Round 2 Team 4

[Silence Sei]

The team is Alyssa Snow and Cards of Fate. Round starts at Midnight tonight, CST, and lasts for two weeks. Good luck!

[Cards of Fate]

“Oh for Fucks Sake!” Vincent grunted as he sprinted through the Red Forest, his golden hair whipping in the wind. He thought he had been done with Pode’s trickery when he had been freed from her red mist the day before, but it seemed the crimson witch had a little more up her sleeve. All around him corpses of everything and anything that had been felled in the forsaken woods rose from the dirt with murderous intent. This put the scholar in quite the predicament. He had very little desire of being torn limb from limb, but also did not feel like abandoning his quest. Thus it seemed his only choice to “Speedrun” this mission, literally.

His feet pounded the ground with each stride as he propelled himself forward, reaching speeds that he would have balked at mere months ago. All around him the crimson forest seemed to blur as he passed it at ludicrous speeds. His lungs screamed for air as he gasped for each breath. Just a little further he found himself chanting internally with each step. His home, The House of Cards, was just ahead in a clearing kept safe from the regular terrors of the forest by mighty golems. The largest, and most potent, Big Bertha was calling to him; begging the scholar to return to the base and help her fend off Pode’s assault.

A living branch swiped at the scholar, barely missing his tangled mane of golden hair. His blue eyes scanned the path ahead of him for roots, rocks, and rampaging beast as he sprinted. His august purple robes danced on his backdraft. Just a few more seconds and he would be in the clear. He burst into the clearing, grinning ear to ear as he slammed blindly into someone or something.

“Oof.” He grunted as he tumbled to the ground, slamming his shoulder hard into the compacted dirt. He hissed and rolled to his feet turning to inspect who, or what, he had just run into. A flash of platinum caught his eyes as he found the emerald eyed glare of Alyssa Snow staring him down.

“Don’t move Vince!’ she commanded drawing her gun quickly and pointing at him.

“Excuse me?” Vince stammered as he stared at the gun aimed straight at him.

The young woman pulled the trigger and Vince felt the heat of the bullet on his skin as it ripped past his ear. He turned to watch it hit a zombified wolf dead between the eyes. “I told you not to move.” She quipped grinning. The scholar chuckled for a moment and the two quickly pivoted and found themselves back to back.

“Well this is gonna be fun.” Vincent muttered glancing around the forest to take in the damage. A small army of the damned seemed to be gathering at the outskirts of the clearing. The small storm of razor sharp leaves that was Bertha was doing an excellent job of holding the attention of a large majority of them. Two smaller golems made out of actual wood seemed to be having trouble though, the hordes swarming faster than they could swipe them down. “So I’ll take the several thousand on the left…”

“And I’ll take the several thousand on the right…” Alyssa replied nodding. “Got it Vince.”

[Alyssa Snow]

Earlier...

Out of the frying pan and into the metaphorical fire, Alyssa found herself free from a Dur’Taigen infested mansion only to learn their efforts contributed to the agitation of Pode. Instead of soul stealing flowers, poisonous vines, and plant-wolf hybrids, the entirety of all those fallen here now rose from the earth through dark puppeteering. Pode’s words still hung heavy on her shoulders as Alyssa braved the already treacherous woods and defended herself from the horde the only way she knew how: offensively.

The girl laid down spell after spell, trying to focus on pulling new energies from her surroundings to charge her pistol’s weaponized crystals. The numbers alone forced Alyssa into a standoff of stamina, but she could not keep up with the demand for firepower against the unending supply of living dead. Elves, human, and other abominations of a time long past fell to the ground as she ran. Select shots of ice left spiked prongs in areas of vital importance no matter the anatomy of the target. Half abomination of Alerian science and Half misfit of a Forgotten One’s power, this was the element Alyssa was bred for: destruction.

She closed her eyes to shake off the thoughts of uncertainty. Here, a moment’s delay meant the forest would feed and she too would shamble against friends and foes alike on dark strings. Alyssa had to focus. Her aim, her power, her finesse could only stem the flood for so long. She had to turn the tide, and the House of Cards would provide the fortress in which to stage a counterassault. Her reasoning? Such a widespread display of power could only last for so long no matter what god, immortal, or witch.

