Eli dove face first into the crowd, plunging through a gap in the bodies just as one of the Revealed reached a hand for him. Peter ran just ahead, his hand around Eli's wrist as the two of them shot into the throng of panicked people. Up ahead, the two women had already been whisked down one of the side halls. Eli pointed towards an exit in hopes it was closest to the front of the city, yelling to be heard over the crowd as Peter continued to pull him by the arm.

He was jostled from all sides, bumped by shoulders and elbows, his feet repeatedly stepped on by the panicked stampede of people racing around him. Behind him he could hear the roaring of the Revealed as they grabbed offending men and women, tackling them to the ground,

It was pure chaos.

On one or more occasions, Eli saw someone intentionally throw themselves in front of the Revealed, blocking the path and slowing the progress of the bare-skinned hunters as they attempted to chase after the two dancing women. On the skin of the victims, Eli read the desperate words of defiance even as they were pinned to the ground by snarling Revealed who would force them to give up information on their fleeing idols.

A man just to the left of them tripped and fell to the floor suddenly swallowed by a tidal wave of bodies.

Eli kept his elbows out to his sides to avoid being tripped, while also holding desperately to Peter to keep him upright.

They filtered into a wide hallway where the bottleneck broke, and they raced up the glass stairs and out into the sunlight. People flew to the left and right of them wide eyed and fearful. A woman dove past them and into the city crowd, vanishing amidst the bodies with the ease of someone who had lived here their entire life. Others, like Eli and Peter, ran for the gate though, behind them they could still hear the screaming of others as they were taken to the ground by the Revealed

Eli and Peter were not the fastest, nor were they the slowest as they sprinted full force down the street towards the main city gate. The woman at the gate was busy tackling another runner as Eli and Peter approached the exit.

Eli was about to release a sigh of relief when a familiar and unwelcome sound reached him.

Nothing like the intoxicating singing he had experienced earlier. This was a sound that made him sick to his stomach, a sound that made him pull to a dead halt so hard that Peter yelped in pain as Eli nearly jerked Peter's arm out of its socket as Eli froze.

But then Peter heard it too and together the two of them turned their heads as the rattling rasping noise of the Outbreak broke through their focus,accompanied with an all too familiar stench of rotting flesh.

They looked across the way just in time to see a small contingent of Outbreak standing on the marble path just off to the side. It appeared as if they had been speaking with the city guard when the fighting broke out between the guards and the fleeing citizens.

Where the Outbreak's feet touched the white marble of the city, the pristine surface was immediately spoiled.

And what worse.

They were subjected to the same rules as everyone else bare skinned, revealing, in some cases, massive eroded gaps in their rib cages, gangrenous, black appendages, and yellowed wounds crusted by malodorous discharge

The sight made him sick.

The sight of Eli and Peter had no such effect on the Outbreak, and Eli watched as an Outbreak howled in triumph, pointing one gangrenous finger towards them and with a wicked smile of glee, barred its rotten teeth like a feral animal.

"It's HIM!" it rasped.

Before the Outbreak could take a single step, Eli was already moving in the opposite direction grabbing Peter by the hand and dragging him back from the city gates. Ragged wheezing followed them as they raced into the crowd.

The screams of the crowd, already deafening, heightened to a crescendo as the Outbreak made themselves known. Chaos turned into bedlam as the entire city erupted with unadulterated fear.

Members of the Revealed who had been chasing its citizens turned in anger to deal with their diseased, not afraid to grab them by their rotting limbs and shove them towards the entrance of the city.

A fight broke out between the Outbreak and the Revealed. The Revealed attempt to keep the blight out of their city with the Outbreak calling for the return of their property.

Clearly the Outbreak was not welcome inside the city.

Eli pushed ahead, fighting through the crowd as they ran. Peter panted beside him as they raced up a flight of glass stairs. Below them, a churning mass of people were attempting to flee further into the city, but as they tried something went horribly wrong.

The glass of the lower floor shattered. Eli wasn't sure how it happened or even why. Perhaps too many people running and panicking all at once, perhaps there was some structural malfunction. Perhaps there were many reasons, but as Eli and Peter watched, half a dozen bodies were sent screaming and spinning into the waiting teeth of the churning gears.

