A/N: Sorry for the wait, promise I haven't forgotten about yall, I just had a passing in the family a few months ago and it got me before I could finish this chapter so I had to pause on writing. Death has a way of putting somethig's into perspective and rearranging things. I've been working on myself and on being more consistent with my time but since writing has always been close to my heart I did not want to come back until I was certain I would be as me as I have been in writing. So here, I am. *

Madness can take form and root in anyone if thoughts continue to roam until they begin to sound like opinions discussed by many but created by one. For who do you need the excuses if you knew the answer all along? For whom do you lie? And why must you lie? One can know every step in the dance and still find themselves dancing in circles when the music never existed to begin with. Speaking something into existence might be more frightening than confronting the truth within the confines of the mind, but deciding without hearing out the whispers of the world around you might be the moment the madness has taken root, intertwined with the sanity of confidence that you need no other. Not even for a moment.

We had to travel back down to the town in order to use the teleportation room once more, but with the tower Master's word, as we walked close to the shadows behind the buildings, it was clear that the residents in the streets had been told to return to their homes early this night. The silence was deafening, waiting for us to leave to spring back to the liveliness they claimed. There was only one person waiting for us, the woman who had originally sent us to the tower. She did not seem like the type to volunteer for such a mysterious task, her face tight and nervous as she fought to keep the professional smile in place even when her flickering eyes were curious but weary. She hadn't been the only one to see us arrive, but she would be the only one to see us go. One life to blame if word got out that two out of three guests of the tower had departed.

The city of Necropolis, the dead and all of its various, wasn't as far as most predicted but it was too dangerous to go to the closest direct portal. The tower Master hadn't argued with my pointing out the stupidity of going directly for the crown regardless of the importance of the mission, but her displeasure at hearing that I would make a few stops to throw off any leads made her lips pinch sourly. I wasn't just speaking on any enemies following behind, she knew that as well. Viper and I had already lost two tails by splitting from one another and blending into opportunistic crowds with advantageous structural buildings nearby. She and I had been skirting around one another for too long, and I flipping the hunt on the unsuspecting much longer, to not notice the first two black robed figures that followed too close by. Whoever she had send had done a wondrous job of glamorizing their features to look mundane for one and inhumane enough to not stand out, both concealing their magic aura, yet even Viper came to recognize their footsteps trailing behind us not to late, always stopping with us on breaks and continuing in the same direction we headed towards.

"Friend, foe or snack?" She asked without looking back or needing to clarify. I sighed, squinting at the rising sun ahead. We hadn't slept all night and would continue to do so if everything were to go smoothly. There were a lot of things to be wary about and a lot more to complete then the simple retrieval of a crown.

"Friendly foe most likely," I clarified. I brought my hand up and covered my mouth as I felt a rough cough coming along. I grimace at the sensation that it gave the back of my head, like emptiness filled the space between my brain and skull. The expenditure of my chest was much more bearable, the skin numbing. "We just have to lose them."

"...alright."

I was just grateful that had been all she said, I continued to look ahead despite the weight of her stare. The tower Master was right. Despite her aid in producing the highest ointments and potions to slow the slow spreading wound at my chest, I was still dying from the inside out. If I had delayed this any longer, I would have entered a delirious, feverish state on the last day of our return and that wouldn't have been a help to anyone. I was still functional and if need be, I would- my mind went blank for a moment, all thought leaving me. What would I do? I knew what my choices were but what would I do? What could I do? What was the right thing to do for everyone? My fingers dug into my backpack straps. Focus only on the now and the few steps ahead. The rest would be there to sort whenever I thought of it later. Problems were the last thing to go and solutions the first things to come when one tried not to think it over too much.

"This is weird, but I'm almost sad my brother isn't here to witness this." I rolled my eyes at her wistful murmur and zipped the knee high boot up. "Who would have thought all it took to get you to dress a bit better was to go near the fashion capital of this world."

"The undead wear the Primadonna crown but the actual dead don't care much for what you wear so much as who you're wearing-"

"No need to elaborate, the picture has been made." She interrupted with a curled lip, shuddering as she ruffled out her long draping dark green collar vest that fell mid-thigh on her, beneath it she wore a light simmering ash colored long sleeve dress with V shaped ruffles running all throughout in various directions, loose wispy tendrils of cloth fell at random, the bottom of the dress a longer train then her vest. She wore dark velvet slip in flats, she had looked at them then to me and back to them before slipping them on unhappily.

"The human settlement surrounding the vampire territory is well kept and closely watched. Outsiders usually stand out by not standing out. The better dressed you are the more likely you are to get asked to provide a feeding, but being underdressed makes you an easy target for the blood traffickers."

"So, we're dressed like on the rise social influencers trying too hard to fit in for our own safety? Well, you could have at least let me wear the skirt, my legs are longer than yours." I stared at her blankly before looking down at the emerald flowy skirt with the leg slit. I had chosen it because it would make my next change faster. I had topped it off with a tucked in white blouse and wide brown leather belt around my waist, the knee-high black boots a last second choice.

"I don't know what you said, but sure." I straightened up and looked at myself once more, slung across my body was what appeared to be a normal chain purse. Viper wore one as well, in a different form across her body. "Don't lose the pouch."

"I know that." I shrugged at her testy tone. The special bags contained the backpacks, making it less obvious we were traveling and making it seem more like we were just out and about but if we were to get pickpocketed...I didn't even want to imagine the headache that would follow at the mountain of work that would follow.

"Use the bracelet now, and here."

I tossed a small, shaped object her way, she twisted the silver bracelet at her wrist, immediately her appearance vanished for a moment before a new person stood before me. She only appeared shorter, but the long locks were replaced by a sharply cut ink blue hair, her distinguishably polished black skin took on a dark elf shade just light enough to mistake her for a half breed. Deep black eyes lightened to a violet purple hue with magenta pink at the top, her features softening, her nose widening along with her cheeks until the sharpness of them vanished. She gained a heavier set of limbs, subtle muscles becoming outlined.

"What's with the hair pin?" There wasn't anything outstanding in its appearance, a normal looking hair pin in appearance at first glance. Only knowledgeable eyes would be able to detect the careful crafting of such an item.

"Put it at the back of your hair, closer to the nape." I twisted my own bracelet and felt a shudder go through me as if I had been doused in slime. "On the off chance that the bracelet is removed, the hair pin is just a smaller version of the bracelet. Vampires are far too fond of going out in disguises to not suspect accessories to be a part of some sort of illusion. If it is removed, they're not likely to search for a smaller second one, especially not in your hair." Unless they were damn good at their jobs, in which instance making a run for it would be the main purpose of the hair pin.

"Was this one of your ideas?" She asked, placing it at the back of her head and under her hair as I had directed. I looked down at my hands to see them enlonging, as my skin began to darken and then took on a warm red shade. Straight red strands of hair landed on my shoulder, continuing to fall until it stopped near my belly button. I tossed it over my shoulder.

"I asked the tower Master if she had something similar to the bracelet but smaller."

"You never call her by her name. Florence. Why is that?" What? I tried to recollect all the moments I had spent with the tower Master-oh. Even within my mind. I suppose she was right.

"Do I? Hadn't noticed." I shrugged. "Anyway, aura in, inside voice out and try not to whisper, that gains more attention than repealing it and if anyone questions why we are going to Critters Cove?"

Her displeased expression switched in a second as an excited youthful expression came over, her grin not too wide, hands clasped in front of her she answered. "We're to go out in an exciting lovers meet up with the charming couple who invited us."

Critters Cove was the borderline edge of human territory, the small patch of land between where the official lord's domain began, and for us the best path to take around the public road to Necropolis. Since we couldn't take the public roads to the city and teleporting there was a definite out, through the shady land and straight to the city of death it was for us. Nothing too bizarre. People went into Critters Cove all the time. Coming out was the issue, but it was perfect for anyone who wondered why two people might voluntarily go in. A daring spot, a mysterious meet up and a vampire's hunting spot for those who could not afford to pay a hefty fine. It wasn't likely for us to get asked why we were heading in that direction once we got close, curious disappointing looks perhaps, but there were rarely good-natured folks willing to try and change a foolish youths mind. Perhaps the humans of this settlement had grown outside of their environmental influences?

"There aren't any actual critters in there are there?" I paused at the smooth way she asked that. I had never actually been into the cove, so I wasn't so sure on the answer, but...

"I don't know, but the name must have come from somewhere." She nodded and turned away from me.

"-damn bugs. Great." I bit my lip to keep silent. I followed after her as we came out from the small patch of forest, we had stepped into to change, a few more feet and we would land on the main road.

It didn't take Viper too long to begin firing questions when the silence got to be too much. I was surprised to be relieved by her curiosity, it meant I had other things to think about than the looming thoughts that felt as if they would crush me if I poked at them.

"If most people shun the city of death, why are humans fine living so close to it? And why the hell would they be fine living next to vampires if they know they're most likely to be plucked off the streets and used as a sippy cup?"

"The closer human settlements are to vampires, the better protected their rights are, believe it or not. Most human settlements or towns are under protection of some lord and since lords are prideful in their promises, they don't like wild hunts to take place on their lands. They don't care for the humans around them, but they do care to look good taking care of them because the better a job they do in that regard the more humans chose to settle on their lands and when you get a city to blossom under your name, a few random slaughter parties can be overlooked."

It had annoyed me to see that the human settlements had grown in popularity in vampire territory despite the obvious dangers, but it wasn't as if there were many choices for them to look into when it came to living in large groups and finding enough protection to not worry about getting accidentally caught in a fire fight. They would definitely get caught, but I suppose losing a little blood was better than being crushed under a literal giant's boot, downing to death in the nearest water container after catching a siren's song or just being unlucky enough to be plucked from the ground because from a sky view, you looked delicious. She spun around, beginning to walk backwards without a hitch.

"Slaughter parties? Assuming it's what it sounds like, it would be impossible for the humans here not to know what goes on, so again, why stay?" The way she asked, dramatically disapproving, made me smile. There was nothing funny about making do with what you had, but the irony of knowing that the chances were stacked against you and there was no better choice. Was there no better answer than to laugh? Suddenly the thought felt a little too on point and personal.

"Everyone likes to think it will never happen to them no matter how often or close an incident takes place." Gravel and dirt, turned into smooth cement underfoot. It was still too early for transportation, but I was sure that in half an hour it would be bustling. "And the family recompense has to match the brutality of the kill."

"Wow, so if little Billy or Amanda goes off to a party his family can flip a coin on whether or not they hope they make it back?" She tossed an imaginary coin in the air, caught it and held her face in both hands in a mock horrified expression with wide eyes.

It was a terrible thing to think could happen, but it was most likely true to some extent. I had heard before of family members volunteering or setting up kin just for the compensation that came from being killed by a high-ranking vampire. I imagine after generations, the humans here might be so desensitized to blood that living so close to the dead and undead, made death a temporary state of existence. What was so bad about losing the flesh when with the money, they could afford to give you a great phantom life? After all, a bloody death usually came with a begrudging spirit.

"Something along those lines, but there is another, more prevailing reason humans are so at ease with the monsters down the street." Around the bend of the main road, I could see the corner of a large, well-built iron sign.

She snorted, tossing her head back as she crossed her arms. "And what's that? Their killer good looks?" There was that too, but even unconventionally looking vampires had an unreasonably helpful skill on their side.

"Trained sheep rarely leave the flock. Especially bite addicted sheep." I motioned behind her. "Welcome to the liveliest city closest to Necropolis, where the undead keep living, Dolor."

"That's pain in Spanish." She said bluntly, staring at the welcome sign.

"It is." I agreed.

"The city of pain is next to the city of death." She continued.

"Yup."

"I love it here." Her excited whisper had me chuckling. She loved over her shoulder at me with gleaming violet eyes, her hands clasped together. "If we don't kill anything it won't be a real girl's trip."

"Covert mission," I corrected before adding jokingly at the sight of her putting out "But I'll see what I can do."

She grinned, winking. "I knew I liked you."

An hour later we were getting off of the bus and walking in the center of Dolor. Despite being human populated, we weren't the only non-looking humans here. Vampire business was something everyone had a hand in. The streets were clean, and every building well taken care of, but there was a distinctive design to the streets that just screamed that time here was all wrong. Some blocks would go from mid-level decor and slowly begin to bleed into a renaissance period before clashing with a western cowboy era period, the folks that worked there wearing boots as the cement ended to make a path for dirt, riders speeding down the streets after one another as slow-moving carriages stopped to allow corseted women with sun umbrellas out. The bus we had gotten off of was not allowed to go through this street so it took a detour, one that would waste too much of our time to remain on board. This was what I imagined a Hollywood movie set to be like. Being in one spot but watching different periods of time all packed closely together. Viper watched everything with reserved elation, her eyes lingering over a five-story building with an air of elegance in the black marble and green tiles. By the way she was watching I didn't think it was of curiosity, it was more of a predatory focus. Her senses must have been picking up something I wasn't able to sense on my skill alone.

"I don't think I've seen any actual vampires out and about, unless they're good at blending out and can actually come out in the sun."

"Lower-level vampires come out during the day; the oldest ones thrive at night. They can come out during the day, but their sleeping schedule is harder to break the older they get." I motioned to an individual across the street. "Four o'clock is to my best guess, at least fifty years unhuman."