Her feet carried her swiftly and her pistols carved a path before her. Two, three, and four rounds discharged into fleshy puppets as she bound into the air over them and through the knotted branches of hungry blood oaks. The girl landed with catlike grace, but the guttural warble of animated dead sent a shiver down her spine. Alyssa turned to find the open maw of an unknown beast ready to swallow her in a bite and braced herself for the inevitable.

Instead of pain, Alyssa felt a violent gust and roar of leaves on the wind followed by the stomach churning sound of flesh rendered from bone. Cold, congealed blood misted onto her skin while she witnessed verdant leaves rush around her like a stone in a stream. Amidst the confusion, Alyssa smiled.

“Bertha!” the blonde teen called out as she turned.

In the center of a clearing, a shambling mass of leaves let out a friendly roar. The forest golem, protector of their home, beckoned its razor leaves elsewhere and sundered a trio of undead to ribbons.

“Thank Thaynes, you’re okay!”

Alyssa hustled to the midst of the clearing as the forest golems enacted their roles as guardians. Under another moon some time ago, Alyssa had fought the golem with her fellow Hierarchy members. They succeeded in silencing the beast but through the efforts of Vincent Cain, Bertha was reborn as an ally stronger than before, now aided by her two wooden “children” born from similar efforts

“Where is everyone else?” Alyssa asked the beast.

It shuddered and rustled a response. Alyssa could only assume that meant the golem did not know.

“Damn!” the gunner swore, “We could really the hel--ugh!”
Alyssa staggered from the force of something slamming into her back. She caught her balance and spun on her heel with gun at the ready. On the other end of the sights, Alyssa found herself eye to eye with a familiar face. Her eyebrow quirked.

“Vince?” she mumbled.

Just a few feet from him, the girl noticed a root raise its bark like a cat would do before attacking another.

“Don't’ move Vince!” she commanded as the root retracted into a row of razor sharp Dur’Taigen teeth. She pulled the trigger and fired a bolt of ice just past Vince’s ear and square in between the two glowing eyes. Alyssa holstered the weapon and held a hand out for her ally. He took it and helped him to his feet. The forest took this moment to advance, and all manners of risen abominations pressed into the clearing. Alyssa snapped her hand back to her revolver and Vincent snapped his back to hers.

“Well this is gonna be fun,” he mused. Alyssa swept her gaze along the treeline where thousands shambled on the edge. Bertha swatted the few that advanced inward, but Alyssa doubted the elemental could handle the numbers if they all blitzed at once. After seeing what Pode could do with the Dur’Taigen in the mansion, Alyssa surmised that was soon to be expected.

“So I’ll take the several thousand on the left…” Vincent mouthed over her shoulder.

“And I’ll take the thousand on the right…” Her words were more uncertain than his. “Got it, Vince.

Then, the dam broke, and the flood began.

[Cards of Fate]

All hell broke loose when the horde began to charge. Bertha did her best to break the mob with blasts of razor sharp leaves that tore through flesh and bone indiscriminately. Vincent made quick work of the few monsters that managed to break past her with his mahogany cane in one hand and a steel sword in the other. A rotten corpse shambled towards him, and a magically enhanced cane strike that splattered it’s semi-decomposed head. A Dur’Taigen rushed him, and his steel blade opened its throat, spilling its life blood on the dirt.

A freshly slain orcish brute charged at the scholar, one arm barely clinging to the rest of his body by a few meaty tendons. Vincent gritted his teeth and swept the feet from under him with the crook of his cane followed by the plunging tip of steel through the throat.. A small group goblins sprinted at Vincent as he struggled to remove his sword but were gunned down by an icy hail of bullets from Alyssa.

“This is bad!” Vincent roared to his partner as he pulled his blade from the earth and cleaved through another shape-changing wolf. “There’s no end in sight!”

