Dungeon Core: Bugged Ascension

~A girl without a Name.

Lady Ruth’Moor has finally permitted the rest of us Quiet ones to symphonize with the Sacred Haunt. Rather than lead us all in herself, she’s sent one of us each with a different orchestra to watch over us and keep us safe. I’m happy that Fyer’Fleye is one of the instruments with me, though even I can see how he’s pushing himself. I resolve not to be the reason we turn away, if my family will work through their exhaustion, I can make myself not a burden.

That sentiment was so much easier to hold on to before the pain started sinking in. When it first began, I was dutiful and asked for healing as I was taught, but when the golden light swept through me and she said, “Feeling better there, darling?”

When I felt no different, I decided to smile and lie, “Yes ma’am, thank you.” We had only been gone half as long as the last group, and I had already told myself I wasn’t going to quit.

But… now. I feel myself slipping. Pain is everywhere, everything now. If not for how challenging the symphony has become for the others, I don’t think my attempts to disguise it would have worked. That the Challenge itself never targets me and even goes to great lengths not to touch me has also helped.

This dazed state goes on forever, as the pain just keeps getting worse and worse. The only thing keeping me going at this point has been a heavy weight that’s settled on the world. When it first descended, I was reaching my breaking point, and was going to start begging to go home. But even though the orchestra went on high alert at its presence, it was soothing to me, like a tight embrace keeping me together.

I suddenly have a moment of clarity. The agony falls away and when I look out and my eyes can see again, there is a man in the woods. A sad man I can remember was always just at the edge of being blocked by the trees. I barely notice the fighting happening around me as I look into his eyes, “It’s too late for me, isn’t it?” The distant figure nods in response.

I take a deep breath as I look around at my people, the orchestra that brought me along for their symphony, searching for my Voice and for more of their own music. For the first time when I look at Fyer’Fleye, I see something different as another realization hits me. Brother. That thought swirls around and as the burning agony returns with a vengeance, I remember Milady.

I recognize that I’ll have hurt her deeply as a faint whisper is echoed once more on the wind, “”

The fight ends as the final beast is slain, and when the healer is checking on everyone’s condition, I meet my brother’s gaze. I see them widen in shock as he lunges for me as I begin to collapse, lacking the strength to stand any longer. When he catches me, I know he’s calling for aid, but everything else has faded away, eaten by the agony.

But I push myself one last time, because I have something that needs to be said, “Tell Mom that I’m sorry. It’s my fault, I pushed too hard. I’m sorry you had to watch me die, Brother. I love you both so much.” I try to reach up to cup his face, yet when I see my hand, it is a sickly empty thing and as it touches him, it breaks apart like ash and dust.

I want to say more, to stay, but there is nothing left. As my last moment closes in, I bask in the glow of my brother’s beautiful bees.

~Fyer’Fleye.

She just… crumbled away in my arms.

But… she was fine, wasn’t she? She never complained of pain, so how could the Mana Toxicity have gotten this bad.

This has to be an illusion, right? A test of some sort, it must be.

A detached part of me feels our healer shaking me for a moment before someone just picks me up and starts carrying me away. But, where’s my sister? She’s not with us and Mother told me to look out for her.

There’s a pit in my stomach as we’re moving back through the woods, but when the sight of a distant pile of ashes is blocked by a tree, I snap.

My whole body erupts in light as I snarl and tear myself free of whatever was taking me away. I race back to where I was and fall to the ground around the ash where there was once my-

“(What would you trade to make it not true?)”

The voice of the world is so loud next to how blind I’ve become to anything else, my answer comes easily, “Anything.”

“(Your freedom. Your potential. Your life.)”

“All of it. Everything. Make it not so. Just bring back my sister.”

“(She would be different; it was too late to change that long before she faded away. I watched as she pushed beyond her limits, hid her weakness from you all. I watched her dying while none of you even noticed her struggle.)”

That’s when the truth really broke me. Because I should have seen. I know how stubborn she is, I remember the times when we were Quiet together. I should have known she would need to be brought out under protest, but it… slipped my notice. I was too busy drinking in my own power to see her trying and failing to do the same.

I look up as a distant series of exploding branches suddenly grows louder as it charges at us. My attention suddenly snapping back into focus as I see my orchestra fanned out around us, awaiting the approaching calamity.

“(This changes nothing Ruth’Moor.)”