"He doesn't look very different to the humans roaming about." She studied him carefully from the corner of her eye. "Is there something to help distinguish them? The heart beats here are all slow. Blood loss seems to be a little too common a denominator here."

"If you ever come across an older generation, you'll know immediately. The newer ones are harder to distinguish because they still retain old human behaviors and habits. It's the ones in in between to be wary about. Not young enough to be easily fooled or distracted, not old enough to fear what they cannot immediately kill." A fast wind blew dirt upwards; I brought my hand over my eyes. "Do you see Wallow Street?"

"It's not straight head." Viper walked off a few steps ahead of me and poked her head around a block bend, squinting for a moment. She walked back over after doing the same behind her. "To the right, six blocks down."

Unfortunately, the walk was one we would have to take to get back onto the bus route. Hiring a horse would be wasteful since they wouldn't be able to make the full trip and we would be unable to return them if we rented them out. Anything stolen in vampire territory was just a pain to cover. They were unreasonably stingy for people who collected things to collect dust from being unused and forgotten about, but as soon as something in front of them was plucked or plundered it was all unbridled rage. I hadn't had terrible encounters with vampires, most young criminals or mid tere vampires, but they were unnervingly focused when it came to their possessions being messed with. A vampire trait no doubt. I had never come into contact with a lord face to face but there was a moment I had brushed against a Servant of one and that was enough to give me the chills and all the warning I needed to know never to deal with one directly. It was like they were linked directly to the city of death itself, but free to roam out of its confinements. In a way, they were, but even necromancers were warmer in comparison.

With the sun high in the sky, I was reluctant to accept the sight of the heat waves from afar but even the dirt was beginning to turn from a dark orange to as red as the hair I wore. I had forgotten how humid it got here sometimes. Beads of sweat formed at my brow before trickling down, tickling me annoyingly. Even beneath my bra I could feel the humidity. I glanced over at Viper's smaller form; if the heat was bothering her, she gave off no sign to it as she continued to look around, her head turning away from one direction to another sharply sometimes, her ears twitching as she listened in on what went around. While she monitored around us, my mind drifted off in two different pathways. The first was what was supposed to be the most pressing, but the ease with which the solutions came to me meant that the second matter was harder to postpone and dismiss entirely.

Venom. What was I to do about Venom? The issue, in the common sense, should be about me choosing the best outcome to live and yet I was torn about what was the right thing to do for him. I knew killing the bond would be the easy way, the most efficient and less dangerous route to take and yet, the deadened look at which he gazed at me, expectant and accepting, almost hauntingly resigned, made my stomach twist. When Harold had said I had to die, I hadn't felt the devastating blow as terribly as when he had said the bond dying would have been my better option. I wanted to believe for a split moment that the shock and the emotions that followed soon after came from Venom, and his reaction to the words were faster than my processing them. By the time I had enough mind to check on him his side of the bond had gone still and cold. His hands on my shoulder, the force of his strength prevented me from turning around to read his face, but I was chilled to the bone when his hands slid from off of my shoulders and he took a step back. It was like he was already beginning the separation and I just- I felt like there wasn't enough air.

He stepped back and allowed me to make the choice. I wasn't taken aback by that because I trusted my instincts enough to judge he was far from the calm he was presenting, but the problem was that the calm that he was presenting shook me to my core. I couldn't get a firm grip on him; I couldn't trust my hypothetical reasoning on why he was doing what he was because I felt as if the floor had been pulled from beneath me. I couldn't find what was up and what was down, trying to figure him out was impossible in such a mind sweeping chaotic wave. I knew logically that breaking the bond would be the better choice. I wouldn't have to die and would finally separate from Venom and Viper as I had always wanted in the beginning. They would go their own ways and I would be free to do with myself as I pleased with no one to answer to. With no one. That key sentence stung. I would return to the familiar state of being alone, but this time without the Council telling me what to do if everything went according to plan. I was sticking to the original plan so why was I hesitating right in front of the finish line when the choice was so obvious?

The reasons were as obvious to me as to why I was fast as coming up with reasons to ponder over the choice. I just didn't want to look deeper past the affection I begrudgingly had come to have for the two. If I looked deeper then I would lose more than just the objective look I had on things now. I didn't know who would emerge from unraveling the things I had pushed deep down, the actions she would take and that scared me enough to embrace being a coward and running away. I was fine with that, but making the choice and following it through when I knew that it would be hurting Venom, an unfathomable betrayal to years by my side with nothing in return but the acknowledgment of his feelings. I had done terrible things by command but the consequences from the choices I had, although few, still weighed on my shoulders.

A scream startled me out of my brooding. I watched as a bloodied woman in rags dragged a blood-soaked man by his hair out of a door. A few seconds later a body flew out of the second story window, the body hit the ground with a loud thump, but the person made no sound. They were either unconscious or already dead. By the blood pooling by their head, a clump of tangled blonde curls, if they weren't dead before landing out of the window they were now. A muscular man with bulging biceps and gliding tan skin came out towering over the woman with a withering hateful stare. The dark-haired woman lifted her hold on the man, his hands came up to clench at her hold. People around the street froze and watched. I wrapped my arm around Viper who was watching as well with the corner of her lips slowly curling upwards in expectant excitement.

"No." Was all I said as I dragged her forward. I had to maneuver us around the growing crowd. The commotion grew louder the farther we walked away.

"It sounds like it's getting interesting." She pouted at me. I looked around, most people were heading in the opposite direction to us, intrigued by the noise, but I caught a few discarding, blank stares in the chaotic direction before they turned away. Those looks made me tense.

"Anything interesting is usually recorded to know who was in the wrong." I mustered as much cheerful aloofness into my voice as I could, to make it sound more like an offhand comment than a warning. "Besides, we really don't want to be caught on a recording when we were supposed to be at work today."

"Ah, you're right, getting outed like that would suck." Her acting came smoother than my own as she intertwined our arms swiftly and leaned down closer. "Hey, isn't that the store you wanted to check out?" She pointed out to some random store a few feet away.

I looked to where she pointed but at the sensation of her hand, the one wrapped around my own, tapping on the inside of my elbow. I immediately turned with a wide grin to the store she had pointed to, some period time clothing store and scanned the reflection on the glass on the view across the street. Something had caught her attention, what was it? I did not sense anything overly alarming. There were fewer people now that everyone had rushed around the corner, a few poked their heads out of doorways and windows but nothing out of the ordinary- something wiggled, my eyes focused on that movement. Ah, I see. The living and undead residents weren't the only ones looking out of curiosity here. Long wispy strands of hair coiled at the ends but floating unnaturally above her head, a washed out blue tinted haunter was sticking her head from out of the building wall, but rather than looking in the direction everyone else was, she was looking at us. We made eye contact through the window. I focused on the store and looked around casually, cursing within.

I couldn't make out any outstanding features from the look I had taken, but I tried to put a name to the face in case I had ever seen her before. Living or dead. Not everyone had the sufficient amount of mana to see and hear haunters, but the biggest issue was that they were borderline stalkers to anything that gained their attention even momentarily. Maybe the eye contact was accidental.

"No, not that one." I shook my head and looked straight ahead. Please don't come over. Please don't come over. I did not need a haunter on my way to the city of death. But now that I had a potential ghost problem, a secondary thought brought forth an issue I had forgotten about.

The box rattled mockingly, excitement pulling the chains wrapped around it. My brows came together in a glower. How could that have slipped my mind? Of course, the city of death impowered the dead and those who were marked by it. What was the likelihood of something altering happening here? I glanced over across the street to try and see if the- bloodshot neon blue eyes with purple pupils and a black ring around her iris was lasered in on me. I turned away, faces flashing through my mind as I tried to no avail to figure out if I had ever come across her. That was the problem with trying to stay invisible to the still living, ghost and those intangible creatures knew how to tell oddities out of oddities trying to blend in. I had something in my bag that would repel her but to wear it now would be like pulling out a red flag with the amount of magic that it carried to work.

"I think it's best we ignore the stores for now," I said with heavy undertone, pausing for a moment. "We can check them out at a later moment."

"...right, later." She answered in a less confident manner than she had spoken earlier. I tried to recall if this was her first ghost.

As we walked on I made sure to keep an eye around us for anything else that could become a problem, but to my dismay I found the haunter trailing behind us, having crossed the street at some point. She kept her distance but having left her building and just walking on silent in the middle of the day was already attention grabbing as people side stepped her and made way. It was becoming disturbingly obvious she was trailing after us now. My jaw clenched as I played the obvious card. When we made it to the bus stop that would take us to Critters Cove, or the closest it dared, we had to stand there and wait as the sun beat down on us and the ghost took a stand next to us. It was harder to ignore her when the five people waiting along with us kept staring from us to her.

"The store-" Viper strained out, her hold on my arm crushing.

"Later," I knew that even if we ignored her, she wouldn't go away easily but at least not conversing with her should stop her from engaging with us. So far, she had just followed closely, silently, with that wide eyed unblinking stare and floating tendrils of hair. She was dressed in what could have at one time been a deep violet corset with dangling crystals attached to the outlining tassel straps draped down her shoulders. Her skirt wasn't dramatically full but enough so that the style alarmed me at how old she could be. Old enough to cause problems for me. But why was she following us? The likelihood that it was Viper she was interested in, an old knowledgeable ghost trailing after someone hiding their aura. The same aspects, unfortunately, could be said for me but even if she was old enough to have half a sane mind to recall Mykela Debrouhs, how had she recognized me in disguise? She had a young full, round face with a slightly pointed chin and heart shaped lips, a wide but short nose. Whatever color her eyes had been before she died was long gone, her eyes had already taken on the known ghostly eye phase of the wide-eyed haunted stare, dark purple bruises as shadows under her sunken eyes, but her brows were finely trimmed to frame a wide forehead. She looked to be around her mid to late twentieth and no matter how much I tried to pinpoint if I had ever come across her, I got nothing, not even an inkling of deja vu from her. It was gnawing on me not knowing why she was following us. We would have to wait until we were alone to question her.

When the bus finally arrived and we got on, so did she. Viper and I sat mid row and she sat two seats in front of us but turned to stare at us the whole damn way unblinkingly. The people who got on all seemed to sit on the other side of the bus and the longer we were on, the ones who caught onto our little stalker eyed us before sitting further back. I resisted the urge to glare at her. This was not what I needed. If anything, weird came about, people would remember the two ladies who seemed to have a ghostly stalker. Was she doing this on purpose? Gaining all this attention, was she so far gone that she simply did not care? It was difficult to tell with ghosts as not all aged with firm minds, depending on their deaths. There were no obvious outstand marks of a violent death that I could tell from the glances I had stolen but there was a possibility of a hidden wound at the back of her head. I had to admit, Viper was doing a splendid job at ignoring the unfortunate situation, despite the rigid way she held her shoulders and arms, her face, turned to look out of the passing scenery remained as aloof and uncaring as someone who had nothing to hide or worry about.

"What did you two ladies do to attract Fransia?" I looked over my shoulder to find an older well-dressed man with a hat, his hand on his cane as he motioned over to her. Human, at least on the surface. Fransia, now we had a name to work with. A few of the people seated around us pretended not to listen in.

"I'm not all too sure," I pulled a sheepish apologetic look as I shrugged, keeping my tone low enough to be relaxing. "She seems to have attached herself to us after we passed by a store earlier, perhaps she liked our outfits." I looked down suggestively as if such an idea would be possible.

The older man eyed me with a small smile, his eyes turning upwards as his expression softened, something akin to amusement at my answer. His eyes peered behind me to look over Viper, but she paid him no attention even though she was listening in closely, but the expression on her face didn't so much as change. Looking back up I blinked quickly, my eyes flickering to the side as I pursed my lips and then frowned.

"If you know her name, does that mean she's a local here?" I asked him.

"Oh yes, she's been around for years. It's why it's so odd to see her out of Hellpers building, she never really roams far from there, so I was curious to know what had managed to pull her away."

"How curious." I murmured in a low voice. I was sure that if I turned to look at her I would find her eyes on me. "Do you have a guess as to why she might be following us? And how to get her to stop? I would hate for her to travel so far and then be unable to find her way back."

"That's kind of you but she probably knows all of Dolor better than the longest residents here." He shook his head as she looked over her way again, he showed no worry for being the next potential person of interest to gain her attention. "Her family was one of the original founding families of here."

"Oh my, what could we have to have possibly gained her attention? I'm sure she's seen so many people come and go." I commented shocked, covering my mouth with the tips of my fingers as I held my hands in front of me. He eyed me, no doubt wondering the same thing.

"Who knows what attracts the interest of the dead." He shrugged before reaching out, I tensed as he patted me on the shoulder twice. "Just indulge her for a little time, she's bound to return to her death spot sooner or later."

I curled my lips upwards as I lowered my head and nodded. "I'm sure you're right."