“You think?!” Alyssa growled back as she gunned down a charging group of zombified lumberjacks. “I can’t keep up with my spells at this rate!” The two exchanged worried looks. Then, a loud roar sounded behind them. Vincent turned and witnessed one of the wooden golems fall to a wave of undead, pulling it from limb to limb.

“Fuck! Jensen!” Vincent screamed. As if to match him, the remaining tree golem screamed as it too fell to the horde. “Oh shit! Alyssa, we need to move!” Vincent turned to his pale companion and she nodded.

‘Vincent’ a voice filled his head. The scholar stopped for a moment as he realized the leaf golem that had formed around the two in the form of a storm of leaves.

“Bertha?” The scholar asked looking up. Above them glowed an acorn; the source of Bertha’s thoughts and the heart of her magic..

‘Yes, listen carefully. The witch’s influence is trying to take control of me, I don’t have much longer until she succeeds. Please, deactivate my core and flee into the house of cards. There is a seal that will keep you safe.’ her voice filled his ears like a song of rustling leaves in a summer night.

“Into the base?” he asked confused.

“What are you talking about the base for?” Alyssa inquired turning to him. The scholar turned to his companion as he furrowed his brow in confusion. Could Alyssa not hear Bertha’s words?

‘Yes! Justice will know where the seal is. Now, quickly! Get inside before it is too late!’ the golems voice grew more urgent as she spoke. ‘I can feel her… taking over...!’

Vincent scowled. “Alyssa! We need to get inside and activate the fortification seal!” he commanded, looking scared. A horde of reanimated centaurs brazenly charged into Bertha’s wall of wind and found themselves shredded to a pulp.

“How do you... Leona made it clear that only Ioder and I were to know about that! It’s only for an emergency!” the gunner screamed back.

“WELL THIS SEEMS LIKE A PERFECT FUCKING EXAMPLE OF A GODDAMN EMERGENCY IF I’VE EVER SEEN ONE!” Vincent spat slightly irritated.

The two exchanged glares and without speaking a word, broke out into a sprint for the center of the clearing while Bertha cleared the path.

[Alyssa Snow]

With each step, Alyssa’s boots caked with blood and earth from the remnants of Bertha’s fury. Her swirling leaves took up a crimson hue and thin red mist hazed the two with each puppeteered body that met her razor gale.

“Alyssa!” Vincent called to her over the cacophony, “When we get to the entrance, I need you to shoot Bertha’s core!”

“What?!” She had heard him clearly, but her tone of shock elicited an explanation.

“I’ll explain later! Just bust her nut when we get there!”

The entrance quickly approached and the command weighed heavy on her conscious. Without Bertha, they would have easily been overrun. Why eliminate their biggest advantage? Why kill an ally?

A bout of mist hissed against her cheek, giving it a rosen hue and waking her from her doubt.

“We’re here! Now, Alyssa!” Vincent shouted. His fist slammed against the hidden pressure plate and the thick stone doors to the House of Cards toiled open.

“B-but..!” Alyssa’s eyes fixed on the glowing acorn above and leveled her pistol on target. She found her sights would not align and her hand quaked in uncertainty.

“Do it now for fuck’s sake, Alyssa!” Vincent roared before he slid himself through the slowly growing gap between the doors.

The sights would not align.

“I’m… I’m…” Alyssa, an Aleran experiment designed for war, never before aimed her weapons at an ally. They were tools of self defense, to protect herself and those she cared about. They were not meant for this.

Bertha’s leaves began to slow, fall, and turn inward. One stray razor edged leaf lacerated the nape of her neck enough to draw a bead of red. She had to act.

Now.

“I’m sorry!” she shouted. The sights aligned, she pulled the trigger, then shut her eyes. An icy bolt of weaponized magic left the barrel and fractured the luminescent acorn to pieces.

Alyssa kept her eyes shut until she turn away and sprinted for the doors. She couldn’t watch her own hand destroy the Hierarchy’s protector. The increasing roar of footsteps and fiendish battle cries told her the aim was true - Bertha was gone.

