Verschlengorge loomed long over the land. And the Temple loomed long over Verschlengorge. Both The Lady Gisena and Letrizia stood still just before the gaping maw of the False Moon.
Gisena held her arms crossed tightly as the hero so boldly, so foolishly, went on alone.
She had pressed only so far as the Tyrant's curse would allow, daring to go no further than suggestion. He was adamant though that he bear the risk. Acknowledging, and accepting, that she would be an immeasurable boon against the dark artifices that no doubt lay within. Even still, the risk of her demise was too much for his conscious, and what was left of the crater that once contained his heart.
The sun was only just setting, but already it was cold. Chill beyond any rationality emanated from the edifice. The False Moon seemed to drain the very earth of it's warmth, and sans the sun nothing save their bodies had any to offer. Before she had even realized it, both she and Letrizia found themselves running. The world between Gisena and the gate became cracked It froze and crusted and all life ceased within the shadow of the Temple.
Only behind the sturdy frame of Verschlengorge did the ill wind recede. The looming giant almost seemed to resonate for a moment as the frost kissed the lands about him. Then, by whatever cosmic force powered him, the oppressive chill was willed to cease.
It was now obvious that this was by design, that nothing short of a being resonant with Astral could interrupt the proceeding within. As though to confirm her thoughts, Gisena could feel pockets of instability. Soon the ravenous unceasing Astral beasts would be gracing their presence once again.
By her reckoning they would have about an hour before it would become too cumbersome to keep shutting down the rifts. In the meantime, she started handwriting an immaculate little note for her hero. She hoped he would never have to find it.
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Hunger. Too apt. It was all he had in this cold desolate place. The entrance had long since faded behind him, his companions falling further away with every step. His footfalls echoed forward, and forward, further, and yet even further beyond. Yet nothing greeted him. Not the return of his steps, not the howling of a mad beast, not even the jarring Snap of a trigger trap.
He had nothing within this place, and this place held nothing for him. Minutes stretched to hours which stretched for seemingly days, yet that was impossible. Never growing tired. Never growing weary. Only growing Hungry. Hunger was not alien concept to him before this, yet in a place so devoid of everything else why did the manifestation of gluttony burn so brightly upon his finger?
The cold dark recesses of this place were like iron ramparts. Even as he willed fate, Demanded, that it bend... nothing happened. Astral was burned, the flame grew, yet it was consumed before him, ineffectual against the power proliferating this place. It was almost maddening, and had he not been fully lost once before in his life, he would surely have submitted to the dark will of this place.
But the ring that was a part of him, as much as his beating heart, yet thrummed soundly in his hand. Still it burned. And still he felt it. If Fate would not bend, if the Cold would not abate, if this place itself was False, he began to understand. He needed to Feed. To concume the chill and master the concept of entropy.
This entire place was an amalgamation of fate, all that entered it's halls were being subsumed into a greater being. A greater concept. Any earlier and Hunger too would have been another casualty in this edifices bowels. But he had a way to pass through the cold, to become a being untethered by the rational world. Deftly, before he faded anymore, he grasped the Forebear's Blade and embraced the Chill of the Grave.
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Letrizia slumped in Verschs' cockpit. blood pooling beneath her. it stained her hair, dripped and congealed about her. She smiled, bitterly. They had held on through nearly four hours of blistering combat, blanketing the viscera of fantastical beasts across the land. Horned behemoths so large that they concussed the earth with every step, winged battalions of narrow visored simulacrum, thick with the chill that eclipsed this place. And at the end of the day they claimed victory.
Yet it proved to be only the first day. This was the second, but already the pace had proved itself fatal to the hero's allies. Gisena was clutched, presumably alive, in the left hand of Versch. Letrizia herself knew that she was wounded beyond the scope of bandages and prayers, she needed the warm glow of the Pristine to make it through the night.
Their only respite lied in the path forward, and the only way left was up. The creatures below bayed and howled, but Versch was empowered by something seemingly even beyond the astral. Her imputs were clunky and slow, yet on the ascent he never wavered. Further towards the gaping maw in the clouds he climbed. Soaring now as they passed beyond them. She saw him then.
At the peak, on the precipice of the tower was the ghost of a man. it's one arm gripped a blade, and draped about it was the evening itself, somehow even more brilliant than the stars that glittered behind him. Letting out a deep sigh, she felt the weariness that only the potent injection of adrenaline can achieve. It appeared her journey home may continue after all.
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I don't know exactly how bonuses work, but if i get to credit this towards something, let it be our success in the next battle.
P.S. Well, it's my first time writing something. Anything outside of an English class anyway! Hitting that post reply button is certainly the most difficult part of this.