The remainder of the bus ride was silent for Viper and I, but the stares were pleasant and unpleasant. The scenery changed the further we traveled into Dolor and then the closer we got to the edge of the city. From grand buildings and mansion-like architecture, small spaced-out castles in all sorts of conditions, to town like settlements of small worn-down homes that lacked the color and tint of thriving liveliness the city promoted. The landscape here was quick to transform into drying and dying plants, trees that bent over with twigs sticking out far and wide, the ground lacking the city smooth pave ways as flattened dirt showed the way for travel. There was none of the elegant airs of earlier, the streets were illuminated by far standing fire lamp posts spread out through the drive. Through the window we watched the sun begin to lower itself, casting the gray and brown buildings to become outlined by the orange red sky. It gave off the feeling of a desolate place, but there were people, scared and with dull eyes sunken deep into their elongated faces.

"I'm about to make the final stop ladies!" The driver called out. He had been eyeing us as the bus had begun to empty long ago and we continued on. "Are you sure this is where you're headed towards? The next bus doesn't come but in three hours." He informed us seriously.

"No worries, we've got people waiting for us." I called out.

He eyed me through the mirror, his eyes dropping to scan what I was wearing and then Viper who had her head against the side of the window, her eyes shut. I doubted she was really asleep but it helped to look the part. If we disappeared now at least it would look like two women in the wrong part of town, unknowing and unlucky. I watched him, to see if he would try and warn us but with one last uncaring shrug he continued on.

I stared at Fransia as she continued to watch up. She had not moved from her position in front of us ever since we got on. The only movement I had detected from her came from the few times her head had tilted to one side and then the other as she looked us over. I was sure that if she had been able to express more, her face would have given me a clue as to her thoughts. A little more and I would be asking her myself. Unless she had decided she wanted a roundabout trip and would be on her spooky ride back home. That would be perfect. The bus pulled up to a screeching stop.

"Last stop, Dragula Lane." The driver called out, watching us rise and exit the bus. I didn't have to tap Viper awake; she was up before I was.

"Thank you, have a lovely evening."

"You ladies take care." He called out, watching us blankly before shutting the doors. The air was humid and stifling at once, I breathed in deeply. As the bus drove off I was about to sign in relief to the departure of Fransia when I was her a moment later after the bus had done a U turn, she appeared on the other side of the street, standing there with a blank stare, her arms at her side. We stared at one another. I pursed my lips and turned around.

Viper was looking around with an unimpressed expression in place, hands on her hips. The last stop ended at a deserted, mistreated stop where even the sign for the bus was rusted over and toppled over to the side uncared for. There was a long chain link fence that at one point might have been worthy of its purpose of guiding the tourist to the cross walk, but there were old blank signs tied to it, parts of the fencer were gone entirely, gaping holes here and there as it wobbled at the connect between it and the cracks on the ground, earth splitting from constant heat. The buildings, they couldn't really be called that as they were half torn down and abandoned shacks, windows smashed and rats scurrying about.

"I guess the hood exists in magical dimensions as well." Viper clicked her tongue. I made a full turn, taking everything in until I found what I needed.

To my west over the humble homes here, towering over like a monument, the top of a mountain was barely visible, almost blending into the background of the horizon.

"There," I pointed in that direction. "Critters cove will be just around that mountain."

Viper looked to my hand and then to me, back and forth. I watched her with a raised brow as she scanned us both head to toe and then looked over to Fransia. She tossed a hand over her shoulder, motioning behind her with her thumb.

"Now I know you don't want two well dressed, fine bad bitches walking through the hood escorted by Casperishia the ghost." She started suspiciously eyeing me like I was out of my mind. I couldn't help the chuckle.

"Surely you've noticed the lack of liveliness in the surrounding area." Both hands up I motioned around us. "And it's not as if we can't handle a few troublemakers, but I see your point."

Although the plan for remaining as inconspicuous failed thanks to said ghost. Ire burned at the tip of my tongue at the reminder. There was nothing to do on that end and so long as nothing else went wrong or worse came to it, this small hiccup could be overlooked. Yet, to be certain, I had the sneaking suspicion I would regret not leaving a false trail behind. If I got rid of Fransia and she never returned back to where she came from, that would be too noticeable so I couldn't just make her disappear, however, allowing her to follow along was not a choice. If she was even half sane and able to communicate, the last thing I needed was to find out that this silence was just a pretense and that she was in fact chatty.

"I hope you're comfortable changing with the rats watching." I muttered before we went over to one the abandoned shacks and changed into more appropriate clothing. I was unhappy with the obvious links between two well dressed girls with a ghost being dropped off here and two suspicious figures with a trailing ghost moving about but that might have to be an issue to handle later.

Really, a lot of issues were being pushed back for later handling when the biggest one continued to grow as the minutes ticked on. We left the disguise on even if the clothing changed. I also made sure Viper didn't take out her backpack just yet. People might see us walking about but so long as they didn't see us with large bags and equipment, if for whatever reason word were to spread about us being out and about around these parts, there would be no realistic theories to work with. With the darker, easy to move in clothing and shoes we didn't stand out as much as we began making our way through the town. Of course, we were on high alert to any and every sound around us, but so were the residents here. We would have been more suspicious to them had we tried to hide and avoid eyes. You can't live near vampires after your blood for years and not grow a distinctive sense for dangerous lurking beings moving about. The humans on this world were more sensitive or better put, more attuned to their instincts since they could not afford to lose the small edge they had. No matter the weapons created by them or the intelligence to outmaneuver a magical benign, the humans were at the bottom of this food chain and were doomed to linger there so long as every other creature continued to evolve into the vicious creatures that they were born to be.

Being raised a human for far longer than I had been a witch, I could empathize with the unfairness of being afraid of stronger individuals. Or maybe it was more than that, that I could empathize with them, but there was a lacking interest, that even I could admit to that existed in me. The only real difference between casters and humans was that we accepted magic within our essence whereas the humans here found it to be too overwhelming, a danger to them, like all other things in their environments. That was the only real difference, but it was enough to cast us out of the dangerous level humans had been labeled on in the food pyramid. That distinction alone and their smaller population, the divide between us growing so much that I had once thought it ok to pity those labeled humans until I found myself feeling like one. Yet, history had shown that time and time again, even when their numbers dwindled, they knew how to survive. Perhaps that was all the magic they needed to posses.

The people of Dragula were quiet, but not meek, watchful but weary. Most went around with brisk paces and their heads turned away from one another as they clutched what little they had to themselves closely, but those who strolled the streets in a relaxed manner did so with an air of difficulty and trouble. They seemed to be caught between malicious alertness and a dazed and exhausted state of mind. Their eyes dark and thin. Everyone in this place was very, very thin. That alone alerted me that the town was being sucked dry, literally. It might be a popular feeding ground for mid to lower tired vampires and thus the people of the town did not wish to be snatched up for random selection. Few lingered on Fransia, who thankfully, kept a distance. I felt as if the tad bit of bad luck, by attracting a stalkerish ghost, was a trade in for not running into any more trouble the further we made our way to the outskirts of the town.

By that I meant concerning trouble as twice we had to lose a group of suspicious fellows trying to corner us in. While they went around like headless zombies, Viper and I slipped into the borderline that began on the mountain side. There was nothing dangerous to run into the deeper we went.

"I don't hear a lot of large animals here." Viper muttered looking around. "That's not normal, why?"

"Vampires aren't too fond of animals or at least not the exotic ones they can't tame as pets, so they usually purge any growing population of animals in their territories unless there's an overlap or the creature is under some protected act." I answered off handedly as I finally found the forest marking that warned of Critter Cove being just ahead. The warning and beware signs a welcoming sight to us.

The sun was fighting for the last few ambers in the sky, an hour or two at best remaining of natural day light. Despite the warning signs, someone had taken their time to spread out flat stones every few steps, a leading trail to a treacherous journey's end. A vampire's work no doubt. Viper made a game of counting all of the human bones and skulls she found spread throughout, as far as her eyes could see. She was up to five hundred and seventy-eight when we broke through to the beach. The waves were fast to wash up the shore and slow to pull back, but the back and forth brought forth no uncoordinated clash of waves with the motion like any other beach. The blue of the water was dark the further back I stared but cleared up and glittered, some reflections brighter than others, like diamonds under light, like constellations. The sand was a mixture of black and red, obsidian black rocks protruding from the ground at enormous sizes, some split down the middle and toppled over. Looking down the little hillside where we stood, I brought my hand up to cover my eyes and squinted at the mountain side that clashed between the sand and growing earth. Things shouldn't have changed all that much here. I slid down the hillside, dirt and rocks tumbling down. Viper took a large step forward and fell in a straight position, barely bending her knees as she landed and took in the sight of it all.

"Pretty place, crappy name, what's the catch?" She bent down and took a handful of sand. It shimmered in her hand like powered jewels, slipping through her wiggling fingers.

"Everything pretty usually has a catch." I squinted further away, trying to make out the memory form when I was last here and overlay it with the now. There were three obvious cave openings, the entrance we were looking for was between two of them. Was it to the left or right?

"You're right," I heard behind me, a proud tiff to her tone. "I am pretty and deadly."

I looked over my shoulder and gave her an exasperated look to which she shrugged. Huffing I shook my head before starting over at Fransia who was staring down at us as she stood on the hillside. I suppose now was the best moment to deal with her. My face went cold as I stared at her, waiting. It didn't take her long to come down now that she held our full attention. She left no marks as she walked down the path I had slid down.

"Why are you following us? What do you want?" I asked at once, not beating around the bush.

Silence answered back.

"Is she even able to answer?" Viper asked, watching her curiously. I think she had gotten used to her trailing behind us and was now just wondering about her existence in general.

"Can you?"

Silence. I sighed, tapping at the pads of my fingers for a beat as I decided what to do about her. She could be pretending, in which case she couldn't keep following us, who knew far she would go. I couldn't exactly get rid of her. Would putting up a momentary barrier around her be better? I think I could use the sand here and something else to do the trick. Something about her face twitched. I stilled and waited. I wouldn't wait for long. She was indeed old and somewhat lucid as it appeared that she understood the detached way I studied her, she lifted a hand, palm out. I think she was asking for a moment. Now that she stood in front of me, I took her in at closer inspection, trying to find anything that would stand out and help identify if not clue me in on something. No shoes, no jewelry or decorative dress pieces other than the dangling crystals at her draped straps, but by the perfect fit and how the dress fit her I could tell at once it was custom made for her, but the style was too posh to be a casual dress, the material looked as if it had once been velvet or a similar fabric. A party dress? Or some lower but still respectable occasion. If she was really part of one of the founding families of Dolor then that would explain if she came from a wealthy background even if slightly decaying over time. Certainly, a human before she perished, but with no obvious violent death signs I could only assume she held a strong enough grudge or wish to remain behind after so long. Then again, dress pieces here were not reliable and available to anyone, so although she was dressed old, she could be much younger than I thought. Even with the old man's word, it wasn't something to discard just yet.

We watched attentively as her lips parted, a strained expression slowly bleeding life into her haunting stare. Her purple pupils trembled with an unknown force she seems to be fighting against. She might have spent a fairly long period of time without speaking, but still seemed somewhat lucid enough to follow that which interested her. But what was it? When she finally found her voice, chills raced along my skin, the hairs standing as a beautifully, melodic but woeful voice filled the air. If she hadn't spoken in years, I would be fierce in doubting it, the pitch was too sweet, the depth of the tender rich. It was an unforgettable voice, one worth competing with the most enchanting siren.

"You do not walk in the world of mortals. You do not walk within the shadows of death but you are alive. Your shadow drags, why is that?"

The waves continued to sweep up the beach way, the sand undisturbed other than its brilliant shimmer and gleam of specks of color in a floor of posher darkness. Even the soft creaking of branches and the rustling of leaves did not work in soothing the panic that grew in me. She could speak, more so she was sane and fluent. My mind raced as I paused all other issues to deal with her now. She could not continue to follow us if she was verbal and sane. She could speak of the oddities she would witness to others but whatever way I handled her would be a trail anyone could look into.

"Is that why you followed?" Viper took over the silence while I schemed, her tone annoyed. Could I keep her entrapped momentarily here while we left? But to release her now or let another do it? They would wonder why someone would do so to a ghost when they were almost harmless. Unless they were to witness that which was a secret. "Oddities exist in this world, you're not so lively yourself."

Yes, she was right. Although I might have seemed off to her, there was nothing but suspicion and curiosity for now. But by her unconvinced look, I doubted we would be able to convince her to leave us be. If her curiosity was not answered, she might follow until she came to an understanding and while I might have been able to fool her if I knew what exactly it was that drew her to me, I didn't have time to entertain it.

"I can not speak of lies nor do I need to project a false state of truth like you wear." She lifted a hand pointing a finger back and forth at both of us. "As you both do. You have a body of beating flesh and blood, but there is something wrong with you beyond a simple death. Why is that?"

Her curiosity was of no small matter, if I did not answer her inquiries then the likelihood of her following along to collect clues was growing by the second as we took one another in. My earlier thought of confining her was whipped clean from my mind. Removing a ghost did not fall under murder jurisdiction, it was at times seen as a favor to the community, but that same community would be at a right to press charges if they favored the long interacted with existence. We were under disguise and had already received a fair amount of attention due to her tagging along. If nothing big happened during the crowns retrieval then no one would ever have to know that the two strangers that vanished alongside a ghost, her return not guaranteed, had ever even passed though vampire territory in order to take the little-known path to Necropolis. We wouldn't be returning here once retrieval was completed, so the possible backlash of getting rid of Fransia? Minimal. Now, about the method of disposal.