“Hurry the fuck up!” the scholar voiced.

Alyssa bolted through the doors, Vincent slammed the mechanism to close them, and she skid to a halt over an unassuming marble tile. Her hand swapped pistol for knife and she pried the stone from the ground revealing an arcane scripture beneath. She quickly drew the blade’s edge across her hand and slammed her bloody palm into the rune.

The doors slammed shut in an instant and illuminated with verdant symbology. The seam that parted the separate slabs disappeared like two beads of fluid becoming one. Then, as a testament to its efficacy, the rumbling thud of corpses crashed into it in vain. Motes of dust parted from the ceiling, nothing more.

Alyssa let out a long, pent up exhale. A similar note of relief parted from Vincent only feet away.

“That was… way too close...” Vincent huffed sliding to the floor with his back to the wall.

“Why,” Alyssa sternly demanded through heavy breaths of exhaustion. “Tell me why, Vincent.”

Vincent groaned as he realized the weight of his decision. He had been able to repair her once, but that was when she had been merely split in two. This time she was probably powder. “Pode...was trying to take her over…” he muttered wiping sweat from his face. “She told me that we needed to take her out before she turned on us.” The scholar pondered for a moment before beginning again. “After this is all said and done I will do my best to repair her, I have more experience this time…”

The girl hung her head like a child scolded. Her damp, blue eyes fixed on her bloodied hands. Though she knew it was her own blood, a sense of guilt told her mind otherwise. If Vincent knew of her connection to Pode, would he be so understanding? If he knew she wasn't even human, would he turn on her like the army that marched against her “mother”?

She clenched it into a bloodied fist and stood.

“Fine, then let’s search for the others. They may have bunkered down when things got bad up there,” she said firmly. She looked to Vincent with determination in her eyes but behind it, Alyssa struggled against the recent events of this crusade on Pode. It was changing her, and she knew it.

So did the witch.

[Cards of Fate]

The two exchanged worried glances as they headed down to the actual “Main” floor of the base. Before them, three hallways extended down to a hallway parallel to the one they were standing in. The small orbs affixed to the walls normally lit up the halls with their glow. Now, they were either flickering or completely black, leaving their once familiar home now cloaked in foreboding darkness. Vincent paused for a moment, his heart pumped loudly in his chest. Something was wrong.

He glanced down and found a wisp of red fog toying with the bottom of his boot. Instinctively, he leapt back and hissed like a cat. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding!” His eyes widened as he glanced around ahead of them. The whole floor, as far as he could see, was lightly coated with the sinister shroud.

“What the hell…” Alyssa a muttered trailing off.

“Pode’s magic…” Vincent replied shaking his head side to side. “I saw this in the main base, she swept the whole place over with a wave of red fog and sent everyone who was asleep into a deadly trance…” He sighed and began to fish through the pockets of his robe until he produced a large fist sized glass orb. “Alyssa…” his voice trembled slightly as he spoke.

“Yes Vincent?” the young woman asked turning to look at him.

He quaked slightly as he took in a deep breath. “Could we...stick together on this one? I don’t…”

Alyssa nodded and glanced at the orb in his hand.

“What’s that?”

The scholar grinned slightly, a small gesture to mask his current fear.

“I bought this when I was in Etheria Port once, it’s an orb capable of producing light!” his eyes lit up as he spoke, “Finally, a use for this little bauble other than reading late at night and exploring the base…”

Alyssa smiled back at the young scholar.

“Way to go Vince...” Alyssa could feel his tension and set a friendly hand on his shoulder. “How does it work?”

“Well I simply say...ILLUMINATE” he gasped the last word, traces of magic reverberating in his voice as the orb sputtered to life bathing the hallway with a pale light. Alyssa clapped slightly impressed by the range the orb seemed to have.

“So I’ll take point with my guns drawn just in case something...not so friendly is down here with us, and you stay in the back with the light?” she asked. Vincent nodded weakly and the two began down the center hall with doors on either side of them.