The slavering growls and enraged roars now recognizable, if hard to reconcile with the previously calm and collected instances of her prior acts of defense when we’d be ambushed while travelling. I wave everyone away and behind us as her God crashes into the glade, heaving for a moment before her Voice is birthed before us and she stumbles forward towards the remains.

I step up and catch her as she falls, crying out her denial as she reaches out, blinded in her grief as even her God struggles for breath.

The world seems to continue a conversation started elsewhere, even as I hold my mother’s form and lower us both to sit at the ashes of her daughter, “(It isn’t a matter of more power. I already have too much, it’s partly how this happened in the first place. This problem is much deeper than that. Older than that. I’m not unempathetic though. I’ve been focused and trying to find a solution since it came to my attention.)”

As most of our party mills around, unsure of what to do as our leader lays distraught among us, the healer had leapt to work at her God. When I look over, I notice that many of its organs are ruptured as blood and ichor pour freely from it, whatever efforts from the healer to stem the tide seem ineffectual after it was pushed to sacrifice so many pieces so that a Voice would be born in such a short time.

An empty voice echoes from the woman in my arms, “What can we do?”

I can feel the attention of the world shift around us, “(There isn’t much more than can be done. It hasn’t really been up to us for a while. Although… perhaps there is one last missing piece you could provide.)”

“Tell me.”

“(My choice has already been made as I cannot Assimilate death. For all that the Mu’Reign are Legendary, there is only one piece of you that is truly Godlike. Give it to me and I swear to use it only to try and see her wishes fulfilled. That’s all I can offer I’m afraid.)”

Ruth’Moor doesn’t even hesitate, “It’s yours,” before she clutches at her chest and wretches, echoed by the talons that have joined our little group as the conversation continued. The giant bleeding form of her God is soon wrapped in a grand cocoon of magic as our striker pulls the healer back from the whirlwind of power.

The body shifts into a ball and starts compacting down before the light grows too intense to look at it any longer and a cacophony of noise accompanies the dazzling display. Then, all at once, the shimmer and ringing crescendo blinks out.

I’m clutching onto a shaking, Heroic Ruth as our overworked healer attends to the systemic damage of having her Godhood ripping from her, “(Okay, that’s the easy part done,)” I look up into the forest with incredulity. Never before have I seen her so frail, “(The hard part is the waiting.)”

I feel a great heaving breath from the world before the weight of its attention begins to pull away. Only now recognizing that we’ve been under his intense watch for a long while, perhaps even long enough that if we had turned back when it first fell on us, everything might not have turned out like this…

“(We’ve all done what we can. Now it’s up to the little one. She was never mine, so I can’t help her on her journey, I can only offer her a destination to reach.)”

As the world’s focus fades away, it coalesces into a man squatting down beside us. He reaches down to the ash and then looks up at Ruth, still shivering with exhaustion in my arms and lays his other hand on my shoulder, “(I’m sorry for your loss.)”

He then sweeps his hand aside, and the ash streams over to where the sphere of light once lay before the remnants seem to slip sideways into a gap and disappear completely. His presence soon stepping away as well.

After a bit longer, our group decides we should exit this place. Though without a God to defend us, we may need our people to return to the human village instead of camping out in the territories beyond the Haunt.

I gather mother’s Voice into my arms and lift her as I rise to my feet. Her human form is still too weak to move on its own, and while her talons aren’t at their peak, they can at least still muster the strength to move and fight if needed.

“I don’t know what this means for us, but if Ruth doesn’t recover her wits and gravitas, the Heroes will need to convene and decide what needs to be done.”

I feel a steadying hand on my back from the healer, “You’re now among that number yourself, Fyer’Fleye. Despite the tragedy of a lessened choir, your Voice has risen higher. Congratulations are in order.”

The others give a quick cheer in spite of the somber mood. Patting my back and returning to her place in our formation, “As both a Scout and Mesmer, many will look to you for insights. Be worthy of their respect and lead those that would follow you well.”

As the many lights from my {Prism Bees} buzz around our group and some venturing farther ahead, I steel myself for the future. In truth, no matter how personal our own losses were, when Mother gave away her Godhood she put the rest of us at greater risk. It will be up to all of us to compensate for that, and my grief must be set aside until a solution is properly implemented.

So, I do not look back, and even though my eyes are watching all around us, I do not focus on those invisible memorials. When Ruth finally gathers enough strength to walk alongside me, we share a long look between us before we nod and face forward. As DNA said, we’ve done all we can. We’ll just have to have faith and send what love we can spare as we deal with what life has dealt us.