Peter turned away, hand clamped over his mouth, but Eli was too focused on escape. He grabbed Peter by the hand and pulled him out and into a deserted hallway. Everyone else was running in a different direction, but he knew if he could just get them far enough away from all this, he might be able to find another way out of the city. He knew it didn't just have just one entrance.

Together, they raced the length of the glass city as, below them, the gears grinded to a great squealing halt.

People who were unaware of the initial disturbance peered down in confusion, looking at the figures running in the opposite direction with some measure of confusion.

Eli could see the far end of the city now. Peter was running a few meters behind him, no longer feeling the need to keep hold of each other as the crowd was thinning. Eli raced around a corner, his view partially obstructed by a mirrored machinery compartment in the wall to his right. Just as he came out from behind that corner, a hand grabbed him by the throat.

WIth a choked gurgle, Eli was immediately lifted off his feet, his hands grasping and clawing at the hand that held him, feet twitching and dangling. He looked down and as he did he choked in horror at the hand that held him, and the face behind it. Great spiraling words in Red, blue and yellow ran up the Reveald's arms and chest, pulsing up his neck and onto his face circling around his eyes like hypnotic spirals.

The king of the Revealed was here, and he had Eli by the throat

He was a massive man, well over six feet tall with shoulders twice the width of Eli's own. His chest was a vast expanse of muscle and sinew, and the words that rolled across his skin were written in a rainbow of colors.

Eli choked and grimaced as he was thrown to the ground.

The King of the Revealed knelt on the ground next to him, hand still around his throat. The expression on his face one of cold calculation as he looked Eli over from top to bottom like he was examining a particularly interesting bug imprisoned inside a large glass jar, though this bug was not likely to be caught and released. He was more likely to be pinned to a board. "Where is Adrian?"

Eli flinched as his father's name passed through the man's lips. This creature wasn't worthy enough to speak his father's .

"You look like your father," the man hissed, and taking a deep breath in through his nose said "Smell like him too."

Eli kicked and struggled.

"Where.... is .... Adrian?"

Words began to appear on Eli's skin even before he realized it. The power of the King drew words across Eli's flesh. He could see words appearing on his skin, blood red and bold. He felt compelled to say the words that were within him.

Though the experience was far less pleasant than he had imagined. He felt as if the man had reached down his throat and grabbed his words in one large hand and was now beginning to fish them out of his mouth.

He choked and gagged on the words as they came out.

"I don't know!" The words reflected on his skin.

"When was the last time you saw him?" demanded the King.

Wanting to throw up, Eli's insides crawled and his throat was on fire, "Ten years! Ten years! I don't know where he is!"

The man slammed Eli down on the floor. Violence wasn't necessary as he couldn't have held back his thoughts if he had wanted too. The violence of this man shone through as white as the sun above him and was indicative of any Dread acolyte

"Do you know what this symbol is?!"

To Eli's shock, a stark, black symbol began to spider across the man's chest, blossoming onto his skin like an ink bleed would show through paper. It started at the outer edges and spread quickly in blotches and patches until the symbol was complete.

A tree encased inside a perfect circle.

Eli's tongue twitched, and his throat opened as words were ripped from his throat. He struggled against it, but the more he struggled the more he felt as if he was being torn in half. He screamed in pain, "I don't know! I've only seen it a few times!"

The man's eyes narrowed, "Where?"
Eli's body spasmed with pain and then, suddenly, the pressure on his throat was gone.

The King reeled back with an agonizing howl, his hands flying to his face. A body stepped between Eli and the Revealed. It was Peter, and his hands were painted red with blood. Blood ran down the Revealed face as he blundered into a glass wall, smearing the glass opaque with red. When he withdrew his hand Eli caught a fleeting glimpse of a massive red gash across his face

Peter stumbled back grabbing Eli by the arm and hauling him to his feet. Eli felt strange, as if he could barely walk but he managed to stagger alongside Peter as they made their way towards the exit of the city leaving the King writhing on the red splattered glass. The guard at the gate looked at them in confusion as they stumbled from the marble to the dirt and out into the grassy wasteland surrounding the Exposed.