I took a step forward at her sudden step back. Her wide-eyed gaze, shifting enough to make her brows come together slightly, her mouth parting as her hands fanned out at her sides. If I had to pick the closest name for her frozen face, it would be uneasy. She brought a hand up to one of her forearms, ghostly fingers gripping what might have felt like actual physical flesh under her hold. Her outline shimmered in blue and purple with spots of burnt orange and moldy green. In a flash she had gone from uncaringly bold to alarmingly disquieted. I didn't know what had shifted but she must have had impressive survival instincts if she had managed to go on for so long. Then again, she had followed a hunter, perhaps not knowingly, but knowing enough about the disguise and the oddity that had captured her attention in the first place. So, she had a sense for danger but terrible judgment. I had to act fast before she vanished or worse, returned to her death spot.

"It appears I have bothered you so." She began, but I could just sense the shiftiness from her already, her body becoming more and more transparent as her outline grew. She was trying to get back to her death spot. I just needed a moment to stun her to keep her from vanishing. "I will excuse myself now."

I dropped the ground before she finished speaking, taking a handful of sand and threw it into her disappearing form. A spray of black sand shot out like a spray of water, shimmering red and green and reflective whites. My lips parted as I whispered a word that brought forth a confused look from her before her expression froze in horror and then she let out a silent scream as her back arched unnaturally. Her form solidified back to its most solid form, the glowing outline that had surrounded her glowing a burning white as her soul received a moments shock as I grounded her momentarily to our location. Living beings might not be able to grasp onto those no longer on the same plane but that made of earth and mana was the essence of all existence. I had until the final glimmering sand within her solidifying stunned being was expunged to get ready. Her mouth fell open, eyes popping out of her, the purple shaking as she looked up frazzled and pained. I imagine it had been a long time since she had ever come to feel anything that felt close to pain. A thread of discomfort tried to bury itself within me, but it vanished as soon as it came into existence.

She was dead, I was trying not to be. She was getting into the way and I was going to remove. That was the simplicity of it all, she had lived, in her own way, far more than I had. At least I had hoped so for her sake.

"Job?" Viper called out sharply behind me as I rose from my crouch and walked over to Fransia as the black sand began to float down unnaturally.

"Branch. Now."

She could have been a momentary breeze behind me as her movement felt like a cold blade had been pressed to the back of my neck. Forceful cracking and tearing, a shuddering and crashes rang out from the forest we had just left from before she appeared to my left with a humongous branch in both hands. Her disguise did not hide the sharp focus or menacing aura slipping from her. It looked to be the right size. I placed a hand on the branch and felt the tips of my fingers begin to warm. I looked over to Fransia who had her head turned eerily our way as she recovered from the blow I had dealt to what remained of her spirit. I was not an exorcist, but I knew enough on how to get rid of a haunter, permanently. Slowly she began straightening up, her expression morning from confusion to a true death walker as her human facade of what closely resembles her human form melted from her as the dark shadows under her eyes bleed into a drooping mouth that turned into a black hole. The purple in her eyes over all other colors and bled forth form her eyeballs like veins spreading throughout her face and all visible skin, staining the tips of her fingers a darker shade of purple that resembled a decaying plum.

"Witch," She breathed out in a twisted rapture, pointing a thin finger at me as the corners of a thin, uneven mouth lifted from her face. "What did you do?"

A trail appeared where she dragged her foot forth, taking a shuddering step forward. Viper let out a warning hiss that went ignored. My eyes lingered at the physical proof on the ground. My teeth pressed together for a moment before I took a breath and spoke aloud the ominous cold words that slipped forth from my lips far too easily. I hadn't cast a spell, an actual spell in a long time and although I didn't have grand spirit magic, the steps of what I could do were already in place within my mind. I almost hated the ease with which it came to me. Her head twitched multiple times to the left before it began to turn chin up at an angle that would have killed anyone else with a fixed angular structure.

"Branch of earth, bark of growth, help me bring a lost soul into the arms of ease." The tips of my fingers stung, heating up so much so that they seemingly sunk into the cold, hard bark beneath my touch. I lifted my other hand and held it near to where Viper was holding it, hovering just above her sharpened nails and with, unhesitating movement, sliced at the side of my hand. I brought the leaking wound over to my other hand and let the blood spill over my fingers. A sizzling sound began to sound out.

She took another step forward, both hands in the air as she straightened up halfway, but suddenly bent forward, her waist sticking out as she continued on. Her dark hair fell forward, covering her for a moment in a curtain of darkness. Vipers hiss faltered for a moment, the branch in her hold made a creaking sound as her hold tightened. A parting opened, a throbbing, disturbing purple eye stared out, a creepy dark smile beneath it. I doubled on my focus as I glared at him, ignoring the agonizing burning sensation at the tips of my fingers. Cutting them off would give immediate relief, but so would getting this spell over with.

"Hey, hey, witch, what did you do? Why do I feel?" It was sickening, her beautifully haunting voice was now too sweet, lost was the melancholy that spoke of wisdom and age, replaced with a childlike wonder of innocence. It was sickening when her expression was that of paused violence.

I only had to hold on for a little longer as my blood made quick movement of seeping into the tree, following the pathway my magic had created as it spread and mixed with the natural mana the branch had come into contact during its birth and growth within the forest. Cracks sounded off as bark fell to the ground, shuddering in Vipers hold as she kept very still. I dug my fingers deeper into the branch, the sizzling turned into crackling spitting sounds, splinters of wood shot out, something embedded itself into my cheek. I grimaced but continued until the sensation of completion arose. A full circle of blending mana. Now I had everything I needed to get rid of Fransia.

"Dark little witchling, odd one, what do you speak into being? What are you doing?" She asked, swinging her head side to side, dragging a leg behind her as if it did not work properly. Drag masks appeared behind her. I moved faster. The branch began to shake and tremble so hard Vipers physical form began to shake with it. The tips of my fingers began to glow a dull yellow.

"Answer me." Fransia's voice dropped the sickeningly sweet tone, a darker, angry nuance taking its place as she lifted her head and stopped where she stood for a moment. There was a charge in the air, a tension as the next moment charged and waited for the first to move.

"Answer-" Something within her snapped as she straightened up, hands hitting into half claws as she looked up through limp dark hair and lunged with one final screech that reverted throughout my mind. "ME!"

The branch exploded within Vipers arms into a sea of ash and magic, shooting past me in four long tendrils that connected into two circles that went around her waist and then the other around her whole being, spinning in opposite directions. I brought my hands forth, holding them out in front of me as I manipulated the magic and casted symbols above her hair. Inhumane sounds and growls bubbled forth viciously form her, she jerked and clawed at the air, her own hair lifting groom he like how we had first come to see her and burrowed into the flesh of her hair, pulling and ripping into her like small cuts that bled a dark inky substance.

"Will that hold her?"

"No," I took a step forward. Fransia began feverishly attempting to break free, her finger slipping through the ash as if it were the ghost and she were the solid form. "It's going to extirpate her."

"Witch of death, witch of doom, walker of shadows!" She threw her head back, her neck snapped at the force as she continued in a garbled voice. "There is something wrong with you, what is it? What is it? Tell me, what is it? Hmm?"

Her death must have been so violent she had taken a healthy form to preserve some of her sanity, but even her malice and words did not cast the illusion of a maddening ghost. She knew I would remove her and so without means of escape, she asked what had led her to this very situation. No, she was not lost at all. It was a pity her curiosity had brought her to this ending. I suppose the best I could do in this moment, the most amount of respect I could grant her was to make her passing a painless one. I repeated the word I had first used to stun her. With a gasp she went rigid and silent, eyes widening in that same caught off guard dazed look. Her mind would remain blank for only a few seconds. That's all I would need.

"Being of wonder, spirit of lost, return to the earth with the soul that you might have lost." I chanted. I could not exercise her soul, but this was the closest I could get to purifying her and removing her from the world. She would be reborn anew as some natural earthly source. A tree, a flower, a wave in the sea.

The ashes began to spin so fast, particles broke off, and seemingly floated as if time had slowed around her, the symbols from my mind's eyes burning a bright red. She remained frozen with one arm stretched out above her, another at her waist trying to claw at the circle at her waist, her face blank before her form began to dim and break away like mist dispersion at a strong breeze. Piece by piece she floated away but was brought into the ash circles around her, consumed and claimed until there was nothing left of her to show. I brought my hands together, the tips of my fingers still glowing a dull yellow, they trembled. As my hands met the circles stilled. Goodbye Fransia, I whispered within my mind before separating my hands, fingers wide. The ash separated in a silent explosion, the circles gone from sight, but the symbols remained red hot, I waved a hand above them as if erasing them from the air, each finger that came over them lost its glow as the magic died off. I walked over and ran my foot atop of the prints and drag marks she had left until random mounds and dips remained. A plane surface would have been more suspicious, a clear erasure. But how had she managed to make physical marks? I only called out to stun her soul, so how had this come to be? Was it me or her? If it was neither her nor I, was it the magic? A problem for later.

Hmm, we would leave tracks as well walking but so long as no one came to investigate, they should be gone in a day or two. Casting wind mafic would help erase our steps but such a large net would leave traceable mana. Not that what happened here wasn't a clue enough. So long as this spot remains mundane, it should be fine. I stared at the nothing that remained for a beat of a second before turning to Viper.

"Let us go, there's no time to linger." I tuned and began making our way down the silent beach. It was too eerie to be a peaceful walk despite the silence. It almost felt dizzying, walking on the black sand because everywhere I looked in my mind it felt equivalent to walking in the night sky, the stars at my feet. Like a mirror image of what the sky should be but whenever I looked up, the sky was as dark as the ocean moving about behind us. I could feel the weight of Viper's eyes on me, the growing questions weighing heavier than the sand at my feet.

I did not like this silence, Viper was always talkative in some way, so if she was not speaking now then that only led me to believe she was, in some way judging me after what she had come to see. She was not like Venom, her observation always proved to be too...accurate. If this small glimpse of action shifted her opinion on me then what? What would come to be of our dynamic that had seemingly come to a peace? I did not want her to come to dislike me, but even the acceptance of such a thought was uncomfortable. Why was I surrounded by so many issues that were easily solvable logically, but that entangled me in a complex snare of emotional existence. Being cold and unfeeling was easier to deal with, I was aware of what reactions were appropriate even if they did not rise to the surface, but I was at liberty to move on. With all of these sensations of unease and worry it made me feel as if I were doing more than just moving along with plans and schemes. I was reacting. I was feeling. It was as if I were actually present and living. I did not know what to make of it all. It...frightened me.

"Ask." I said out loud.

"What did you do?"

"Removed her existence as a ghost, she will most likely be reborn as some natural existence that comes from the ground." It was a gray area of killing, but forcing one to move on, in their existence, was not necessarily a bad thing.

"What was that word that you used at the beginning, it froze her when she began to disappear and silenced her at the end." Her inquisitive questions were welcomed since they did not sound to come from a place of disapproval, but she was a good actor, but she would have no reason to lie to me. I wondered if that conclusion came from a place of logic or hopeful belief.

"I don't know the language of the dead, but there are a few words I am familiar with. I used the one I knew to be used for momentarily stunning the soul, it works on any creature within the focus of the one who speaks it, but more so best on beings that were once human."

"You stunned her soul..." She repeated under her breath pensively. My shoulders tightened; I rolled them back to relax them. I stared off ahead, looking over the rock wall that was becoming more easily distinguishable. "I've never seen you cast magic before."

"It's not my area of expertise, but I can create similar but weaker spells to the original. Any other witch would have been able to do so without the help of nature's supplement and an offering." I looked down to the cut on my hand and reached for the pouch and pulled out the backpack, rummaging for a healing potion before placing the empty bottle back into the backpack. The skin healed but the dried blood remained.

"Yes, I remember you telling Harper about Debrouh's way of casting spells." Her words were drawn out, like she was stalling. "I'm more interested in her reason for following you. What do you think she meant by all of that?"

"A ghost's state of mind is undependent-"

"Don't insult me like that Mykela." Her tone was a whip, her words flew out quick against my rigid back. Each word clinging to me until my steps come to a halt. "She did not seem to be deluded since she actually made sense to me. You and I both know there's something you're not speaking on. Even Harold said to ask you if we wanted to know about how you could even have a chance at dealing with a true death. So do not, insult me like that."

The pain of my teeth digging into my lip wasn't sharp enough to distract me from the hollow ache that spread, the heated, uncomfortable and disparaging sense of shame. The mountain loomed ahead, shaded by the night's existence, but it could have been a part of the night as far as I was concerned at that moment. I wish my mind had gone blank even if for a moment as I swallowed harshly, my eyes stinging. I didn't mean to insult her, I didn't mean to lie, to evade and misdirect her into believing I slighted her on purpose. Yet, that was all I seemed to do to those around me. The only two around me. When had I stopped talking, actually speaking? Conversing and wondering what went on behind the minds of those I was acquainted with instead of calculating and deliberating on how to move ahead of any plans I believed they so strongly had?

"I apologize if I offended you." Could she hear the sincerity despite how easily the apology rolled from my tongue, the distant and unwelcoming robotic voice that spoke it? I think even Fransia had sounded livelier when she spoke. Even her voice had inflicted and stirred emotion at the sound of it.

