Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

To breathe in the air on the highest peaks, to feel the ache in your muscles after a long climb; these were pleasures reserved for mortals. No longer for Guthix to feel.

Still, the splendour and beauty of Gielinor could take his breath away… if he had breath left to take.

He could not help but raise his head to the sky as he made his way across the green plains of Gielinor’s equatorial forests. To watch the clear skies above, and the faint outline of Zanaris, invisible to the human eye on this bright clear day. He felt the urge to raise his hands as well, as the druids did when they worshiped the Anima Mundi from the sky to the earth.

Today, he was disguised as a mortal. A simple man clothed in white and green with a circlet of glass atop his brow, as the Druids sometimes wore. This far from their centers of power, he would be an unusual sight, but not unheard of. The druids went on pilgrimages to every corner of the world, tracing the pathways of power of the Anima Mundi. Unknowingly mimicking Guthix’s own movements at the dawn of the Age as he sought to understand the powers that made this place.

Here, many such pathways converged. The mortals did not yet understand why. He hoped they would never find out.

The sea of Anima that made up Gielinor's vital Heart was too obvious for him not to feel it from here. But then, Guthix had spent thousands of years learning about and communing with the Anima Mundi, and by now it was like an old friend. A lover, whose shape he could recall in total darkness.

They were here. He would know that as surely now as if he had never set foot on this planet before.

A small town had been established near where a lush valley was delved. Springs from the great river Elid filled the place, and the people enjoyed fertile soil and great prosperity.

Jungle plants suited to the warmth reached towards the sky, their leaves well-fed and enormous. Here the land was rich with Anima and crawling with prey animals and fertilizing insects. In any other corner of the world, on any other planet in the cosmos, the people would have been foolish not to settle here… but Guthix knew what it was they dwelled atop.

To warn them away, to advise them to abandon their homes and flee west towards the river, would be futile. Only if he came in his godly aspect would he be listened to… and that he would not do. Not for anything.

Still, as he stopped by the town and watched the people as they bustled to and fro, the life of this town became as apparent to him as the life of the planet… and he was sorely tempted to throw aside his oldest vow and use every inch of his godly power to get these people to move.

Instead, he found their market, and a venerable old rune merchant.

"I am looking for a few runes of any known kind," Guthix said after the two of them had shared the traditional greeting. "I am in great need of them, and I am willing to pay."

Guthix was well aware he was about to be taken for everything he was worth; not that it mattered. He could not imagine a more vulnerable trade offer, for a more valuable product.

He himself had blessed the world with all of its runes long ago, with the power of the Catalyst. But he had long since hidden that deadly treasure, hopefully never to be found, and he would do nothing less than deal fairly with the mortals for those runes he had given to them as a gift.

But the man just smiled at him, and regarded his filthy traveling clothes, and shook his head.

"For a newcomer, I can give you runes of every element and a few catalyzing ones as well," he said. His voice was aged and gentle, but at the same time full of a youthful humor.

It was achingly familiar. Guthix did not need divine sight to know that this was a man well-satisfied with his life… a man who had a family, extensive and alive and close in contact with him.

Guthix almost did not remember what that was like.

"You mustn't," Guthix began.

"No, no, please. Consider it a welcome to the town of Uzer. I offer this deal to everyone."

Guthix bowed his head. Amongst mortals, cruelty and avarice were no great surprise; their time in the world was brief and often difficult. But no matter how many eons he lived, he would never cease to be surprised by their brilliant, enduring kindness.

Any god could equal, or surpass, their cruelty. He had never met any who could equal their goodness.

He took the runes, and bid farewell to the merchant with his gratitude. Before he left, he perceived an enduring pain in the man's stomach that had recently turned cancerous. He doubted any healer had yet spotted it. With a thought, he cured it. With another thought, he ensured that the next time the man checked the saddlebag on his donkey, there would be a brilliant diamond of no small size waiting for him.

It would have to be enough.

…

Guthix left the town behind and hiked down into the valley.

The closer he got the Heart, the more even his great power confounded him. His ability to teleport was stymied in the face of such energy, and even his mortal disguise failed him.

In the jungles of Kharid, he was a Naragi again. He pulled his hood over his head. Though the humans had so far shared the world with other creatures peacefully, he did not wish to deal with any questions as to what, exactly, he was.

Though as he drew closer to the source of the power, he realized he needn’t have bothered. No humans, or any being, came here. As he descended through jungle and sand, he realized he was alone.

All the better. He wanted no one, not even Seren, to see him here or to know what he was doing.

When he found the point of entry, it was easy enough — even with the anima distortion — to create an opening.

He flowed through it like rainwater. His entrance was quiet and quick. He snuck past the pulsing Heart, feeling its incomprehensible power like harsh sunlight in a vast desert.

He crushed the runes in his hand, letting the surge of power flow around him. It was a small thing, compared to what he was, but the Heart reacted to it, calming as he followed the pathway of power.

Down further. The anima flowed from all places. If he allowed himself, he could drift away on them, become not Guthix but a part of the planet itself. He had thought about it, in times past. A final rest, more complete than his planned sleep could ever be.

But no. He must remain, in case he was needed.

Now, he flowed through the Heart itself, careful not to wake its sleeping Warden. Like this, he was a stream of anima like any other, flowing to the center, and not even the most powerful one.

Only he did not go to the center. He slipped below, finally clear of the immense sea of power… and found the Halls.

Almost before he knew it, he was solid once again. He leaned on the smooth rock walls and allowed himself a breath.

Even standing here, next to the very source of Being, was nigh unbearable. Before he could look, he closed his eyes and leaned his head on the wall.

“Hello, children,” he said softly. His voice was far more tender than even he expected. “Don’t be alarmed. I am not here to hurt you.”

Could they hear him? Was there something in there that could hear? Guthix did not know. He knew the Elders only by their work, their grand, baffling, deadly… and heartbreakingly beautiful design.

But here they were, vulnerable though they radiated power, small although they contained universes.

For a second, Guthix forgot what it was he was looking at. He finally rallied his courage and moved from the wall, towards where the eggs nestled.

They were three in number; one shrouded in magma, one frozen in ice, and a third pulsating with life and growth.

But they were far too few. He knew that. Even were they to hatch, the enormity of their task would crush them.

That which reached out behind them, with grasping claws and the cold touch of anti-life, would be too much for them.

The Elders had to know that, too. They must have done the calculus, must have seen that even the Catalyst was not enough to salvage the next cycle. And who knew whether the black hands would strike again? They had already proven even the Heart of the perfect creation was not safe.

As Guthix reached out a hand, the power within him leaping as it recognized its source, he wondered why this had to be. That all of this exquisite beauty had to be paired with such unendurable pain.