“I hate the dark…” Vincent mumbled under his breath, too soft for his friend to hear. “Too many bad memories of late night horror game marathons. Next thing you know the god damn animatronics start moving fuck...” He shivered at the thought.

[Alyssa Snow]

Alyssa cautiously put one foot over the other. Light sputtered from the luminescent orbs in the distance and caused shadows to dance. As they advanced, the gunner jutted her pistols at each door they passed.

“Hello?” Alyssa murmured softly.

Nothing.

She wasn’t sure what to expect as a response but whether it be ally or enemy, she’d be ready for both. Then, she paused. Down the hall, the furthest door on the left, Alyssa noticed it had been cracked open.

“What’s up?” Vincent asked. “Do you see something?”

“My room,” Alyssa replied. “The door’s open. I always lock it when I leave.”

Alyssa heard Vincent gulp behind her.

“Let’s check it out,” she continued with her pistols pointed toward it. “Make sure nothing sneaks up on us.”

Another audible gulp. Between the wood door and stone masonry, only a few inches of pitch black showed through. Light flickered from across the hall, but at an angle where it did more harm than good. As they approached, Vincent’s light poured through enough to see the edge of one of her wardrobes. Alyssa continued past it where the hall ended and quickly snapped her head side to side.

Only more darkness.

Alyssa backtracked to her room.

“I’m going to look inside,” she warned. Alyssa holstered one of her magnums and reached for the handle.

Instead, the door shut.

Alyssa and Vincent both jumped back. The gunner’s holstered firearm already drawn again and aimed. A few seconds passed in silence.

“This is giving me the creeps,” the scholar mumbled.

“Yeah, me too.” Alyssa said as she stepped forward. With her pistol still in hand, she gripped the handle. She turned it quietly, then abruptly forced it open with her shoulder. Her guns shot up into the darkness and swept from side to side. Everything was exactly as she left it.

“Bring that light closer,” she commanded.

Alyssa entered her room cautiously. She checked the wardrobes, under the bed, behind the furniture, and found nothing. She turned to Vincent and shrugged.

“Nothing…” she commented.

“Nothing?” the scholar asked incredulously as he glanced around. “Then what the fuck just slammed that-”

A childlike giggle stole the words from his mouth and cast a chill on both their spines. Both of them turned toward the source, a stairwell leading to the floors below. From it, a rolling mist crawled along the marble floor to their feet.

“Uh… did you just?” Alyssa began.

“Yup.”

“Should we...?”

“No way in hell…” Vincent shook his head. “Nope. Nope. Nope!”

“Well it’s that, we stay here in the dark with the opening and closing doors, or we go back outside to play with our half dead friends. Your pick.” Alyssa said firmly.

“I’d rather ask Leona a million stupid questions and take her hits square on the fucking chin then go down there!” He paused for a moment breathing heavily. Alyssa heard each beat of his heart as it thumped in his chest. What was wrong with him? Why was he so scared? He took one deep breath and held it, arms trembling. “Fuck it, let’s get this over with…”

[Cards of Fate]

Vince’s heart pounded furiously as the two began to backtrack to where they had heard the laugh. The stairs the dove deeper into the base were exactly behind the set of stairs they had entered from. As they walked each door that they had opened slammed with tremendous force, booming through the otherwise deafening silence. It was now readily apparent that the fog was coming from below, how the two had missed such a detail was bizarre. It was almost as if something was trying to draw them deeper. The scholar gulped and turned to Alyssa, face pale and clammy. “Should we…”

“Yeah…” Alyssa nodded grimly. “The others might be in trouble…”

Vincent gritted his teeth, it was very well possible that the others were in trouble. If that was the case, he needed to burn his dread and bite the bullet. The Hierarchy was his family, they had given him purpose when he was lost. They meant more than life to him. He quickly checked that his sword and cane were safely hanging at his belt before he took the first step down, brandishing the glowing orb of sunlight before him in some vain attempt at banishing the fog before them.

Light or no light it would be almost impossible to see as the descended onto the second floor. The fog began to thicken with each step, becoming thick enough Vincent could barely see the glimmering light of the orb in his outstretched arm. “I can’t see shit…” The scholar muttered nervously.