". . .I didn't call you out because I wanted an apology." There was a sigh behind me despite the terse tone. I stared off blankly but feeling anything but that. "I've always hated that about you, you know. How easily you apologize, like it means nothing to you."

"Because it doesn't." I didn't mean to respond to that but it was too late to take the words back. She paused before walking around me to stand in front, a soft glare in place that demanded an explanation. Now I was the one who signed.

Walking around her I continued on but answered her as truthfully. I did not know what to make of the stir of questions, all for me, that were brought on so suddenly, but I felt it a deception of self to pretend as if they had been conjured from nowhere. They had most certainly come from somewhere, but it was the acknowledgment of their existence that brought the attention of the crack that had formed. I did not know the exact moment, but my wall had weakened, and it was never to be as strong as it had once been. I didn't have it in me. The effort to keep it up felt as daunting as the fight I was giving to keep it from crumbling around me. I just hoped that when it came crashing down, I was the only one brought to my knees from the rubble.

"I do not mean to say that apologizing means nothing to me, that is not true. When I am wrong, I can accept that, not always in the moment but when I come to see the reality of my error I can." The night air began to lower in temperature, the sand at my feet became more solid, like walking on mud that was solidifying slowly. "What I meant was that it means nothing, the ease of which you seem to detest. I lose nothing in doing so."

"That's why I hate it." I glanced at her peculiar tone, but she had turned away from me. "You do it like it's natural. There's no fight, no reluctance, no embarrassment, no regret, not even a hint of humiliation to admit your wrong even in moments when you don't have to give one."

"Sometimes submission can be a form of apology." I argued. It was a type of respect, was it not? To throw one's pride, if it remained in any form of existence, away. What was an apology when in the wrong, compared to a cruel punishment for proving to another that being right was a victory?

Her head jerked over to me, violet-pink eyes hard, her face scrunched up and lips curled as she jabbed a finger in my direction. "You don't even hear the wrongness of what you say-"

Ah. It was odd, the moment. We were in a way arguing, but also not. My lips curled upwards, but it wasn't a straining smile, I recognized the type of smile I wore by the lack of strength put into the muscle of my face. It was a tender smile. I shook my head at once.

"I understand how it might come across, but it really doesn't bother me-"

"Because they beat it out of you!" She nearly shouted at me, I did not need to hear her hiss to feel it, the threat and vibrations filling the space between us. The words went through me as a subtle shift took place at her words. "You've a smart woman, despite what you've lived through you've managed to keep an insanely rational head on your shoulders which is what makes this all the less believable. Why? Why do you continue to just-" she waved her hands over me roughly in a frustrated gesture.

"What? Why do I, what?" I probed carefully, neither curious nor caring. All those bubbling and bothersome emotions from earlier had vanished as if they had been an illusion of smoke magic, a passing storm far from my recollection of memories. Not important when bigger ones wish to rise. A checkered floor, knees aching, my hands pinned to the icy floor by frozen flesh and torn-bloody skin. A shadow looming over, fast words filled with rage. "Go on, ask your question."

I always apologized when I was wrong and yet I always had to apologize when someone else was right. Gabriel didn't like to be proven wrong. There was little to gain in either circumstance but always a lesson, a lesson on cruelty and how easy things like self-pride and ego fell away. Layers scraped from the surface until all that remained was an understanding that when there was nothing kept, nothing could be taken away because there was nothing to lose. Yet now that she was prodding and poking at me, what was this shimmering, steaming rage reaching for my control? I was not usually so easily provoked by Vipers unsubtle jabs. My knuckles popped as I squeezed my fists tighter, my chest lifting quickly as I tried to take calming breaths. Unsettled by the mess of my emotions I turned away from her. This was why I knew the best choice for me was to break the bond. I was not the person they wished me to be or even the person they thought me to be. Whoever she was, was but a sliver of who I kept hidden.

"Let us focus on the reason we are here for, yes?"

Neither of us said anything to the other but the silence spoke of busy minds at work. My bottom lip felt lumpy, teeth marks leaving indentation marks from all of the times I bit into it to keep the overwhelming words that wanted to just leave me from spilling out. Although they wanted to leave me, I knew not what I would come to say. My head was warm, fog at my crown, a heavy and unsettling, sickening sensation. My lips left heavier than usual, and the adventure had only just started. I rubbed at the tips of my fingers, but the sensation was vague. When I looked down at them, I caught the shaking and balled my hands loosely. It would go away soon, I promised myself. Scanning around in case unwelcomed night walkers came forth helped distract me from the momentary troubles, but soon we came to the dip that signaled the end of the beach. The sand had long ago lost its power jewel like glimmer and now only clustered and cracked black sand hardened over time remained in front of what was a dried small stream bed. Crossing over it I paused in front of the rock wall that made this side of the mountain, with the natural blending of earth and rock, the cave openings were like slits into the wall the closer we got rather than the large openings that showed when one was standing farther away, but there was another discovery upon closer inspection.

"Which one?" Viper asked, looking around just as I was. The looming tip of the mountain had hidden the new openings that were spread out all around what I had previously thought to be an obvious opening.

My hand came up to my forehead, rubbing roughly as I closed my eyes and tried to recall the one time I had come here. It must have been luck or chance that I found the cave opening that led directly to the Necropolis road because this was a nightmare, and we would best turn around and head back before we tried every cave opening and pathway. It appeared as if at some time the wall had caved in some parts, cracked in others or had been struck by something fairly large. From what I recalled, it had felt strangely straight forward but there had been a definite curve to the left, but the exit had felt like a right, the pathway rather than a straight-ahead route. I dropped my hand and looked over at Viper.

"I don't suppose you see a glittering red road from where we're standing?" She was trying to figure out if I was being serious. "No?"

She turned away from me when I continued to wait for her answer and looked around with slow precision. She would be able to see anything better than I, while she did that I tried to recall the landmark between the three main caves. To the left or the right?

"I don't see anything, but there are definitely things about in some of those caves. Which we will most certainly not be going into. Let me be clear, we will not be taking those caves into consideration, considering them nonexistent." She pointed over her shoulder and then motioned to two more in front of me.

"I'm almost certain we have to go right." I started seriously looking over her shoulder for a moment before refocusing on her dropping expression.

"Seriously?" She muttered, eyeing me almost imploringly to take my statement back. Ghosts and bugs, duly noted, she was not a fan.

"There won't be anything in there that you won't be able to handle or that can kill you." Making her uncomfortable was an entirely different matter for her to deal with.

"Why don't we try one of the quieter caves first? It's been so long that things might have shifted about." She brought her hands together and pointed over my shoulder with false eagerness. I crossed my arms over my chest. She straightened immediately, face fierce. "You first."

"That was always the plan." I shook my head and passed her. It was a while before I heard her steps behind me and even when I glanced over my shoulder, she was following at a distance she had not kept while we had been on the beach. I reminded myself calling her a chicken out loud would most likely end with me getting my knees getting kicked in from behind.

The entrance of the cave was exceptionally wide and the visibility of the ceiling to floor would only last for the first five steps. Already I could tell, even without Vipers better senses that there is something or even multiple something moving about but all were beginning to quiet down. I tried not to pull a face as I stared off into the cave. It wasn't that I had any large aversion to bugs as it appeared Viper did, but I had to admit the sounds of multiple things squirming and rubbing against each other made my ears itch. It shouldn't have been possible. Something rubbed against my back, I jumped to the side in a flinching leap and spun around with wide eyes. Viper's violet-pink eyes widened for a moment before she gave me an accusatory glare that had me looking to the side.

"See, even you don't want to go in." She was accused of putting it off. I brushed nothing off of my shoulder, secretly trying to get rid of the creepy sensation her brushing up on my shoulder brought on.

"It's not called 'Critters Cove' for nothing, there's bound to be something in any cave we venture into, we might as well face it head on." I pointed out defensively. "Do you see anything now that were at the entrance-"

"I'm not looking, it's bad enough being able to hear them all from here." Her hands came over her ears as she shut her eyes and shuddered dramatically. My jaw dropped.

"Seriously?" I asked and immediately had deja vu. I groaned and turned away from her and reached for my backpack and began pulling out what would be needed. I ignored her as she stuck her head over me, peering in.

"Please tell me there's bug spray in there."

I made a snappish sound and she pulled away with both hands raised muttering 'okay, okay, my bad'. Three marble sized fire orbs, two hand daggers, bug repellent spray Viper didn't need to know about just yet a handful of sensitive poison beads I placed in my pockets with weary caution. As I closed up my backpack and looked over at Viper's slowly hardening but no less disgusted expression I pondered for a moment. I threw my bag over my shoulder.

"Give me your bracelet." I held out my hand, she did so quizzically. As soon as she took it off her appearance went back to normal, well almost completely.

Her skin darkened to her natural onyx complexion as she turned into a live shadow at the entrance of the cave, long limbs and towering height reappearing but because she still wore the hair pin in place, with its magic still in place her silhouette became blurred and fuzzy. I flipped over the bracelet and looked it over and then to her before removing my own and clasping the ends together to make a longer chain. Rubbing the pad of my thumb over it I brought it to my lips before touching it to my throat. Beneath my thumb the chain warmed slightly before cooling. I checked on the two circles that were engraved before I tossed it back to her.

"Wear it around your neck now."

"Why?"

I paused, looked off to the side with a small smile before answering not at all casually. "It will contain your scream when the moment comes."

"Ha ha," I shrugged. Her tongue flicked out quickly once, twice as she stared from necklace to further in the cave before she signed and put it on. "This better be the damn cave because I'm only doing this once."

It was rare for me to be wrong. Rare but not impossible as we soon came to learn. One hour later we were back at the entrance of the cave, beaten but not bloody, well bloody but not ours and so that was a win. I stood very still at Viper's proximity, her rapidly lifting chest pressed to my back as she continued to glare down at me with rapid breaths and rage filled black eyes that almost impossibly looked to have multiple rings of red in them. Wet splats dripped eerily around us. Some coming from the ends of my back, most coming from her drenched locks and my blades. Slowly, I brought my hand up and whipped at the goo over my nose. The stench wasn't so bad, but the thickness of it made it hard to breathe. The silence behind us was deafening, compared to what we had been forced to work through. Bugs screamed, who knew? I tried turning my head to the side but found two pairs of eyes already positioned there, head bent at an unnatural angle, her neck not physiologically correct for the anatomy she usually maintained. Freezing my eyes dashed away at the sight. I waited two heartbeats before peeking back. Nope, she was still there.

"Whu-Wha -" I cleared my throat weakly. "W-Why don't you choose the next cave?"

"Oh?" A malicious, distorted voice responded back silkily. Instinctively my heart stuttered before taking off as if it knew the real danger had never been within the cave and was more than near.

"I can apologize-" I continued despite the snarl like hiss that left a fan of warm air at the crown of my head. "If that would make you feel better?"

"It would not." I imagined so.

"At least the necklace worked." I tried to muster as much enthusiasm as I could. "Nothing else came running at us when we started fighting so it's likely that they won't try to bother us no matter which one we enter."

It was like she was trying to burn a hole into my skull. I wasn't all too thrilled to have wasted all the travel time, having to kill all that moved- more so because centipedes the size of school buses shouldn't be able to lunge- only to come to a dead end. I would never admit it to her, but for that split second that we stared at the dead end and understood that we would have to go back through the big corpses, I had genuinely thought she was going to strike me down then and there. Cold sweat had even begun to bead around my upper lip. The walk back, me first, as she had said in the beginning, was not something I wished to ever repeat again. I wonder what Venom would have said at the sight of us? He wouldn't have managed to remain so put together and cleaned up. It was a shame- wait, what am I on about? There's no time to waste.

"Ok, I'm sorry but either you choose next, or I do." I took a step away from her and when she didn't end me then and there the next few were easier to take. If they were taken a little hastily and at a slight jog, then it was from the desire to get along with our slow-moving plan.

Tentatively watching her out of the corner of my eye, she stood still before letting out a long breath and made her way down to the direction of her choosing. Looked like we were headed to the middle cave. She could actually be right since this one did show the characteristic markers of an older opening. If she got smug about choosing correctly, I'd let her enjoy it without complaint.

"I will get even." She murmured ominously. Great.

"Ok." I answered evenly.

"You owe me."

"I do."

"You could have just listened to me." She continued.

"Yes."

"The cave I'll choose will probably be the correct one."

"I hope so."

A moment's pause before her next words came out with less hostility. "...about that scream..."

"I won't tell him." I promised at once. My lips quirked up.

"You better not."

I was close to exhaustion, my clothes stuck to me in a drenched and heavy layer that reeked of filth of the worst kind and there was a bug leg stuck to the side of my shoe. I scraped it on the ground and kicked it away from me, hands bracing on my knees as I tried to catch air. My knees were weak, but that was more so from the ache at my thighs, my calves on fire from all the kicking. Viper was on the ground in fetal position, her back to the cave as she stared at me with blank eyes. She wasn't much better off. The sleeves of her clothes were shredded from the elbow down, and one of her backpack straps was useless.

"...are we even now?" I wheezed out, my stomach turned for a moment. I closed my eyes and worked through the nausea. I wasn't sure when we would change, but it would be soon. It had to be. Oh, God we smelled wretched. I opened my eyes at her snort.