His eyes had grown damp. He wiped them absentmindedly.

“Do not be afraid, little ones,” he repeated. “Dream well, and dream kindly. When you wake, all will be well.”

It was an ancient Naragi lullaby. There was a lump in his throat. It had been so many centuries since he had said those words to a child.

There was no point in delaying any longer. He reached out towards the threads of power, and began to weave.

It was delicate work, and dangerous even to one such as himself. If he was careless, the power could lash out at him, turning him into a puddle of anima the size of Forinthry. And what power… what incredible power!

It was like nothing he had ever felt. If touching the Catalyst was like being struck by a bolt of lightning, holding this power was like connecting to the very concept of electricity.

He dreaded to imagine what would happen if any other god found this place. It might well destroy them, if they drank too deeply… but what if they had as deft a hand as he, as much patience, won from a very long, dark life?

He doubted they would use this power wisely.

The enormity of what he was carrying nearly forced him to his knees. He set his jaw in determination. He could not fail now.

He grabbed the rivers of power, separated them into strands. It was still like holding a Dwarven wire, but they were more manageable now.

Guthix looked up at the eggs. This was the riskiest point. He was… nearly confident that this would work. But the possible outcome if he was wrong made that slim possibility loom large in his mind.

He was doing this for them. The mortals from the village, their descendants, their next lives, their brilliant and beautiful spirits. The only gift his power could give them.

Carefully, his immortal breath in his throat, he began to divert the course of the rivers.

It might as well have been actual rivers, for all the effort he had to put into it. His body and his spirit strained to keep control of the wild magic. It was not supposed to be untethered from the eggs; it was made to be fed to the children, and as it was pulled away from them it spiraled and wailed. The Anima Mundi was being asked to do something antithetical to its very purpose.

He had to give it a new purpose.

Patiently, he rerouted the power. This was easier than separating it from the eggs. It was already hunting for a new destination, like electricity following the path of least resistance. The greatest danger was in depriving it for too long of a grounding point. The amount of power freely flooding the Halls might not go unnoticed forever.

Still, he must go as slowly as he could get away with. There was still the threat of puddle-ification to worry about.

Finally, with nary a tremble in his hand, he completed the process. The rivers found a new delta; him.

What once flowed to the eggs now flowed through him. Not all of it — too much and he would alert the Elders, not enough and he risked the eggs having enough power to hatch.

He had been preparing himself for the sensation, but still, he gasped aloud, and stumbled backwards. His back hit the wall of the chamber, and he slid to the ground.

The energy was no longer an external thing, wild and dangerous. Now it lived in him. It pulsed along with his heartbeat, was driven through his spirit like blood through veins.

He felt himself capable of things he had never thought possible, feats beyond even a lower god, and for an instant, he was tempted to do those things. Just for the sake of it. Why not remake the world? It was what he was here for after all, was it not?

He shook his head. Just for a moment, he understood what it was like to be one of the cruel and capricious younger gods. It took great willpower to shove that temptation aside.

Now that he had done this, his job was done.

Done. That word settled in him like the anima itself. After all of it, it was over.

For the first time since he had come here, he let himself smile. An overpowering burden was now gone.

That smile faded when he looked at the eggs again.

They had dimmed imperceptibly. The eggs were perfect engines of the power of creation. They knew when it was time to enter a state of lesser growth, even hibernation, when the flow of power was disrupted.

Would it be enough? Guthix wasn’t sure. But as he watched the eggs, he felt something like a breath of relief rush through him.

The Warden hadn’t been alerted. The Elders had not awoken. Like when he was a child, stealing a toy from his older brother, he had gotten away with it.

Still, the sorrow remained. He cast one last look on the eggs, the children, and felt his insides clench.

“Rest now,” he told them. The faint hint of tears caught the back of his throat, and he stopped to swallow them. “Be at peace. No more running. No more fear of the shadows. Just… just rest.”

Now that they were diminished in power, he could lay his hand on each of the eggs in turn. He felt them, still bright and alive, but softer now.

Was it right? To deny these children even the chance at life, in order to save countless billions? Guthix had to believe that it was. He had to believe that all the children to come, growing up in a free world, would balance this sin.

He turned away… maybe for the last time from this place. “I’m sorry,” he said.

What would Aagi think of you now?

The question followed him away from the Elder Halls, back to the western lands to say his goodbyes to Seren, back to his home in the middle-lands, and finally, into his deepest dreams.

Chapter Text

Druidic funerals were rarely dour affairs, and today was no exception.

It was the spring, and the earth reared up in joy. The land flowered, and despite an early morning Bennath rain, the sky had cleared into a radiant blue by the time the funeral began.

Druids danced and sang by the river that ran through the center of Taverley. Though there were crowds, nobody ministered to them. As per tradition, each druid was supposed to approach the Anima Mundi in the way that spoke to them… especially during times of grief.

Death, the druids understood, was not the end; merely the journey of the soul back to the Anima Mundi, where they would wait in peace to be reborn, and to taste life’s ecstasies and sorrows once again. It was an occasion for joy for the departed soul, a joy which overrode the temporary pain felt in their absence.

Synesix stood at the outskirts, her hood drawn, and did not feel joyful.

Still, she forced herself to come closer.

Some of the older druids were clustered together, telling stories about Sanfew. When they saw Synesix, they waved her over.

Synesix reflected, with some exasperation, that she was rapidly approaching the category of “older druid” herself. In technical terms, anyway. Certainly, she no longer felt quite the same connection with the young ones in the meadows getting intoxicated and making love in the grass.

“Sanfew,” one of them was lamenting as she approached. “Sanfew, like a pillar of oak in the roundhouse, few truly noticed your presence until you were gone… and now the bloody roof is falling down on us.”

“It’s not so bad as that,” another responded.

“Are you joking? With that war going on, no Guthix to shelter us—”

“Synesix!” someone interrupted, perhaps hoping to draw the conversation away from the dark road it was straying onto. “Synesix, we’re so glad you came.”

It was Kaqemeex who spoke, and Synesix smiled at him in turn. “Of course I came,” she said. “You know what Sanfew means to me.”

“Aye,” Kaqemeex said. “We all looked to him, but you… you and he were bonded. I know that.”

Synesix bowed her head. In this moment she did not much care to be reminded of that bond, of that which she had lost.

For it was true that Sanfew was now going to the World Below, to rest and be cured of his pains and sorrows so that he could reemerge into the sunlight free, but Synesix could never follow. Not even after a long life well-lived. Even when he came back… if Synesix were to find his next life, he would be a stranger to her.