“Could you give me your hand, Vince?” Alyssa asked. “I can barely see you…”

The scholar nodded “Sure.” he extended an arm out towards her carefully until is brushed against something soft. “What am I..” he muttered before it became all too clear.

“DAMN IT, VINCE!” Alyssa screamed as she reared her hand back. “REALLY?!”

“OH FUCK! IM SO SORRY”! Vincent managed to reply turning to face her before he felt the backside of her hand slam into his cheek. His vision flashed as he stumbled backwards, arms flailing. Suddenly the orb wasn’t in his hand anymore, and he watched in horror as it sailed through the air above them.

“FUCK!” They both shouted in unison as Alyssa scrambled over a downed Vincent to chase after the orb desperately. The scholar struggled to his feet and took off after the gunner as the orb came crashing to the ground. Instead of shattering it simply bounced and took to the air again in parabolic flight. Alyssa dove for the orb grinning as her fingers caught it. Her grin quickly vanished as she realized she was tumbling down the stairs to the next floor.

“Alyssa!” Vincent roared as he sprinted to the steps watching her and the ball of light tumble into the darkness. Soon all around him was pitch black as the red fog engulfed him. “Fuck!” he grunted through gritted teeth. “Fuck fuck fuck FUCK!” he stamped his feet in frustration. “Are you okay!” he called down below. No answer met him. He lingered at the top as he debated what to do. Sure, he was in absolute darkness but down below might be even more dangerous. All of his earlier resolve was suddenly gone. Was this the fog or his own cowardice? He had no way of telling.

[Alyssa Snow]

“Ungh….”

At the base of the stairs, Alyssa awoke with her face against the cold, damp stone and her body crumpled upon itself. With a soft groan, she pushed herself to her knees. Her head pounded like an echo of each step it hit and limbs throbbed from sites of future bruises.

“Damn it, Vince..” she groaned.

The gunner’s vision adjusted to the darkness as best it could. Unlike above, all sources of light were absent. With the addition of a damp, thick haze, the only things Alyssa could make out were rough shapes. From memory, she recalled the layout of halls stretching in each of the four cardinal directions. Aside from vague assumptions, the girl was lost in the dark.

“Vince, can you hear me?” Alyssa called out, rising to her feet. A rush of vertigo forced her to stagger. Luckily, her hand found support against the frigid stone walls. She gripped her spinning head with the other.

“Alyssa?” she heard Vincent call out somewhere deeper in the mist.

“Yeah, over here…”

“I have no idea where ‘here’ is,” he replied with snark. “Just look for the light, okay? Illuminate!”

A soft luminescence permeated through the thick haze of crimson. Alyssa squinted to get better focus, but the fog ensured her visibility would be limited.

“Okay, I’m coming, don’t move!” she called out.

Using her hand to guide herself along the wall, Alyssa stepped toward the light. Her foot brushed against something too difficult to see, sending it skipping and clattering elsewhere. She dismissed it as a pebble or stone and focused purely on Vincent’s light. Meanwhile, the object came to a stop against the stairs behind her and flickered a weak glow.

“How’d you get down there so quick?” Alyssa asked.

“I heard the orb bounce down this way and made a dash for it. Problem is, I can still barely see shit with it.”

“I know, this red mist is really thick. Did you find anyone else or where it’s coming from?”

“No, but I do see something we should check out. There you are!”

Alyssa broke through the veil of darkness and Vincent smiled warmly to her.

“About time!” he chided. “Let’s me show you what I found!”

Vincent turned and began to march even deeper down the hall. Alyssa tailed him, but quirked a brow.

“You okay, Vince?” she asked, puzzled.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Why do you ask?” He kept walking as he spoke, eyes forward and without pause

“Well, you seemed uneasy just a minute ago, now you’re… “

“More confident? Yeah, I have a pretty good feeling that we’ll find what we’re looking for up here. Call it… a Hierophant Hunch.”