"Oh, we were even five giant roaches in." She jolted up, black eyes staring at me in incredulous. "Those fuckers are everywhere! Why are they such a thriving species? And why were they bright pink?!"

"That was a bit distracting."

I nodded before she was finished speaking and looked back towards the cave of horror. Unlike the centipedes, these bugs were harder to work through and since they seemed more interested in eating their fallen brethren, we had to make a run for it on the way back out. It was a sea of roaches, a giant pink sea. Their eyes were pretty too, a darker shade of pink, but it wasn't fun when it dawned on me that it was not the red carpet but a lighter shade that moved, crawled and ran at us. I looked at my pant leg. Did roaches have rabies? Did it matter if I was already dying? I think I would be livid if I managed to break the curse only to die because I had gotten rabies from a pink bug. Then again, it did seem like my type of luck.

"That," I came back to the present. "Was it distracting? Why am I even asking? It's her, of course it was." She looked off to the side like she was talking to someone before turning back to me. I frowned before discarding it.

"Well, third one's the charm, right?" I straightened, ignoring the pang of pain that ran through my leg and straight to my back and offered her a hand.

"If there are spiders in there I swear-" her eyes shut as she gritted her teeth.

"If there are, we can blow the whole mountain away." It might happen more so by an accidental reaction rather than careful planning, but there was no need to clarify that small correction.

"Deal?" She took my hand, eyeing me with a slow growing smile.

"Deal." I pulled her up.

Viper had declared this cave to be our best option when we first entered it, stating the lack of sounds were promising but I think the two caves had been experienced enough for her to not let her guard down. Her claws were out at her sides, pointed and sharpened, ready for anything that came out from the dark with a half-determined look in place. I kept my daggers in my hands, the first fire orb at least a mile away from us to lure anything that might chase it away from us and the second one illuminating in front of us with the last one hovering above us. There was nothing peculiar about the cave thus far, the terrain was mundane, but our path was more intertwined and twisted then the other two.

"So far, so good." Viper muttered, taking a step closer to me now that nothing appeared but we occupied the cave.

"Don't jinx us." I squinted ahead, there was something different ahead, but I was unable to make out what it was.

"Oh," Viper suddenly murmured, surprised, her hands dropped to her side as her shoulders relaxed. "You weren't kidding. Red road, in coming."

At the sound of that I took off, jogging forward with trust in my senses and that if anything were to come up ahead Viper would warn me. She had saved me from getting impaled by a roach leg. I jumped over a few large boulder walls that stuck out from the sides, then my eyes could make out what had changed that I could not make out from further away. The light, a brilliant white had started to take on a red hue from around the edges, as a result of the brilliant red rubies that shone in sudden light. A smile of relief came over me as a strain of stress I had been holding on to vanished. I had been worried the path had changed or had, in the worst-case scenario, vanished from existence as could happen at times. I stopped and looked around.

The rubies were on the ceiling of the cave, spread out and of multiple sizes and shapes, but the fascinating and unique thing about their existence was that they gleamed black and foggy, but gleamed like bright rubies on the ground like a reflective mirror on uneven ground. I took a step forward where the ruby road began. It was like stepping on the sand from the beach, it shimmered red. I looked above me, and further down to see if any anomaly might be hiding above our heads. Just because this road proved to be true did not encourage me to lower my guard. Viper reached above her head, her fingers skimming on the surface of the gems, they rippled like water, the ground below casted a ripping rainbow where her fingers loomed above, but our shadows did not exist, only our steps spoke of our existence between the ceiling and the ground.

"This world has some terrible and skin crawling things. I'm sure we'll also run into things that make me wish we were back in the other world, but there are marvelous and wondrous things here." Her voice was soft, showing how captivated her attention was by this all. I wonder what her eyes caught that mine missed?

I stared off ahead of us, but not seeing it as it was as my mind wandered freely for a moment. She was not wrong, this world was difficult and painful most of the time, but there were places and moments, sights and sounds so beautiful just the memory of them, the feeling of a moment could bring forth tears pushed forth from the depth of the driest souls.

"Yes, there are."

We were rightfully cautious the further in we ventured into the cave, despite or perhaps because of the lack of sound and attacks coming forth, the deeper in we made it the more alert we became, but when we came to a sharp bend my past memory overlapped with the road we took and I relaxed, knowing we were on the right path. If anything came forth, we would just have to fight it off to make it out. Whether it was fortunate or not, depended on which of the two was asked, but the silent trip allowed for more than just weary eyes and alert ears. My mind was a lot more active than the cave and it was impossible to push back what I knew could be pondered over freely at the moment.

Venom. What was I to do about Venom? It wasn't the first time I was put up before a difficult choice, but logically I knew it shouldn't have felt difficult. I shouldn't be feeling as if it was like trying to decide if I wished to keep my flesh over my bones. It made no sense, yes there was...companionship, care, interest and? And what? Was I unsure of what to label these feelings or was my lack of word choice one brought from a reluctance to give these emotions a proper title? I was good at ignoring my own emotions, but in order to choose correctly I would have to stand before those very emotions I ignored so willingly and suddenly I felt pity for my two long time companions as I recognized getting an honest emotional response from me was like pulling teeth from a tiger. I made a sound, a derisive snort that made Viper throw me a questionable look which I just shook my head harshly to, my face hardening as I turned away. I glared at the walls.

The easy answer was to remove the bond, rid myself of the curse and go our own ways, each free to do with their lives as they wish. That was the easy answer, I wouldn't have to risk an uncertain true death that might just push me to an accidental early death that I might awaken to in worse circumstances if anything were to go wrong. Yet the easy answer felt like the wrong one. I didn't feel such strain when thinking of trying out the true death option then when I thought of removing Venom from my side? Was it a selfish thing on my part? When I was certain he would want the same as well? I did not want to use hi as an excuse for my own choice, it would be a cowardly thing to do when he was always so upfront about his feelings to me and regardless of what we choose to do at the end, I had to believe that if we made the choice being as honest as we could to ourselves and one another, then what happened was meant to happen.

So why did my eyes sting as my stomach hollowed and dropped, my heart thudding in my ears as webs of sadness clung onto me like I was a step away from entering grief? I cleared my throat as I rubbed at my chest, shuddering as my hand came into contact with the sensitive and growing wound at my chest. The pain flashed across my mind like a streak of lightning, blinding me in all of the senses for a moment, long enough to have me miss my next step. Although I could not see, my mind and eyes were still blinded. I lunged out to right myself but there was no need for that when there were two arms already around me. I was upright at once and then I was sitting on the ground with Viper looking over me as her eyes scanned over me, an unbreakable hold around the hand that had made to claw at my chest.

"What is it? What hurts?" She asked nearly frantically as she grew closer. I tugged at my hand, her eyes flicked over to my hand and then to my face, sharply looking my expression over. Something trickled down my brow. Slowly, her hold over my hand grew, until it was enough for me to pull it out from her and scoot back as I turned away and began dipping into my bag.

"Myk-"

"I'm fine." I inhaled sharply, half sure of what I was looking for, while I pulled myself back together. "I'm fine." I had to be. I would be in a minute or two as soon as I had what I needed.

Finally, my hands wrapped around something that felt instinctively right in all of my search. Uncapping the bottle I drank heavily from the bottle, shoving it back in and staring at the wall ahead of me patiently. It took a moment, but a numbing sensation spread outwards from where the liquid traveled, sinking into all the wounds and sore muscles, but most of its potency went to my chest. I waited a bit more for it to remove the hollowness that continued to exist, to remove the weight from my shoulders but when it all remained, I knew the potion had reached its maximum potency. I could go on with the strains and the pain that came from this trip, but I did not want to spend a moment longer in this sensation of loss-

"You are not fine." My eyes squeezed tightly for a moment at the terse low voice behind me. I zipped the bag shut quickly, half turning to glare over my shoulder.

"Viper we really don't have time-" My excuses halted in my throat at the sight of the pitch-black eyes staring at me, wide and ominous, a face as hard as the black rubies above us. Viper stood still with her hands at her sides but there was no mistaking the stillness of a predator waiting to strike. I was on thin ice.

"We've never had time, how shocking." The bite in her tone was unquestionable, as were the elongated fangs, she pointed a sharp finger my way. "Well, guess what? We're about to start multitasking."

I said nothing and waited. She was riled up, more so than her usual unhappy but cranky way, this was genuine anger and by the way her hands opened and clenched, fingers wiggling around as if she were unsure of how to hold still, she was uneasy as well. A different pang hit me then.

"You're falling apart, I know you don't want to admit that, or even hear it right now but you are. Venom is barely holding on and I don't even know what to expect from him if this goes badly because we've never gotten this far, and I don't know what to do while I watch the two of you tiptoe around each other like you aren't scared of what's to come. So no," Taking a step forward she crouched down until we were face to face, a deeply etched scowl in place as she stared me directly in the eyes, conveying her unwavering feelings stronger than her words. I recognized the emotions she was trying to hide behind those inky pools of rage and frustration. I knew them well. "You are not fine and I'm not about to stand here and enable this behavior by pretending like you are. Don't want to talk about it, fine, but don't for a second think your as slick as you think in hiding the cracks starting to show up."

We stared at one another, her ink black eyes wider than a human, her face blurred of specifics as her deep gaze dared me to look elsewhere, but even without looking away I knew that the harsh lines and curled lip where nothing in comparison to the glare she held, but that too was nothing behind the facade. Buried under the rage and frustration, I recognized the fear that gripped her, the wild reckless abandon that tried to claw itself out to do something, anything other than to remain in the wait for something to happen before it was too late. I looked down.

"I understand-"

"Do you really?"

I did not respond as quickly as I could have, thinking it over again before I answered. She was asking for more than just the situation of it all, I think it was about the complexity of the links we all had. There was more than just a bond between her brother and me, Viper was a part of this as much as he was and what impacted him hurt her as well. My hands balled up tightly around the strap of my backpack. I did not wish to hurt anyone, not if I could avoid it and not when it came to the two of them. I had so much to pay them back for, but being around me would bring them nothing else but misfortune as it had done so far, holding them back in life, but if they did not see it as I did then was I wrong to remove myself at all? She stood up swiftly and turned away from me as she walked off. Silently I grabbed the bag, adjusted it on my back and made my way after her. We didn't speak until we reached the end of the cave, but the whole walk felt like the splendor of the cave took from us the walls we held around our issues as payment for such a view. I was yet to decide if it was worthy a price.

For all the trouble that it was to find the cave, the road was relatively peaceful and almost direct. Once we got to the opening, or rather once Viper let me know that she could make out sounds coming up ahead, I felt myself harden once more for what was to come, pushing back everything that wanted answers, but this time it felt as if phantom fingers shoved at issues that licensed for now, but not for long to be dealt with.

We came from out of the ground, not a mountainside. In fact, there were no mountains looming here, just tall skyscraper-like trees with thinly spread-out branches. Some were dark and light purple trunks with pale yellowing leaves, others orange trunks with black leaves bouncing about in the wind. The colorings are verified but every tree looked too similar, the amount of branches and leaves the same amount, the position of the branches and the movement of them when the wind ruffled through the leaves identical. It could have been eerie, it should have been, but there was nothing in the immediate air to cast doubt and that alone told me we had much to be cautious about. The ground was covered in wet hay, small rocks over red dirt, but there were larger rocks about every now and then, leaning against a tree, round form on top but with a sharp line going through, like a scar. Every rock looked the same but was not the same color or positioned similarly. As far as my eyes could see, there were just trees, spaced far away from one another, rocks and hay, but there was a thin amount of fog coming from the afternoon sky, bleeding from the sky and blending into the forest's background.

It should have been dark, like nighttime sky from when we had entered from Critters Cove, but here it could have been late afternoon, the air thin, but the sky a light stormy blue that borderline gray with red streaks of red-rustic clouds stretched throughout the sky. We came from the ground, a literal hole opening that led up. Viper pulled me up easy enough with one hand as she looked around with fast blinking eyes. My brows came together before I looked around and took everything in.

"Do you see color?" Viper hissed beside me, rubbing at her eyes for a moment before spinning around. I pondered her question before understanding that this was a visual issue for her rather than a physical threat, she was seeing that I wasn't took root.

"Somewhat. More shades and blends then solids. What do you see?" I reached back and unzipped the front pocket of the backpack before pulling out the map for the area. Even I would be a fool to walk around with the belief that nothing had changed in all my time gone from this world. I had to check to see what, if anything had settled in the area and then in which direction Necropolis was in.

"Various shades of grainy gray and blue, some white here and there. There is something seriously wrong here, the other place was quiet but here, there's sound but nothing that sounds...lively." She spoke the word like it was her last choice of description. I paused, looked at the map for a moment before answering her.

"That most likely has to do with us being close to the city, no rational creature would choose to dwell that close to the dead and so the creatures that do most likely have morphed into some other being with a body closer to a phantom than a solid form. As for the colors you see," I shrugged. "You can't expect everything to be lively."

"Haha." She muttered blinking twice one more before making a frustrated sound but ceased to blink so often. Instead, she just glared. At the trees. The rocks. Me. The ground. I focused back on unfolding the map.