They were supposed to be bonded in death as well as life. That was the Druidic teaching; souls followed those they loved through life and death, reborn together.

Now she was a thing apart from that cycle, with shadow in her soul and deprived of the gift of aging. Nothing reminded her of that more than coming home.

“Yes,” she said. “We were.”

Kaqemeex laid a hand on her shoulder, and the others were silent. But a quick glance told her they were not just being respectful.

Some of the druids had their heads lowered in reverence. It was a pose they were only to assume during rituals to Guthix at the stone circle, back when most Druids worshiped him as a divinity.

They were revering her. World Guardian. Guthix’s last representative on earth… so some said.

“Stop that,” she said, letting more harshness than she had intended enter her tone. “Don’t look at me like that.”

They jerked upwards, looking like guilty groundhogs. A murmur of overlapping apologies ensued, but Synesix waved them off.

“Forgive them,” Kaqemeex said. “Old habits die hard… and history repeats itself, does it not?”

“I am not Guthix,” she said.

“Of course not. But you are a wise and experienced teacher, and Guthix left his mark upon you.”

Synesix shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

Every time she came home, someone, and it was usually Kaqemeex, gently prodded her about her future in the order. There were not a few druids who wanted her to become a High Druid, even to take over for Sanfew as de facto spiritual leader of Taverley.

It wasn’t as though she disliked the idea, or felt she had nothing to teach. But ever since Guthix died, she didn’t like the way some of the others talked about her. It was no longer about her knowledge or experience. It was about something else.

Too many of them did not want to let go of the idea of a god… or a goddess. She could sympathize with that. If only she wasn’t supposed to be the god in question.

“I’m sorry,” Kaqemeex said. “You’re right. It’s the worst of times to bring that up. Would you walk with me? I promise to say nothing more about High Druidry or even the future in general if I can help it.”

Together they left behind the grouping of druids and made their way upriver. The cold Troll-mountains loomed in the distance, but down here the cold was breaking, giving way to pleasant warmth.

“How are you, Synesix?” Kaqemeex asked.

Can you imagine the fate of all life crushing you for over a year? “Alright,” she said. “Holding together, all things considered.”

“I know there is much pressure to be happy for the departed at a time like this. But you should know that no one would blame you for showing your grief.”

“Thank you,” she said gently. “I’ve done my weeping before coming here… and I’m sure I’ll do more after. But right now I want to put weeping to the side.”

It was true enough. She had feared coming here in the middle of the Elders’ war, worrying that the worst would happen. The Arch-Glacor could break through. TzKal-Zuk could get bored (although she had extracted a promise from him not to attack while she was “on vacation,” she had no idea how much she could truly trust that promise). The Nodon could finally build a machine strong enough to breach the walls of the cathedral.

But the thought of not going was worse. Not only missing the opportunity to come and honor Sanfew… but not having the chance to see the green forests of her youth again. In case the worst happened.

"Wise, as always," Kaqemeex said. "I remember when you were just a precocious girl, swinging her wooden sword and wanting to be an adventurer."

"Going on quests to steal pies from windowsills and trying to catch a glimpse of a Troll," Synesix said. She smiled, and then even laughed. It was quiet and reserved, but it was true.

"Much has changed," Kaqemeex said.

"And yet very little."

"Hah! True. It is like the oldest Druids once said. Time flows in a great circle, and always we come back to where we stood before.”

The river lapped at its shores. They stayed in a companionable silence. Synesix relished the opportunity to be away from the sounds of artillery, the screeching of battle magic, and the cries of the dying.

How many funerals would it take to bury all of the dead? At the end of it all, would there be enough living hands to handle it?

"Why don't you stay?" Kaqemeex asked. He had turned to face Synesix, and his eyes were sad. His voice was barely above a whisper. "Just for a week or so. Before you go back."

He had seen her face, thinking about the war. Synesix did not pretend he hadn't.

"I can't," she said, almost as quietly. "You know I can't."

"They've held the line for months. Surely, without you…?"

"I'm the World Guardian, Kaqemeex.”

"You…" Kaqemeex sighed, and realized he was out of arguments. "At least the night. Let us feed you and send you on your way in the morning."

Synesix was silent. Kaqemeex looked as though he knew he had lost.

And then, faintly, "...okay."

…

As the day drew on, Synesix did her best to put aside her burdens.

She told the stories she remembered best about Sanfew. How, when she was only a baby, her parents had come to Taverly with her before heading west… never to wake in the morning. Assassinated, with no trace of the killer.

It was Sanfew who found her, squalling and screaming — but spared her parents' fate, for some reason she had never discovered. And although Druids did not have nuclear families in the same way the Saradominist kingdoms did, she and everyone else knew Sanfew was her heart-father.

It was a good story, she had to admit, and the children loved it. It gave her an air of mystery in their eyes.

As night fell, she caught herself multiple times forgetting that she was to go back to the front in the morning. Although a chill wind had come down from the northern mountains, the river burbled quietly, and fireflies had emerged, as if they too had come to celebrate Sanfew's life.

A night fresh from her childhood, full of wonder and promise. A lump rose in her throat to see it. Perhaps Kaqemeex was right. Perhaps she always would come back to where she was before.

But without Sanfew… it would never, ever be the same again.

The celebration had not died down, but after sharing a meal with some of the other older Druids (and now she added "other," with some reluctance), she found herself overwhelmingly tired.

But not yet willing to sleep.

To fall asleep would be to get ready for the journey back. To get ready to leave Taverley for perhaps the final time.

As it grew later, and the moon rose, and even the young Druids began to lie down on the grass one by one and two by two, Synesix found herself still awake.

She wandered by the riverbank, clutching a bottle of honey-wine that wasn't doing much for her, and let her mind wander.

"Sanfew," she said, kneeling by the water. "I'll miss you. I know you'll miss me too, wherever you are, until you don't — until you're ready to come back."

The air was silent. The water even seemed to quiet down to listen to her… unless that was the mead.

"I hope that when you come back things will be better," Synesix said. Now a lump rose in her throat. "I want to do that for you. To pay you back for everything you've done for me. I want to make it better for you."

She drank again, and wiped the tears from her face.

"Bloody hell," she said. "I've been to the Underworld, haven't I? Why don't I go? Death will let me see you. Right? He has to. Just to talk to you, one last time…"

But that wasn't how it worked. Not even for her.

"Do something," she said. Now her voice was strangled by tears. "Let me know you're with me. Let me say goodbye."

The air remained cold, and the water kept running. Even the chirping wood larks, those who still flew in the dark, were quiet.

The wind stirred the grass with a gentle sigh. If she tried, maybe she could interpret a message from it, some reaching out from beyond, as the Mountain Spirit had done those years ago… but equally it could have just been wind.