At some point Eli pitched to his knees and Peter did the same retching violently into the grass as Eli knelt shivering. Above them the sky was growing dark, evidence they were reaching the limit of the Exposed's reach. Eli lowered his head kneeling on all fours in the dirt and pressed his head into his hands.

He felt sick.

His stomach churned and his body ached all over as if his skin had been scoured by sandpaper. His throat was raw and his insides burned. It was then that it hit him like a ton of bricks, a sudden and overwhelming desire to flee this place, to race out into the comforting arms of Exclusion and forget his qwest, to forget Peter and all the others and simply leave them as a memory. The desire was so strong that he found himself staggering to his feet, eyes fixed on a distant gray horizon. Why did it seem that the Desolate was always so close? Why could he always see it?

Eli took a step forward imagining the cool comfort of loneliness after the oppressive intrusion of the Exposed. in the city.

He took another step.

"Eli, where are you going?"

Peter's voice cut into his thoughts, and with a sudden flare of anger, Eli turned on Peter, "Would you just go away!"

Peter pulled back in shock and surprise, eyes wide for a moment, and then an expression of hurt crossed his face, and fading pale words appeared on his skin.

What did I do wrong?
The Exclusion continued to hold him, but Peter's words pulled him back until he felt as if he was at the center of a tug of war. His body hurt, his mind hurt, and finally in exhaustion he sagged to the ground head in his hands, hot tears spilling past his fingers.

Kneeling in the dirt next to him he felt Peter's presence, he half expected him to get up and walk away. A large part of him wanted that, and the thought only made him feel sick with guilt, but Peter didn't move away, instead, he came closer wrapping an arm around Eli's shoulders which only served to make Eli feel even more horrible.

What was he doing?

Peter didn't deserve this, he didn't deserve any of this, and he certainly didn't deserve the way Eli had treated him.

"It's ok, I forgive you."

He supposed Peter could still read his thoughts, and for a moment he was glad of it as he didn't have to say it out loud. Overhead the sky continued to darken as the two rested, huddled in the grass staring out at a city of blinding white light off in the distance which cast a pale glow across their bodies.

Neither of them spoke, relishing the quiet and the dark. A few lights blinked into existence out on the borderlands but overall they were left together, silent and unseen.

They finally drifted off in their loneliness, with their own thoughts, and a chill wind, cool against their bare skin. At some point during that dark night, the two of them were roused by the slow churning of wagon wheels. Eli lifted his head towards the glowing white city, and discerned the silhouette of a person coming towards them. Peter roused groggily and Eli pressed him into the dirt pressing a finger to his lips as he watched the figure approach.

A soft humming grew in the air and he was surprised he recognized the tune. It was the same tune the two bewitching women had been singing before the Revealed came. Eli and Peter glanced between each other as the wagon rolled just a few feet to the side of them, and then stopped.

They remained very still.

"You know Eli, your pasty white ass doesn't exactly lend itself to hiding," came a voice from atop the wagon.

Together, the two of them lifted their heads, sat up, and blinking into the darkness as they saw Tykhe sitting atop of the wagon, and resting on her shoulder was a gelatinous black blob blinking down at them from above both outlined by the silver orb puncturing the night sky

"Wink!"

Eli stepped forward wincing as he stepped on a pebble, "How did you get here?"

The minor fear examined a piece of his gelatinous ooze, "By wagon, I thought that was obvious, your pastiness."

Eli frowned, "Did you bring the stuff?"

Tykhe held up her right hand and waved the satchel back and forth, "Right here." She clicked her tongue twice, the sound echoing over the grassland before turning and tossing the bag down to Eli who had to jump forward in order to catch it, nearly running himself into the cart which was, now that he noticed, pulled by a rather strange looking creature: A deer he thought, or a deer of some kind, though it's horns missed the hint of symmetry usually found in nature as they were twisted partially on one side.

He looked up at Tykhe, who allowed Wink to slither down her arm and onto Eli's shoulder.

Now that his eyes had adjusted, he could see that the woman was wearing a strange set of studded leather clothing, and a long black cloak that she had pulled up over her long gray hair. He shook his head, "How did you know we were here? How did you know where to find Wink? How -"

She held up a hand, "I know a great many things, but I don't give up my sources of knowledge so easily. As for me being here, well, you caused quite a stir in the city, and being that I have been seen in your presence, I think now might be as good a time as any to move on." She gestured at Wink, "As for your friend here, he actually found me as I was leaving the city; thought I might oblige him a ride."