Yes, most creatures would not think it sane to live so close to the city of death when there were other thriving places to hunt in and grow their numbers, but for every lively creature, a solitary, and questionable one came to exist and it was for their very peculiar existences that I scanned the map in look for a clue as to who had made this place its dwelling. I held it from the top before tapping it at the center twice. It shimmered at the center before like fireworks it exploded on the page, gold scattered to the corners of the page before wiggling across and swirling around the blank page as slowly a watercolor picture came to life, a red dot appearing from where we were standing on the map, above in cursive, appeared the forest name. Once the map was done the gold scattered to the four corners and rose as a border. The map mimicked the trees and the feel of this place perfectly as four distinct spots on the map appeared as purple splashes before they were replaced by a heavily inked drawing of a flame, all in their own colors. At the bottom of the map a box with the color definitions appeared.

"Wivineslls Forest," I murmured feeling Viper peer over my shoulder to get a good look. "Looks like we have company here." I motioned over to the green fireball that was the farthest away from us. Just because something was far did not mean it couldn't get to you.

"Does that say 'Hellhound'?" If I didn't know Viper, I could have confused their tone for one of concern, but I knew her and I also knew what her repressing excitement sounded like. I watched her play off her interest, but nothing hid the way her eyes gleamed.

"Those aren't that bad, what we have to keep an eye out for is the Weaver." I motioned to the green flame again but noticed her eyes scanning the description below.

A few packs of Hellhounds that most likely like living outside the city rather than inside over dominance disputes, a few goblin tribes, an unidentified reaper and a waver. I was more worried about the last one then all of the other ones together if I was honest. Wavers were not to be trifled with, they weren't usually the violent type but anyone who was unfortunate enough to raise their curiosity or displeasure usually found themselves living...oddly. As descendants of Fate, there weren't many around and already too many existing, not all too powerful, but not to be underestimated for how creative they were at bending the rules and manipulating others. I had only met one when I was a child, one coming to the Coven for some business, I'll never forget the eyes that peered from out of the hood. All seeing, all knowing and terribly quiet for someone who just laughed when they stared at me. My father was quick to remove me from the room, but the silent laughter took a while for me to forget about.

"Your concerned about the designer-"

"Weaver-" I corrected immediately.

"Whatever." She waved me off. "You're worried about the stitcher-I don't care- when it says Hellhound, Goblin and unidentified reaper on this page. Why should I be more concerned about the needler when the rest have much more worrying and memorable names?"

"Why can't you remember Weaver?" I stressed, gripping the map tightly around the edges. It sloshed inside as if it were filled with water.

"Why is that more important to you than answering the question? Is it because I'm right and the others are more of a threat?" Her brow lifted up in a challenge as she straightened to look down at me.

"Everything is a threat here, even that rock over there." Her eyes narrowed at my snap. "We'll take the road least traveled and avoid all fights to and from." I emphasized, she looked away with a pout. Seriously, were the bugs not enough of a fight for her or was it because they were bugs that they hadn't counted? The temptation to ask was fizzled out by the reality that anything bug related would make her reaction sensitive.

"Looks like the city is North-west of here and at least a few hours hike. Let's take a break here, don't give me that look I'm on weak human watch when he isn't here and you aren't about to faint on my watch." We stared challengingly at one another until I marched over to a tree and plopped down, shuffling my bag onto my lap.

"Just a moment."

"You're usually all 'let's travel in the darkness'." She reminded me, hands on her hips.

I made a point to look around the forest before raising a brow at her. "I don't know about you, but traveling in the dark in the forest close to the city of death seems like asking for a VIP exclusive membership into becoming a permanent citizen of said death city."

She stared at me unblinking before snapping and pointing at me as she nodded. "Well made point."

She sat down across from me, long legs stretched out as she leaned back on her elbows and looked up at the sky and then around us. I took inventory of my body then and closed my eyes. The potion had numbed most of the aches, but it hadn't actually healed them. I channeled my magic inward to speed up my healing. As that went on, I reached for the bottle of water and took a refreshing sip, not having realized just how parched I was until it flowed down my throat. I tucked my legs in and rested my head on my knees for a moment. I wasn't too tired, but there was an exhaustion seeping from me that felt like it came from out of my bones. My foot began bouncing, a combination of energy and nerves and adrenaline preventing me from seeing this break as a pause. When a sufficient amount of time came to pass, and we were back on our feet I finally felt like we were doing something. I did wonder briefly what Venom and the tower Master could be up to, but I trusted him not to rush into anything unfavorable. He might have been in an uncomfortable position with the choices set before us but that wouldn't be enough to cause a drastic shift in him. I think. An inkling of unease seeped into me, recognition that the time spent with him was the only side of him I knew and Vipers hints of him toing a breaking point jarred me.

Our walk through the forest was a quiet one, from us and the forest itself, beneath our feet the ground barely made sound as our steps left minimal tracks. Usually, such silence would have been taken as a terrible sign of something lurking about, but here I thought of it more like a natural state of being and as the intruders that we were, anything that managed to sneak up on us would be in its right to indulge in its curiosity. Viper, I did not think I shared my opinion. She was uncomfortable, or rather her senses here did not seem to work in her favor, I wanted to ask but I had a feeling it was more than just the shades of the forest that were bothering her, but she was purposefully keeping silent about it as she looked around with sharp eyes and cautious steps, so I kept my mouth shut. I feared saying that luck was on our side as none of the forest residents lingered too far from their home base as we traveled further, but that's what it was starting to appear to be. Which made me uneasy. Usually when things went well, that meant something unexpected was soon to appear and since we had a separate stop to make after we retrieved the crown, I was sure my misfortune was sure to rear its head then. I sighed to myself; it was bound to happen anyway.

I did not have to tell Viper when we reached the end of the forest, or rather in the range of Necropolis. The shift was obvious, trees dried out and withered, leaning over one another, snapped in half as they hung midair, dead leaves swirling around them, the ground in a dark and brittle state as even rocks shook before they came apart like sand and then came back together to repeat the same process of breaking apart. We stopped at the edge of it all. I tucked the map away with one last check to make sure nothing was nearby.

"How sure are you we won't go poof as soon as we step forward, and I swear if you take a step forward to make a point, I will yank you by the hair so fast you will never grow those roots back." My lips pressed together as my left leg untensed, preparing to take a step forward. Her smile was unfriendly and unamused. Fair enough. She shook her head as I looked around, muttering something that was no doubt insulting under her breath.

I found a lively looking branch and broke a part of it before turning back and tossing it past the shifting point. It landed on the ground with a muted thud, but as the seconds passed nothing happened. I made my way back to her side.

"The land looks like this because it's been here for years and it was inevitable that the type of magic the Necropolis uses was bound to seep into the soil and surrounding area, this is a result of years of living so close to undead and unearthed beings. There's no danger until we get to the actual city."

"Which we have to enter to get the crown back," She looked down her nose at me, I stared ahead purposefully ignoring the probing. "Now that we are on that matter, care to share how exactly we, living beings will be entering the city? You've been awfully silent about that."

My hand came up to my backpack strap, tapping it a few times before I shrugged delicately and took a step forward. Ignoring the hiss behind me I continued on.

"That shrug better be a 'leave it to me' and not a 'I'll wing it when we get there' because I can tell you now my plan involves handing a twenty to the first skeleton I see and asking for a favor."

"Money is useless to the dead." I informed her as I imagined her doing that exactly. I wasn't sure if her people skills translated as well with the dead but it would be interesting to see.

"Fine, bone polishing or whatever they want to look well put together."

Perhaps not polishing, but bones were fragile for the first few years of a dead walker's existence, most wanted to protect themselves from being broken or crushed once they regained their thinking. "That might work."

There was lengthy silence behind me before it was interrupted by a disbelieving whisper. "Seriously?"

She didn't see it, but there was a tiny smile on my face. Viper could be adorable at times, but I would never admit to that. I did have a plan, I just did not wish to speak of it just yet, not when I was more than sure we had ears on us. The two trackers from the tower weren't the only gift the tower Master had gifted us. It was fine for now, she knew where we were headed and what we were on the way to do, she need not know more than that.

It was a lot more daunting walking through this desolate and dying forest then it was its natural state. It wasn't the floating dead logs or rotting smell that came from the slowly decaying ecosystem, but that even with everything that lingered mid air, there was little coverage here. If we had felt exposed back there, here it was like walking in the desert with little to hide behind and something could drop from the sky rather than come from underground. Viper had to duck multiple times to avoid hitting floating branches, refusing to touch or push them away. The last thing we wanted to do was cause some magical domino effect that brought everything down.

"When we get to the real border, let me know if you hear anyone around."

"You mean if other people are trying to sneak in like us?"

"Exactly." I squinted ahead of us, a light blue or white glow beginning to peak out like a mountain tip casting everything into a new light. The city star building, the highest point within the city. "The funny thing about the city of death? If you get it in, it's a sanctuary."

"Protection from the living from the dead, huh, I can see that working. Yet, how do you have a life in the city of death?" Desperation for the survival of one's family was strong enough to twist the basic instincts, one had to truly fear something worse than death to leap into the embrace of death for protection.

"If we find someone headed in, you might be able to ask them."

The closer we got to that beckoning light, so bright despite its location, I went over my plan and all of the backups in case anything were to go wrong. The hardest part of this would be convincing Viper to do what I asked of her. She would know I was trying to minimize her involvement as soon as I asked it of her but if I didn't return for whatever reason I had to at least make sure she returned to Venom. It wasn't at all as risky as everyone thought it was, I had hidden the crown somewhere I knew I could retrieve it from. The worst that could happen to me was ending up like one of those decaying floating logs. Not all that different from my current state. I was decaying. Only real difference was that I was walking around. No need for her to risk herself.

The borderline between the start of the city and the land of the living was more drastic than the color bleeding from our surroundings, for the moment we stepped one foot onto the surrounding patch of land that lead to the bridge of Necropolis it felt as if every cell in my body began to vibrate, making me nauseous, the sensation of something in me trying to split, separate and break free blindingly overwhelming. I had the vague notion of my body outline and my spiritual one, the me not made of flesh or anything solid, earthly. The strain my body had grown accustomed to, lifted as a blissful like euphoria filled my mind, my lips curled upwards as my eyes watered in a near gratifying ball of emotion tried to choke me up. I could taste liberation, freedom at my fingertips- an ecstasy so overwhelming and sweet it was what I knew to be real peace and that sensation was not something I was accustomed to feeling despite chasing after such a mindset for so long, snapped me out of the trance more than Vipers quick backhand.

I rubbed at the throbbing skin and moved my jaw around as I turned back to her with a calm expression, she eyed me distrustfully, her hand still raised as if she were ready to try again. "I was snapping out of it."

"Were you?"

"I was." I turned away from her, keeping a careful eye on her slow to lower hand. At least it felt like she held back some.

"What was that?"

I had no defensive answer to her question since the last time I had been around these parts no such thing had taken over me, but I could make a few guesses as to what had just happened, and I was not about to plant another reason for her to worry about me being so close to the city of death. I shrugged carefully and tilted my head back a bit to get a good look at the protruding parts of the city that were now coming into better view.

"Might be a new border defense put up or some enchanting effect to breech minds of those with dishonest intentions-"

"We're both here with dishonest intentions and yet only you got a glimpse of the lord himself?" I gave her a withered look to which she took on with unflinching intensity and observation. I held the recoil back as her expression resembled that of Venom so frighteningly that for a moment, I thought I caught gold specks in her moonless eyes. I inhaled deeply and exhaled with practiced exasperation.

"I'm assuming creatures more susceptible to their mortality are easier to influence then, " I purposely paused, narrowing my gaze on her. "Others of a stronger nature."

She was reading me, measuring my words and trying to put together whatever ideas she had going on, no doubt, but whatever suspicions she had would wait for later since we had something to take care of, but I was on thinner ice with her now more than ever. She stood a decent space from me, but I could feel her suspicion and animalistic instinct to pounce on the first sign of weakness breathing down my neck. She wasn't like her brother; Viper would manhandle me first and then ask questions despite whatever reasonable argument I tried to make. She made me a lot wearier at times since I knew what to expect from her, just not when and that left a lot of room for unplanned accidents.

"Excuses to the side," my lips pressed, but I did not interrupt her. "How are we going to venture into the land of the dead being part of the living ourselves? What's the secret-where is the secret entrance?"

"Do you hear anyone nearby?"

"Only a few heartbeats fifty miles northwest of you. A few scattered around them, a grouping." she paused, nodded to herself before refocusing on me.

"That works fine."

"Are we tagging along?" Her train of thought would have been reasonable, if we really had wanted entrance into the city.

Removing my backpack, I crouched to the ground and began pulling out the few things we would need for retrieval, pocketing a healing vial, well aware that I was being carefully watched and no doubt carefully listened to. Grabbing and handful of ground I began to dig a shallow hole before tossing the bag in and covering it just enough to blend into the dark night. I did not need it to be perfectly hidden for now.

"You too." I stated when she went to ask, after a moment's silence she dropped to her knees and dug faster than I, twice as deep and was patting the ground flat while I dusted my hands. I lifted a finger to my lips and stared at her before picking up my tools and walking away. It was like walking into thick air, pushing against me while the back pushed me forward. Now that I wasn't allowing myself to be influenced by the way of the dead over the living, living was much harder to keep in mind when the air tasted sweet and yet numbing all at once. I imagine a lot of those that wished to make the city a sanctuary ended up becoming citizens on their way in.