“I wish I had said goodbye,” Synesix said quietly. “I wish I hadn’t… you’d tell me what other choice did I have? And you’d be right. But…”

Even the larks were quiet now.

“But I wish I could hear you say it,” Synesix said. “Maybe then I’d believe it.”

She bowed her head to the water, and splashed it into her face. At once it wiped the tears from her cheeks, and refreshed her spirit.

Maybe it was just the wind. But it was the Druid way to see the Anima Mundi everywhere, and that meant to look beyond the ordinary, to see the world in a way most did not; alive with spirit, with intention, with power.

The wind was never just the wind. And so Synesix dared to hope.

She sat back and closed her eyes. She resolved to meditate before going to bed, to hopefully shed some of this burden before she took on her normal, soul-crushing other burden.

She shook her head to clear her mind’s eye of glaring, Elder eyes, and tried to listen for Sanfew’s voice one last time.

When she listened to the world, she did hear a voice…

“Wow,” it said. “I didn’t know the World Guardian had run away to cry. Here was me thinking the situation wasn’t as dire as everyone said.”

Synesix snapped her head up. She looked behind her and met a pair of harsh red eyes, a face twisted in a nigh-permanent scowl, and flaming red hair that could not disguise the ridgeline of Mahjarrat flesh on the scalp; not even in the days when she had sought to hide it.

“Moia,” she said. She could not keep the surprise out of her voice. “...Moia?”

“That’s my name,” she said. “Don’t wear it out.”

To Synesix’s surprise, she dropped her arms, which had been crossed defensively, and moved closer. Her face softened.

“So this is how Druids honor their dead,” she said. “I suppose I can appreciate it. It’s a good party, at least, which makes it leaps and bounds better than what the Saradominists do with their corpses.”

She knelt by the water, letting her fingers trail through it in a fair approximation of what Synesix had been doing. Moia, of course, had no concept of the sacredness of the water that ran through the middle of Taverley, and did not douse her face in it.

“For what it’s worth,” she said, “I am sorry. I don’t know who died, but… um. Were you close?”

Synesix bit her lip. “Why are you here, Moia?”

“They sent me to find you. The gods. They’re getting ornery.”

“What? I left two days ago. They can’t manage that long without me?”

Moia grinned. “Well-put,” she said. “You know I don’t think the other gods can find their arses with a map and a compass. But.” The grin fell away. “They seemed serious this time.”

Oh, was all she could think. She felt colder than normal.

So that’s it, then.

The eggs. It had to be. Only the gods truly knew how close they were to hatching… and they were close indeed.

“They didn’t think they needed the help of another god?” Synesix asked. “Zamorak, perhaps?”

It was a barb that didn’t bother Moia in the slightest, and Synesix felt slightly childish for lobbing it. The half-Mahjarrat merely shrugged.

“Zamorak left the front because he knew that without a kick in the arse, the other gods would let Seren trap them forever,” Moia explained, as though this was simple, something even a child could understand. “And now all of a sudden they’re asking for your help. Sounds to me like they might have a plan… a plan they would never have come up with if it weren’t for my Lord.”

She fixed Synesix with cold red eyes. “So a ‘thank you, Zamorak,’ might be appropriate, instead of more cheap condemnation.”

Synesix bit back anger. When Zamorak abandoned the fight, dooming the world to destruction, she had fantasized about how she might force him back. Punish him for putting his own freedom above the lives of untold billions, here, and out in the outer planes.

But he was a god, and the shadow in her soul didn’t give her power enough to police him. So instead she let the anger build, every time she saw something beautiful in the world; something that Zamorak had doomed to destruction.

Yet when Moia mentioned a plan…

When she had last left the gods, they were hopeless. If they had come up with something in the meantime, something that could save all of those beautiful things, then she had to help.

And she had to leave now. She could not wait until morning.

She could not say goodbye to Kaqemeex, or any of them.

“Fine,” she said. A sting of pain rose in her chest. “Then let’s go.”

She got to her feet, and drew out the fragment of the Elder Blade she had taken from Guthix’s Last House (as some of the Druids were calling it). With a practiced motion, she made an opening in the fabric of the world — carefully and compassionately, and without harming the Anima Mundi, unlike the power potential of the artefact it was taken from.

“Huh,” Moia said, as before them stood a portal. “That’s handy.”

She had aimed for Senntisten, but likely as not, her mortal strength and control of even this tiny piece of the Elders’ power would land them further than that. Her portals tended to get drawn along the lines of the more common teleports pioneered by the Wizards’ Tower, following their path of least resistance through the Abyss.

“Shall I go first?” Synesix asked, mindful of how most people reacted when she used the Blade, and willing to demonstrate its safety.

Moia just scowled, and Synesix realized she had probably injured her Zamorakian pride. Without another word, she stepped forward, into the Abyss.

Synesix made to follow… and glanced around one last time at Taverley.

Curiously, that sting of pain faded. She thought about her promise to Sanfew. To make the world safe for when he chose to come back, in a new life, his future fearless and vast.

Now, she felt determination fill her, and even something like… joy. Now at last she got to do something.

“Goodbye, Sanfew,” she said quietly. “And… see you later.”

She stepped through the portal.

Chapter Text

Moia wasted no time as they landed in east Varrock, and paid even less mind to the looks the people shot her way as the two of them passed.

“Neat trick,” Moia sniffed as she hastened along. Synesix felt obscurely mocked.

“It got us close enough,” Synesix said. “The Archaeology Guild is just this way.”

It wasn't the strangest thing the people of Varrock had seen, she supposed. A half-Mahjarrat and the World Guardian, assuming they even recognized the latter. Gods walked the earth; these were a people at least passingly familiar with miracles.

But as she ran, she took closer notice.

The people looked wan and weak; almost starved. Varrock did not always care for its poor, but Roald was a fairer king than many. She couldn't remember seeing them like this.

The war. It must be.

She hadn't been to Varrock in some time, but she'd heard the reports. Supplies funneled to the battlefield from Misthalin, Asgarnia, Kandarin, Prifddinas, Darkmeyer; but Varrock was the closest, and Varrock was the city the defenders leaned on the most.

War, famine from the shadow anima overspill; it was no wonder these people were suffering.

How many casualties as yet unrecorded happened here, simply from malnutrition and disease from corpses? Synesix had no idea… but if they survived the war, she suspected they would spend a long time tallying it.

Moia didn't seem to care very much. “Move,” she snarled as she wove through a tangle of onlookers.

“I appreciate your haste,” Synesix said. “But what exactly is happening down there? Surely you have some idea. Is it that urgent?”

