as it left its sheathe, meeting flesh and bone. One of the laughing dog's went silent, the contents of its throat spilling onto the stone. Two more ran over its falling corpse to get at its attacker. Pickaxes flew. The first was hacked off at its haft but the second found purchase in Graves's thigh. The man roared, grabbing the back of the gnoll's head and jamming its face into the other end of the it's own weapon. Adrenaline kept Graves moving as he pulled the pickaxe out, tossing it aside just as another group of gnolls joined the fray.

One of them pounced on his back, claws burrowing into his shoulders to keep it there. Graves kept swinging at its friends, nodachi twisting through the air in wide, deadly arcs. The beast climbed along his back-- leaving long cuts along the flesh as it did-- until it was close enough to lean down and bury its teeth into Graves's throat. The man's wordless bellows sputtered out into wheezed coughing, and his sword slowed in its swings long enough for the rest of the gnolls to rush him. They clamped down on his arms and began to wail away at his chest, peeling apart his armor like a tin can to get at the meat inside.

Kazuki shouted some nonsense and a spell erupted around Graves's body, flinging his attackers in every direction. He stumbled backward onto a knee, shooting the support a crazed, furious look-- don't get in my way.

His palm hit the ground, channeling arcane magic into the pools of fresh blood laid out around him. It came crawling through the air toward him, rushing into his open wounds, his finger nails and his pores to get at his bloodstream. Seconds went by before his wounds began to stitch themselves closed. An ugly, painful experience, where new flesh burst forth from the old and slithered across his skin to fit itself into Graves's injuries. It took the longest to repair the bite in his neck.

"Fuck!" Graves coughed up blood, rising to his feet. "Come on, come on, AGAIN!"

Seele was quick to follow up on Kazuki's spell, launching some kind of purple energy through the air. It hit each of the gnolls one by one, slowing them down. What were once rockets of mangled fur became sluggish, tired-- easy to kill.

Just as Benkei reached his side, Graves was running forward again, bellowing and hollowing. Blinded to the pain. Blinded to whatever was going on around him. The only thing he was tunneled in on were the next group of gnolls standing in front of him. Then he was on top of them, nodachi ready to sing through the air again...

And giant bolts of sharpened rock came crashing through the ground, impaling the beasts around him. Graves tried as best he could to avoid the sudden eruptions, but they were numerous and all targeted at the gnolls-- the gnolls he'd put himself right in the center of. Pain kissed his side, his leg, his arm. He yanked himself off the spikes and called more blood up to him.

He'd never felt more alive.

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

Location: The Dungeon -- The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

“If I pushed you, I don’t think I’d hear the splat.”

That great, terrible canyon stretched down for what felt like eternity-- so far down that the rock Rael had kicked never seemed to hit the bottom. It made bile rise up in the back of his throat. Heights were something he got a lot of back home in Nowhereseville, Indiana. The tallest point of the town was a hill right up from the church; some genius a long time ago had decided it was the best place for the graveyard. Andrew still remembered how badly his legs had ached after they'd buried his father.

"Think we found somewhere to fit all that ego." He grunted. Try as he might, he couldn't hide how nervous he was. He hadn't been able to compose himself since the Glitch. Every little sound, every sudden movement, made his blood pressure spike. His hand kept finding its way to the hilt of his blade, like a child reaching out for his comfort blanket. What was he goin' to do if he fell, exactly? Stab the fall to death?

It'd worked on those trolls back there, at least. Blood still lingered along the edge from where he'd lopped one'a those massive arms off. Fatigue still lingered in his muscles, too, as it never had before. All of the visceral aspects of Pariah's combat that Graves had loved had been cranked up to eleven now, n'...it scared him how much he was enjoying it. Sure, he was terrified of every blow he had to tank. It hurt to all hell, too. But the fucking rush he'd gotten killing those things was better than any high he'd ever experienced.

'Least there's nothing to feel guilty for,' he mused to himself, watching the rest of the party deliberate about how they'd get across this gap. Graves turned from the edge at Rael's request-- giving her a sly wink as he did-- and jogged to the back of the party to keep an eye out. 'S' not like they're actually alive.'