I calculated the distance and mentally marked sites to recall where we had left everything before turning. Viper was eyeing the woven chain rope wrapped around my shoulder and waist, the grappling hooks swinging from my belt and the gloves I was clenching.

"Not much to work with." She stared blankly.

The city wasn't just towering over us now, from where we stood, to our eyes it appeared to be floating. There was no floor to the buildings, just never-ending shimmering arches and pointed towers of magnificent builds and design. The creators of the city were classy in taste as far as I could tell. I had seen occupied places better suited for the city of 'death' title than here, but there were bound to be things true to its existence hidden from the plain eye.

"Not much is needed." I replied with the same tone. She crossed her arms, looked over to the glowing city that loomed all the closer and then back to me expectantly. "I meant it when I said that if you wanted to know how to enter you should ask those sneaking in. Truth be told I never did learn the secret to entering Necropolis alive. I didn't have enough time to gain that information and since I only knew what I was allowed to know, asking would have been a dead giveaway." Pun not intended.

"So why say-" she cut herself off. "You lied to Florence." There were more accusations in her silence, her eyes accusing in my omission.

"Not entirely. We are here after all." I motioned with a hand around us, a fake smile plastered in place. "I wasn't sure if the world tree's twig would be enough to help us cross over and I wasn't in the mood to find the answer to that, so I came up with a way that worked best for that moment."

There was something in her long-drawn-out sigh that spoke of exasperation and poked at me funny with annoyance. I huffed silently. We were nearing our destination now. While the city glowed bright and shiny, there was another glow that lacked the luster, the vibrancy and the enchantment that the buildings provided. This glow was dim, but difficult to ignore with its flickering black and green smoke, its shine a dull bronze that rusted over in some parts and its structure a fright powerful enough to kill any traces of life that neared. The veil between life and death was becoming denser as we neared, the air thickening, choking at my throat as I forced it down. The sweetness that had lulled the senses was dispersing as a foil of stickiness clung to my skin with greedy unforgiving desperation, no longer trying to win me over, demanding my life now. My limbs were heavy, but now that my mind didn't have to fight on focusing as much, everything was as clear as it would ever get. I peaked over to Viper to check on her. Outward she showed no distress, but I looked out for any openings.

"Notice how no matter how close we get; the bottom of the city is not visible. Why do you think that is?" Frown lines appeared for a moment before she brushed past me and stopped a large distance away. With her sight I imagine she should have been able to see much more than I, but that also meant she was now aware of what she wasn't seeing before. It wasn't just that the city was further away before.

"All entrances and exits to the city are illusions?" She muttered to herself, her hand coming up to her face as she cupped her chin, finger tapping on her bottom lip. "No, there is definitely something there, but if I can't see it- not for the eyes of the living? Lore then? Hmm."

There was nothing at all similar and yet it was like a phantom sight, something in her stance or herself mumbling, the interest in the issue perhaps that reminded me of Venom. When he found himself interested in reasoning from the unreasonable or poetry and the multiple meanings that could be applied to a single line. I stared at her back, an unfamiliar hollowness filling my chest despite the tightness already there. Unease blossomed in me from a silent seed, a nauseous sensation swirling in the pit of my stomach. Was I worried about Venom or sensing something else? My ears warmed, I looked over my shoulder, nothing stirred behind me, but the sensation continued. Nothing unnerving was alerting me through the bond, and he hadn't closed off his end, but I knew better than to think that could be taken as a good sign. We should hurry.

"Just as the river of Styx exists and the whole 'stairway to heaven', so does this problem." I made my way to her side and kicked out with a foot at the bushes in front of her. Her eyes went wide. She stumbled back. I would have told her to stop if she had gotten too close to the boundary line. "The creators do love their judgment calls."

She leaned in a tiny bit as she stared into the abyss before dark eyes came my way. "L-Light as a feather, stiff as a board?"

I snorted. "That's funny." I looked away, shaking my head as I fought the rising smile. When I turned back, she had the same serious wide-eyed look.

"I wasn't joking."

"I know." That's what made it funny. I peered down along with her, her hand struck out and grabbed the back of my shirt, yanking me back. I glared at her, pushing her hand away. She returned the look with a lifted brow.

"What's the climbing gear for?"

"I was getting to that before I was so rudely interrupted." She gave an unapologetic one shoulder shrug. I neared the boundary line, slowly as she kept a sharp eye on me. I crouched down. "We've got to go down to come up."

Again, she leaned over with a weary look in her fast-roaming eyes as she looked for something within the darkness below.

"I don't see anything down there, what are we going to be landing on? And don't give me a cryptic answer this time." I rolled my eyes but answered her question.

"When I made my way here the first time, I knew that there was something off around the boundary around the city, but no one who headed to the city ever made it out to warn others of the danger of falling over." I gave her a weary smile. "So, of course, I fell over."

"Clearly you made it." She sniffed. "How?"

"Most likely because I was not running, but more likely so, because I did not take a leap of faith." I straightened up. "Most people go through life with a-"

"Here she goes again with her cryptic bull shit-"

"-leap of faith." I continued unbothered. "You don't need that in death as it is the one guarantee at the end of all ends. A prolonged life does not change that. I fell and landed on what I believe might be the judgment ground of Necropolis."

"All I'm hearing is that you want me to step off this firm land and into maybe to land on a maybe to then be judged by who? The city of death? What if my soul gets snatched from my body on impact? What then? Out of the two of us, you've got the fucked up reset button."

I rubbed at my face with my hands, inhaling despite the discomfort. She was right, in her way, but did she have to phrase it as so?

"All who seek entrance into Necropolis must take the same path at the end, regardless of how you get there. We do not have the luxury of time and so dropping down directly is the most efficient plan. We might be on the floor of judgment, but that does not mean our souls will be weighed on arrival. As you pointed out, I made it." Scraped and bruised but I made it. The bruises came from trying to cling to everything on the way down. She didn't have to know that.

"You did." She stared at me before sighing heavily. "That you did. So, all we have to do is fall right?" I made a face, looked to the side before grimacing.

"Of course, it's not just a fucking drop." She threw her hands up above her. "What is it? A loopty-loop?"

"No, no. It's a drop but keep your arms as close to your body as you can, try not to touch anything and remember that you're falling down, even if it doesn't feel that way. Just keep that in mind, for landing reference and you should do fine." I paused, before adding quietly, looking her way but lowering my eyes a bit. "You can wait here if you want, I won't hold it against you. I'll be just a moment but if you do feel like joining me, remember that there's nothing wrong with being scared."

Her head jerked over to me at that, alarm and concern flashing over her stiffening face, her lips parting to no doubt ask but already so close to the edge, I stepped back and fell. I heard her sharp inhale before I plunged into the abyss, so similar to a dark ocean, so compact and filling and vast. I looked up as I fell, watched the sky get swallowed in inky darkness and lost sight of it all. I was falling, but with no sound or sight to guide me, soon, even the weight of going down vanished and I became weightless.

It did not last that way for long as black blended into midnight blue washed in a night sky sprinkled in glittering stars that clustered closer together in one direction that glowed in a silver and white that was tainted by a splatter of a bright red wave that darkened as it was surrounded by dawn's colors. I knew I was going down, but from my new sight everything traveled to the right as a giant orange planet from afar drew closer and closer to my left. I looked below me as blurred objects began to float above me. I pulled my arms around me and fisted my hands. Meaningless objects to me, treasures to another. Children's toys, a giant bow and a patch of land with a meadow, a pretty blue dress, a single shoe. Rusted weapons, a giant teddy bear with a huge bite taken out of half of its face, a loose string of pearls the size of a boat fell around me. More and more things passed by me, seemingly unrelated to one another, with no sense for what I was being surrounded by but the sight of them all arose a feeling so instinctive and primal in me that tears welled up in my eyes and spilled over. There was no sound, but my mind could almost feel the vibrations of sound in the air, sad, soothing and eternal. Ever so lost and awaiting. I could feel myself tipping back so I shifted slightly to keep from laying down as I fell, but even that act felt like a disturbing ripple.

My sight switched as quickly as if someone had hit a light switch, everything that had been there vanished, the sky bled of all color and what had started as a pitch-black abyss turned into a pale gray sky. When the first cloud passed by me, and I felt a light spraying of mist hit my face I reached out to the next approaching cloud with open fingers. I watched my fingers disrupt the cloud and twisted around and bent my knees as my fall continued where it had suddenly vanished, and reality hit my body. I began dropping quickly. Not far after, the sight below me came into sight. I wiped at my face and braced. If she had jumped after me as I suspected, Viper would have a nicer landing then I was. There was no real choice in how, but I tucked and rolled as soon as the impact came. My left side felt as if it had been compressed into me for a moment, I wasn't sure if the snap came from in me or around me as I was jostled and began to slide down. I opened my body out and tried to slow my fall until I finally took hold of something. It came down with me for a few seconds before getting stuck and I came to a stop. I laid there for a moment. Both to catch my breath and listen.

The familiar sound of flickering flames, but the air was chilly. The scent of earth and a deeper, more potent smell. The ground beneath me did not feel entirely of ground, objects of multiple sizes and lengths, rough fabric. My hand tightened its grip on what I had held onto before slowly releasing it. I took a fistful of ground before lifting my head slowly. My muscles protested at the motion, there was something wrong with my shoulder but other than that I was in great condition. I gritted my teeth, blinking to clear the dizzying sight. I let out a soft groan at the pile of bones in front and under me. Yes, I figured that's what it was. A muted thud landed a few feet from where I might have originally landed. I tensed on instinct even if I knew it was most likely to be Viper. There was a sight shuffle before a sudden gust of wind slapped me in the face, in the next blink I was staring at endless black eyes filled with a complicated mixture of concerned rage. All I could feel from the tip of my nose were dark never ending inhumane eyes swallowing me whole within her sight. I looked off to the side as my power stirred before looking back her way.

"Glad you made it." I coughed out. Long fingers wrapped around my torso and pulled. I pushed down a grunt as a blinding pain flared. Once on my feet my right hand went to my shoulder to search for the discomfort as I looked around us objectively. She wasn't hissing or snarling but I could sense her anger rolling off of her in waves. I appreciated her control to remain silent as we were not in a time or space to speak with what would no doubt not be inside voices. What I had landed on wasn't broken thankfully, but dislocated. I was lucky to have broken whatever bone I landed on. Better it, than me. Or was 'they' a better term? I brought out the vial I had for this very moment and broke it on my shoulder as I pushed it back into place, all of this happening in two breaths before I slipped the vial back into my pocket and rolled the sore shoulder back until it felt fine.

There weren't piles of bones or a mountain of them that went as far as the eyes could see. They were just scattered here and there. I couldn't tell if I was fortunate to have landed on the slope where there were enough half sticking out from the ground. At the end of the slope was a milk white river with hints of gray waves crashing below the surface, enthralling in sight but disturbing when flashes of dark scales and thin black bones flashes here and there below the ripples. Rather than a macabre scene, it was almost dreamy. The sky from below was a soft lilac-soft blue with thin fog that kept low to the ground but that shimmered in the way only enchanted energy could. Although we had dropped from above there was no sight of a cliff side or a forest. Hovering above us in all of its splendor was the grand city of death, Necropolis. Now that we had come down we could go up. Kind of. I lowered my sight and squinted until I caught sight of where we really needed to go.

"We need to get to the bridge."

"Fine," Viper's voice was colder than the weather and we were literally standing under death city. "You still haven't clarified how we were getting into the city."

"Oh, yeah, about that-" I lifted a hand and pointed up. "I have no idea how to get out of the city if we do manage to get in so that's not all that important."

I began walking to the bridge, her pause was short before she shot forward and started walking backwards in front of me, the crazed look gone from her eyes as she stared at me like I was the crazy one now.

"What was that?"

"I said I have no idea how to get out of the city if we get in. Never did figure that part out. I did not lie when I said I hid it in Necropolis." I waved a hand around. "All of this is technically Necropolis."

"A technicality." She shook her head at me. "Fine, did you bury it like a bone in a graveyard?"

"That really doesn't work as well as people think it does. The idea was to hide it in Necropolis when I first made it this far but I didn't have enough time or courage to believe I could make it across the bridge and into the city at the time."

"So if it's not in the city and you didn't bury it in this graveyard-" her eyes went to my climbing gear as she stopped walking and turned around to look at the bridge. "You said we wouldn't be judged as soon as we landed. That only those who wish to enter the city and face the last object make it in. The bridge is the judgment point isn't it."

"Correct."

"The living can't cross the bridge without being judged and you said we aren't here to be judged. What the hell did you do then?" There was a knowing but disbelieving glint in her eyes, the corners of her mouth twitching upwards as she waited gape mouthed.

"The living can't cross the bridge without being judged, but there are always two sides to a bridge." I tightened my gloves as I eyed the familiar structure. "We're using the unconventional way."

"Yeah, and if we fail we might as well drop into hell." Although she spoke grimly there was no hesitation as she brought her hair into a high bun.

"That's the spirit." I paused. "No, pun intended." It really was unintentional.

"Ugh, we'll be sharing the same cell in hell. I just know it."

I couldn't find it in me to disagree.