“‘Surely you have some idea,’” Moia said. “Do you ever listen to yourself? Anyway, I already told you. I don't know.”

“But is it happening now? The end? What are we walking into?”

Moia glanced behind. “Last I checked the fronts were holding,” she said, “but the power from the eggs was growing stronger. No surprise there. If you want my speculation, here it is; I think they're getting ready to try Lord Feathers’ plan.”

Synesix couldn't help but pause. “They are?”

Moia glared. “Hurry.”

She started to run again. “Hold on,” she said. “No offense, but why are you even here? Does Zamorak approve?”

She meant to needle Moia a little, and it seemed to hit the mark. She screwed up her nose and shot a nasty look behind her.

“This may come as a surprise to you,” Moia said, “but some of us believe in freedom. Some of us who've thrown in with a god did so because we believe in their cause, not because we're brainwashed. Zamorak believed that his departure would spur the rest of you to action. I am not quite so confident in your abilities.”

Synesix couldn't help but smile, just a touch. “I appreciate it, Moia. I do.”

Moia scoffed, and returned to running.

They passed the Archaeology Guild, and Synesix felt a pang of nostalgia for those days when it seemed like all she had to worry about was processing excavation paperwork and making sure Vanescula didn't murder any interns they sent to Everlight.

She hadn't been back here in some time; the faculty understood she was busy at the moment. But, again, she wondered if maybe she should have visited while she could.

“There,” Moia said, pointing to Senntisten's entrance, and then froze.

Dead TzekHaar littered the entrance. Synesix was certain those weren't there before.

The victors (she assumed) were nowhere to be found. Any bodies had been moved.

“That's new,” Moia said casually, but Synesix didn't have to work too hard to catch her naked worry.

She moved up, feeling her feet grow heavier than normal. “Come on,” she said, controlling the tremble in her voice. “It may be time.”

…

An unfamiliar face greeted them when they descended.

A human one. Synesix almost didn't think anything of it until she saw how the newcomers' eyes were fixed on the two of them, her body slightly trembling.

Around her, TzekHaar bodies were scattered, along with some Temple Knights. There had been a great struggle here.

“Hostilius’ eye-covered arse,” Moia said. Her voice was raised in surprise. “Hebe. Did you do this?”

“I…” she looked around, and then steadied herself. “I lent aid to the valiant Temple Knights. They acquitted themselves well, despite their recent defection.”

Synesix noticed for the first time the Star of Saradomin fixed prominently on Hebe’s tunic. If it were any other time, any other war, she would have counted it strange that a Saradominist would have such nice things to say about Zarosian traitors.

“Ah,” Hebe said. “This is her? You're the World Guardian?”

Synesix extended her hand. “Good tidings,” she said.

There was a rumble as Nodon machinery fired upon the Cathedral to mark her words.

“Good tidings,” Hebe returned, somewhat uncertainly. “My— that is, I've heard so much about you… World Guardian.”

“Call me Synesix,” she said kindly. Hebe looked as though she could use the help.

Moia looked annoyed. “Can we move on?” she said. “We need to get to the Cathedral. Is the way clear?”

Hebe nodded. “The White Knights and the… ah… undead have mostly dealt with the influx of TzekHaar. Azzanadra is holding the Glacor Front, although he sent the other mages away…”

“He did?” Synesix asked, letting the surprise show in her voice.

“Like I said,” Moia said. “Something’s happening soon.”

Synesix looked between the two of them. “Okay, then,” she said. “Will the sewers hold?”

Already, she could see the line of combatants reorganizing around the sewer mouth. No TzekHaar were climbing out yet, but the line she saw now seemed to be missing a few fighters.

“Maybe,” Moia said. “We’ll do our best to hold it back. Talk to the gods. Find out what they want to do now. Hebe. Make sure she gets there.”

“Me?” Hebe squeaked. Synesix was beginning to get the feeling that Hebe was not a seasoned soldier, despite the curious relationship she had with Moia and the respect she seemed to command from the Knights.

“Don't you think it's time you introduced yourself to the gods?” Moia asked, arching a brow significantly.

Hebe swallowed, and looked as though she were about to argue… and then didn’t.

“Okay,” she said. “Very well. Synesix… come with me. This way is safest.”

As they left Moia behind, hurrying to join the fighters standing ready to keep the TzekHaar contained, Synesix glanced at Hebe.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

“Yes, yes, fine,” Hebe said tersely. “Just getting ready to meet the gods. Who wouldn't be nervous?”

Well, now, Shadow said, something like smugness in his voice. I think this one is hiding something.

That's absurd, Light replied. You couldn't possibly have guessed that from a few words alone.

Hello, you two, Synesix thought wearily.

The voices in her head. She'd wondered when they would have something to say about this mess.

Quiet. We're having a discussion, Shadow said.

“Who are you?” Synesix asked suspiciously.

Hebe just shook her head. As they proceeded through the street, White Knights paused and nodded to the two of them; to Hebe as much as the World Guardian, Synesix suspected.

“Soon,” Hebe said, eventually. “Soon. No point in keeping secrets forever, right?”

…

In all her years, Synesix never thought she'd pity gods.

Hate them, love them, fight for them, fight against them… but pity just felt wrong.

Yet as she entered the chamber, she saw how Armadyl's wings drooped, how Saradomin's face was drawn, how Seren…

Actually, Seren looked…

“World Guardian,” exclaimed a familiar voice. A familiar smile even accompanied it, although this, too, was careworn.

“Ali,” Synesix said, not helping but to smile in turn. Wahisietel chuckled briefly at this old name, and then faded into silence.

It was a surprising few seconds before anyone else spoke. Synesix took note of how Hebe had withdrawn, shadowing by the door as though waiting to leave at any moment.

“World Guardian,” Armadyl rasped. The sound shocked her. “We are glad you could make it.”

“What's going on?” she asked, stepping forward.

“Stop! Come no closer.” Saradomin, sparing a moment to brush an errant few white hairs from his face.

“What is…” But then, Synesix felt it. A wall of energy rearing up before her. It touched her very soul with a stinging warmth. Anima, she thought with awe. The very fonts of Being…

She remembered how she felt, a lifetime ago, standing in the old Guthixian temple and beholding the Catalyst for the first time. Something Druidic in her longed to step closer, despite the pain, extend her hand as she did so long ago. Or to drop to her knees and worship.

She did neither, clearing her throat instead.

“In the past few days, the eggs have surged with power,” Armadyl said. “We are siphoning as much of it as we can, but we cannot take more. The growth is exponential. Even were Zamorak to return, we could not stabilize them now.”

Some kind of dizziness took hold of her, and Synesix shook her head. She felt cold all over. “So, what, then?” she asked. “Is it too late?”