“Okay…” Alyssa didn’t find his reply satisfying. For as unsettled as he was earlier, this Vincent seemed too confident, stronger, maybe even arrogant.

Together, they stepped into a clearing of the mist. Vincent’s light spread to the jagged cavernous walls and illuminated the shimmering surface of steaming pools. Alyssa paused and glanced around. She stood in the middle of the House of Cards’ underground hot springs. Here, everything looked as it did on any normal day. Except, the clear waters were tinted a deep hue of scarlet.

“This is it. End of the line!” Vincent exclaimed triumphantly with arms outstretched.

“How do you know?” Her tone was hesitant, confused even.

“Fuck, Alyssa, how many times do I have to tell you? I am the Hierophant; I see the truth behind lies!” Vincent let out a short laugh, slightly dark and ominous.

“Okay…” Alyssa took a step back. “Now what?”

He turned to her, his face so stern it sent a shiver down her back.

“I was just going to ask you that same question. You know already who’s at fault for all this, or did you really think you could hide your relationship with her from me--” He drew his staff and sword from his waist. “-- Pode’s Little Abomination?”

[Cards of Fate]

Vincent peered down the dark stairs nervously “Alyssa?” he yelled for the millionth time. Some part of him was simply hoping she would come bounding up the stairs, orb in hand, and whoop his ass for accidentally groping her. Instead he was met with silence. The funny thing Vincent found about silence for a response is it leaves it open for interpretation. Silence is an ambiguous answer with no definition. Alyssa could simply be unable to hear his call, or she could be unconscious, or dead.

This left the scholar torn between two very powerful emotions, fear of the unknown darkness below, and the love he felt for his fellow Arcana. The two forces tugged at his heart as he glanced into the abyss. One part of his mind was screaming to run for his life, hide back in the library above and wait for someone else to come save him. The other side was urging him forward. Vincent Cain was no longer the young man who ran from bushfires or large naked bandits with comically large...swords. No! He was Vincent Cain, motherfucking Hierophant who could find the truth regardless of who was trying to obscure it from him. Vincent took a deep breath, and he began to descend the stairway.

“Alyssa!” he called out at the top of his lungs. “I’m coming down! Stay put where you are!” he carefully followed the wall with his right hand. and paused to check each step he took downwards. After what felt like an eternity he finally reached the bottom landing and glanced around. The fog was thick enough to cut with a knife and spread on a piece of toast, and made seeing even his own hand in front of his face almost impossible. “Alyssa?” he yelled rather futilely. Are you o-” he took a step forward, kicking an object and sending it scattering before him with a very distinct click.

“Fuck!” he roared throwing himself to the floor grasping desperately for what he had just kicked. After an eternity of blindly groping in the dust the scholar snapped up to his feet slapping his forehead. “Illuminate!” he snapped angrily. Suddenly a soft glow bathed him from his left. “Im such a fucking genius, maybe Leona should have made me her Fool…” he trailed off as he bent over and snatched the orb from the ground.

He glanced around for a moment. While he couldn’t see much, the fact that Alyssa wasn’t crumpled up at the bottom of the stairs sent both relief and concern flooding through his systems. Either she was fine and walked off, or wasn’t and something had dragged her away. Not knowing what to do, he found the steps once more and began to walk forward.

“This should lead to the hotsprings…” he muttered to himself. “Maybe Pode did something to the water to make this fog…” it made perfect sense, this level was especially humid and damper than normal. He could feel his sweat began to bead up and pool in his robes. “The most powerful witch ever and all she does is poison our onsen...inventive,” he muttered disdainfully as he walked slowly through the darkness. He found himself at the entrance to the baths, but instead of their usual solid oak double doors he was met with...what looked to be the door to his childhood home. Plain white with a small latticed window that seemed to glow bright, slicing through the darkness.

“What do we have here?” he asked curiously. This was obviously a trap of some sorts, but it was an interesting one to say the least. “Okay Madame Pode, the Red Bitch, let’s see what you can do…” he grumbled to himself as he threw the door open. He winced as light flooded the hallway. Squinting, he carefully stepped into the light.