Wink nodded, "The Outbreak is looking for you, and as I understand it the Revealed are now also interested in your whereabouts." He giggled, a high pitched noise that seemed to echo strangely about the open grassy plane. "You seem to be making a lot of new friends."

Eli frowned, upturning his bag and tipping his clothes onto the ground.

Peter followed after him and the two hastily dressed,

Eli felt immediately better, warmed by his shirt and vest, and kept out of the wind by his long woolen coat.

"Where are you headed?" He inquired of Tykhe who was adjusting the front of, what he now realized to be, studded leather armor. For a moment he even glimpsed the hilt of a sword as light flashed from her opposite hip before she concealed it within the folds of her cloak.

"Down south, towards the coast."

"Nothing much up there," Eli remarked as he pulled on his gloves.

"Unless you know what to look for." She pulled her hood closer over her body. Before her, the strange deer-like creature pawed at the ground. "I put some things in your bags that I think you might be needing soon." Eli glanced down at his bag, but had no time to look as she spoke again, "Good luck you two, and try to stay out of trouble.." The wheels of her wagon began to roll forward, "Though for some reason I rather doubt you will be able to."

And then she rolled away leaving the two of them standing in the darkness on the edge of the track watching as she rolled off into the distance.

Eli glanced over at Peter, who was just pulling on his hat and pack, which he had retrieved from the back of Tykhe's cart before she rolled away. Looking into his own bag, he found an unfamiliar bundle of clothing, though trusting Tykhe, he did not take that moment to examine.

He waited expectantly, "I think we should get moving. If what she says is true, then there are going to be people looking for us, and I, for one, would rather not run into them if I don't have to."

Peter nodded, and brooked no argument as Eli cut his way through the grasslands and out towards the edge of the Desolate. In his current state, Eli knew it was a bad idea to be heading in that direction, but that was the way they needed to go and he also knew that he was the one person who could navigate the Desolate so easily.

Overhead glittering white pinpricks punctured the sky.

Eli could still feel the presence of the Sheer, but it wasn't as pronounced here as it had been in other locations, like the Desolate, or at sea.

Peter trudged behind him beneath the stars, and together they made their way over flat grassland, leaves rustling slightly as they passed through the low flora. He kept his coat pulled tight around his shoulders, trying to stave off the ghostly memory of itching thoughts that had been pulled to the forefront of his skin.

Sometime during their trek the grass shortened, giving way to cracked sun-baked earth. Eli could feel the Sheer leaning inward on them so Eli stopped and raised a hand, ordering a halt. Peter staggered gratefully to take a seat on the ground resting his head against his bag like a pillow.

Eli followed suit.

Though it became clear pretty quickly that neither of them were going to be able to sleep.

Eli sighed and sat up, reaching into his bag and grabbing a small lantern which he rested on the ground before him, lighting the oil within with a gentle strike of his flint and steel.

A warm orange light glowed before them bathing their faces in a warm honey illumination.

Peter lay on his side staring up at the sky and lucky for him, the Sheer wasn't very powerful this close to Exposed.

As Peter lay on the opposite side of the lantern, Eli reached into his bag and withdrew the red leather bound book Peter had given to him on the first day. The weight was familiar in his hands, and the binding was smooth and comforting. He opened the book, and was surprised when it fell open to chapter two, where he had left off last time. His eyes swept down the page as the glowing orange light of the lantern lit the page. Eli read and as he did he felt himself relax, taking a deep breath.

Perhaps somewhere in this book were the answers he was looking for.

In particular, the answer to his father's disappearance A disappearance that seemed to be growing ever more complicated as their journey continued

The sky overhead was ignored, and the itching on his skin seemed to cease as he relaxed back into his own thoughts. He was still engrossed in the book when he heard a strange sound. Looking up into the firelight he was surprised to find that it was Peter singing. It was quiet and unobtrusive as Peter's voice was surprisingly pleasant and seemed to warm the night air. He recognized the lyrics too.

The same ones that had been sung by the two women in Genua.