Now, as if sensing her fear, the rasp vanished as the god seemed to collect himself. Armadyl's voice had taken on what Synesix could only describe as a godly tone; the voice of a being who had stirred armies to war and bid worlds to bow.

“Not just yet,” he said.

Seren was quiet. She stared into the eggs, her crystalline eyes reflecting their light. If Synesix hadn't been distracted by fear, it may have caught her attention.

“What do you need from me?” Synesix asked.

Saradomin nodded imperiously. The World Guardian's obedience was nothing but his due. “We have every expectation that the Elders will notice as soon as they sense the conduit of energy changing,” he said. “So far, they have refrained from intervening more directly for fear of harming the eggs. We have no idea what they will do if they come under threat directly.”

“We need you to evacuate as many people as possible,” Armadyl said. The “as possible” hung over the sentence like a storm cloud. “Protect our retreat, so to speak, and then leave yourself. Saradomin, Seren, and I will begin to reroute the energy soon after you begin. The Elders will not be so foolish as to not understand that something is amiss.”

“What about the Nodon?” Synesix asked.

“A risk we will have to take,” Armadyl said. “The Cathedral should still hold against their assault for long enough to do what must be done.”

“Have we considered,” Saradomin ventured, “that perhaps it would be beneficial to keep a corps of willing volunteers here, to defend for as long as they can? It may buy us more time.”

“Absolutely not.”

“See reason, Armadyl.”

“I will not ask the mortals to lay down their lives for our war! No more than they already have!”

“It is their war, too—”

“Alright, enough,” Synesix said. The gods quieted (somewhat to her surprise), but both looked unhappy.

“I will go to the front, and gather up as many people as I can. I will not ask any to remain, but if some insist, then I will not stop them.”

Truthfully, she saw the sense in Saradomin’s proposal, but she could not help but take Armadyl’s side. She was tired of all the death. Yet what choice did they have? This was the only decision she felt she could make.

“Very well,” Saradomin said.

There was little time to waste, but still, she looked at Seren again. The crystalline goddess was paying little attention to the proceedings, absorbed as always in the eggs…

Something was very wrong, here. But Synesix doubted she had the time to deal with it now.

Ach, Light cried within her. Gods, her thoughts…

…

Hebe greeted her at the gates. “I will help you,” she said. “I’ll speak to Gorvek and the Temple Knights. You handle the Elves and the Crux Eqal.”

“Alright,” Synesix said. “But after that, you should leave, as well. It will only get more dangerous as we beat our retreat.”

There was something almost sad in Hebe’s eyes as she smiled. “I am not afraid to die,” she said. “Not after what I’ve been through. I will stay as long as I am needed.”

…

Baxtorian agreed quickly enough to organize his Elves for a retreat, though Synesix perceived that he was troubled by Seren as well.

“Don’t think we haven’t noticed,” he said. “Our Lady is distracted. Some of us have wondered if she is working on a plan to save us. Or if…”

He shook his head. “I serve,” he said. “No matter what. This is bigger than us.”

“Yes,” Synesix agreed reluctantly. “I’ll keep an eye on her. I promise.”

She trusted that Baxtorian would pass the word down to Lord Helwyr. Instead, she struck off further down the ice-bound path, where the Arch-Glacor’s tormented writhing could be felt in the very stones.

Even through the blinding weather, it was not terribly difficult to see the form of the monster looming over the city, held in check by the efforts of the mages… but as Synesix drew closer, she could see that the beast had grown even closer than when she had last left it.

“Azzanadra!” she cried as she found the path. “Where are the others?”

The god stood alone, obviously burdened by the effort of holding back the Arch-Glacor. He turned, only barely, looking as though he paid Synesix too much attention, the fight might be lost. If she wasn’t mistaken, his arms seemed to tremble just barely as he drew dark sigils in the air and cast continuously.

“Gods,” Synesix couldn’t stop herself from saying. “What… what happened to the others? Are they alright?”

“While you were gone,” Azzanadra explained. “They… had to leave. Too dangerous. Arch-Glacor is… strengthened by something.”

Strengthened by something. Synesix felt a shiver go down her spine as she heard that. Now that she was here, she could feel it, too; something that writhed and coiled, something just out of sight…

She wondered if Azzanadra, linked to the shadows as he was, felt it the same. She shook her head. It didn’t matter.

“We’re evacuating,” Synesix said. “The gods are preparing to try Armadyl’s plan.”

“Unwise.” She could feel the strain in his voice.

“Maybe, but we’re running out of options. The eggs are close to hatching.”

Azzanadra was quiet for a few moments after that. He appeared to be putting all of his effort into the Arch-Glacor.

Then, “No.”

“No, what?”

“I won’t leave. I am a god now; if anyone can survive, I can.” He looked up. “And I shall not sit idly by while the fate of the universe is at stake.”

Synesix’s mouth felt dry. Would he survive the aftermath? Would any of the gods? It was strange to imagine a world without them… stranger still to know that it was Guthix’s wish, in a way.

Guthix’s wish or no, there was something about the possibility that made Synesix’s stomach turn.

“I wish I could convince you otherwise,” Synesix said, a bit stiffly. Her throat felt tight.

Now Azzanadra spared her his full attention, or nearly so. He actually smiled at her. An expression as alien on his face as it had ever been. “Whether I have earned your forgiveness or not, World Guardian,” he said. “It has been a pleasure getting to know you. We serve different gods, but… I do believe, in the end, we wanted the same thing.”

“The past is heavy, Azzanadra,” Synesix said. “Put it down. There is no changing what we have both done, but I will never forget how you have helped us today.”

“Heavier than you know,” Azzanadra said. “Make it out of here, so that maybe one day you will find out.”

…

Alright, so, we’ve hit the Crux Eqal, the Elves, and the remaining Zamorakians, Light said in her mind. Who was Hebe getting to, again?

Oh, leave off, Shadow said. We’ll never reach them all in time.

“Shut up, Shadow,” she said out loud, even though he was a little bit right. There would, likely as not, be people left behind; there always were in military movements this hasty. Yet another horror she had to close her heart to for now.

The Temple Knights, Abyssal Knights, Kinshra… well, all of the Knights, really, had heard the call. Zamorak’s remaining necromancers were only too happy to leave, along with the Mahjarrat. The gods’ generals still held the doorways with small teams. The plan was for them to make their escape as soon as final preparations began, but Synesix had her doubts it would be enough time.

The Nodon pressed against the Cathedral, sensing weakness. That was where most of the remaining defenders had gone; Synesix understood that Nex and Zilyana had their hands full keeping the Nodon from storming the Cathedral with their full numbers.

Croesus stirred, but Galvek believed it was too late for it to do anything. Bik was trying desperately to hold the fungus together after the amount of times it had been subdued. The Arch-Glacor was contained so long as Azzanadra stood.

As for Zuk… Synesix had no idea. The north was quiet. If he had any inkling what was happening above, she knew he'd be here already. She had to hope he'd stay ignorant until the turning point.

Nothing for it but to get the hell out of dodge, I suppose, Shadow said, morosely.

Synesix surveyed the city. “Is that everyone?” she asked, not sure who she was talking to.

“I don't know, ma'am,” a Crux Eqal initiate answered, making her jump. “The message has been passed down to everyone we can.”

She offered him a smile. It was the least she could do. “Then go,” she said. “Go, with my blessing.”

She remembered the conversation she'd had with Kaqemeex, and wondered if she could have chosen her words better. But the young druid merely bowed his head, and made his way up the steps.

There's no time, Synesix, a voice offered gently. Light, sounding more somber than ever.

You've done everything you can, Shadow offered, sounding more compassionate than ever.

Synesix couldn't remember the last time the two of them had agreed on anything. But at the moment, she could almost feel their combined will, urging her to flee while she could.

“...F-fine,” she stammered. “I… let's… let's find Hebe.”

For above them, not visible to the naked eye nor detectable by any mortal instrument, a storm of anima greater than anything she had ever felt before loomed over the city. It reacted deep inside of her, twisting and pulling at the core of her being.

No mortal had ever felt this before, save perhaps the Dragonkin. But deep in her soul, Synesix knew that the eggs were almost hatching.

She was out of time.

She hurried up the steps, the same path the Druid had taken. The southern door was unguarded; the minor Glacors had been stymied by Azzanadra's full power, and the Elves had fled.

The gods inside were — what else? — arguing.

“We have to start now,” Armadyl said.

“And I took you for the compassionate one. We still haven't had word from the World Guardian.”

“Can't you feel that—?”

Armadyl broke off. “Ah,” he said. “Synesix. Is it time?”

She hesitated for only a moment. “Do it,” she said.

Saradomin wasted no time. “Everyone out!” he roared, and Synesix knew that he was using more than his mere voice.

The last few defenders flowed around her. Moia gave her a nod before she made her way out. Wahisietel, a sad smile; and then, he, too, was gone.

“Hebe?” Synesix asked. The Saradominist warrior was standing close by… hovering, even.

“Oh,” she said. She cast a look at Synesix that was surprisingly vulnerable. “R-right… I just… do you know if the gods will be okay?”

Synesix glanced at them. Saradomin and Armadyl were taking up their positions, having let the energy flow run free. Seren had not moved. “I don't know,” she said.

Do you really think you can save them?

Be quiet, Shadow. “But you can't do anything for them now. They know the risks.”

Hebe bit her lip. Not an expression that Synesix expected to see on a Saradominist champion. “But I…”

Outside, the Nodon cannons roared, and the Cathedral wall groaned. The sound startled her to harshness. “Hebe!” she shouted. “Get out of here!”

Saradomin glanced over. “She's right,” he said. “Your faith is to be commended, but this is beyond you. Please, don't worry about me.”

Well? You haven't answered our question.

Hebe took a step forward, perhaps unintentionally. Synesix would wonder, later, if things could have been different if she hadn't… but, if she were in Hebe's shoes, would she have done any differently?

Come now, don't ignore us. It's a simple question, with a simple answer.

Who could have resisted, at the end of all things, one last look at the father they loved?

Recognition dawned on Saradomin's face. Synesix screwed up her eyes and put her hands on her head. There was an awful ringing…

“Adrasteia,” he whispered. Then, in full godly volume, “Adrasteia!”

“Father,” she said, voice thick. “I'm sorry, I…”

“I told you to stay away from this! I sent you away! Why have you come here?”

“The icyene… they told me it might be the end, the end of everything, and I…”

“In your state, Adrasteia! After the Tribunal, after Zaros!”

They will all betray you, you know. Didn't we tell you before? You have placed your faith in such weak, fallible vessels. But you aren't like that anymore. Are you?

Now Armadyl was yelling. “Saradomin!” he roared. Synesix couldn't remember him ever roaring before. “There's no time! Send her away! We have to begin the ritual!”

No time, no time. He's right about that. And Saradomin knows it too.

The blue god's eyes flicked to Adrasteia, then back to the eggs, back and forth, back and forth… and somehow, Synesix knew he had made his decision.

“There is no time,” he echoed. “She'll never get away at this rate. I… I have to…”

“No,” she croaked. If only her damned head could stop pounding. “Saradomin, don't…”

But he looked at Adrasteia, and between them passed something deeper than divine communication, deeper than words or magic. And Adrasteia gasped. “Father, don't—!”

Then, they were both gone.

“No!” Armadyl cried out. “No!”

Synesix fell to stunned silence. Even with the building storm overhead, the whole world felt quiet.

Now it was Armadyl's turn to step back. He looked at Seren first. “Lady Seren…” He began, but trailed off when he saw her.

Seren had not moved. Her eyes still glimmered with the reflected light of the eggs. She seemed to be… singing.

A lullaby.

Then, he looked to Synesix. “World Guardian,” he said. “I'm sorry. We failed.”

One by one…

“Armadyl, wait,” she said. “Please…”

He shook his head gently, as if he knew what she was about to say. “It's over,” he said. “I… I am truly sorry, Synesix. But I do not wish to spend my final moments on a battlefield, if there is no hope. I would spend them with my people, holding them close, as I always should have done.”

“Armadyl…”

He looked at her with heart-breaking sincerity.

Then, he, too, was gone.

And then there were two.

The Cathedral was quiet. Synesix felt ice in her guts. How could it all have gone so wrong? In just a few moments… everything was over.

Her thoughts whirled around each other. She thought of Taverley, and wanted to weep. She thought of the gods, and felt anger, fear, contempt, hurt.

She could attempt to reach Azzanadra, but even if she could, what could he do?

As her head pounded, and cold crept over her, she heard another voice.

“There, now,” Seren cooed. “We're safe now.”

She looked up from where she was rooted to the ground. Almost obscured behind the eggs, the crystalline goddess stood.

Synesix swallowed. “Seren…”

“Quiet,” she said. “You tried to hurt them. Tried to kill them. They are upset, and scared. Your voice… scares them.”

Not her voice, o Elder Daughter.

Seren looked up. It was the first time he had moved since Synesix had arrived. “Who said that?” she demanded. “Show yourself. I won't let you hurt them.”

Perhaps not today. But we are patient.

“Seren,” Synesix croaked hoarsely. “I don't know who you're talking to. But please. Help me. We can still do something. Can't we?”

Seren looked at her. There was recognizable in those glimmering eyes.

“Think of the Elves. Think of everyone…”

“The Elves are not my family,” she said. She ran a sharpened finger down the side of Wen's egg. “I was deluding myself. They don't love me. What we have isn't love. Zaros didn't love me. Guthix didn't love me. But they… I won't… I won't let you hurt them.”

“No,” Synesix said. The anger began to build again. “You can't trade the universe just for them.”

“But I can. Why shouldn't I?” Seren looked down. “I… wish it didn't have to come to this. That there was a better way. But this is the way it has to be. Either our extinction… or yours. And without us… there would be no point. Would there?”

They have all betrayed you.

The anger built, and built.

Within you is the power to make this right.

She felt colder, and colder.

“What is this?” Seren asked. There was a kind of horror in her voice. “What are you doing?”

After all, this is what your god wanted for you. A god who so hated his own kind, he committed the ultimate blasphemy.

There was a power within her. Something strange, but familiar. It was waiting to be directed.

“Guthix,” Seren cried. “What have you done?”

Now.

The power rolled within her, and burst.

All of a sudden, she felt her soul blaze like a sun. The light burst forth; and so did the shadow it cast go longer, darker, deeper than she could have ever fathomed.

In the moment, there was nothing Synesix wanted more than to hurt Seren. To make her suffer for damning all of creation for her own selfish, childish fixations.

All of the pain and terror of the whole war felt like it was finally being released in a surge of magic more brilliant than (almost) anything Synesix had ever seen.

Magic, and… something else.

She had only felt this once before. In the labyrinth, with Sliske, before she took her final vengeance on him.

This target was much stronger. She parted the waves of energy like an island in a sea. But under the shadows… even Seren had to yield.

When Synesix opened her eyes, Seren was gone.

The world swam around her, and she fell.

…

...wake up! Wake up, please! There's still time!

Synesix felt, more than heard, the crash of Nodon cannons on the wall. The roar of a distant, fiery throat, as its owner realized he had been deceived.

She scrambled for purchase on the hard stone floor of the Cathedral. She had fallen, but was unhurt.

Very little time had passed, she guessed. The storm still raged, now completely unbound. The eggs were almost hard to look at, so full of luminescence as they were.

“...Light?”

That's my name, don't wear it out! But seriously. I had an idea.

We had an idea.

Yes, that's right, we! We can still do this. But please, you have to get up!

Synesix did so obediently, although she didn't see much point. The walls no longer trembled with Nodon cannonfire. The last volley had signaled the end.

What was the point in advancing further? The Elders had already won.

Zuk, however, didn't get the memo. She could hear him roar again, closer this time.

“What?” she asked them aloud, more to have something to say than anything else.

That shadow anima inside of you. When you unleashed it, it caused the eggs’ energy to route around it.

You were probably too busy being cooked alive by the expenditure of godly power to notice, Shadow added sadly.

The POINT is… the gods needed all of their strength to reroute the anima flowing to the eggs. But you? You just need that bit of shadow, and they'll bend away from you like water and electricity.

Light sounded awfully pleased with this plan. And as Synesix's mind cleared, she could see why.

She could act as a conduit, shaping the flow of anima by pushing it away from the shadow anima in her soul. She had never used that part of herself like that before. But as she looked down at her hands, she could feel it there, lurking just underneath the surface.

“So… you mean…?”

Yes! Yes, I mean whatever you were going to say! But we have to move fast!

It may already be too late…

Shut up, kindly, please! A more encouraging tone wouldn't hurt right about now!

Synesix looked at the eggs, at her hands, at the eggs again. World Guardian, she thought. World Guardian. Was this what it all meant? Could this be what Guthix intended for her?

“Okay,” she said. Her heart was in her throat, but she felt energized like she hadn't in months. “Tell me what to do.”

Reach out. Let us reach with you.

At first, it sounded like a nonsense instruction. But she put her hands forward… and felt the soup of anima part around her.

It was like a cold wind cutting through a room full of steam. Surprising, and enough to make one shiver… but also refreshing, in its way.

Yes! Yes, it's working!

Do you remember what Armadyl said?

She did. The power could be rerouted, each to each, until it formed an eternal circuit. One that would never cease to multiply in power… until the destruction of its conduits.

But she had to work fast. The rivers of power were almost uncountable. She could bend them, but more would snap into place, ready to spiral out into the world again. The eggs, and the power they possessed, were fighting her.

“Wait,” she said. “First, I… in case I don't get another chance to talk.”

Shadow and Light fell silent. She thought they knew what she was going to say.

“Thank you, both,” she said. “I… don't really know what you are, exactly, but. Thank you. For everything. For staying with me to the end.”

Silence. And then, so quiet she couldn't tell which was speaking:

It's been an honor, World Guardian.

Holding her hands out, she plunged into the storm.

For a moment, something about it felt deeply wrong. She remembered what she felt when she saw them. The urge to worship, to give herself to this font of Life.

If this was Life, what was she now? A contaminant? Blight in the wheat? Blood in the water?

She couldn't think about that now. If she must be that, to save everyone… then so be it.

River by river, the anima yielded to her. She could almost hear it wailing as it floundered to avoid the Anathema inside of her.

I’m sorry, she thought. I'm so sorry…

She connected Ful to Bik. Bik to Wen. Wen to Ful…

Eager to escape her, the anima grounded itself in something familiar. The process grew easier as she worked. The shadows seemed to lengthen…

Another roar from outside. And then, the Cathedral trembled. The tip of TzKal-Zuk's blade appeared in the ceiling before being withdrawn. A whole section of the roofing crumbled behind her. She almost couldn’t hear it.

Synesix could not focus on that. The enormity of her task nearly crushed her. But she focused on each stream, feeling them as, slowly but surely, they began to settle into a new path.

Hope surged within her. Come on, come on…

Another blow on the roof. Then, the door. Two, three more followed.

Almost there…

The door collapsed. Zuk roared at her. “Liar!” he cried.

No, no, please…

As his blade was raised to deliver her death-blow, she looked up, hoping to communicate with her eyes something she could not with words.

He stopped. Rumbled in what might have been laughter. But it was not a very satisfied laugh, or a happy one.

The blade came down...

The anima screamed around her as it fed into itself, growing brighter and brighter—

She shielded her eyes and fell to the ground. Sanfew? she thought. Sanfew, I’m coming home.

Then, everything stopped.

Chapter Text

Everything stopped.

Except for Synesix.

She first felt the dull pain of a cobble pressing too hard into her hand. She shifted her weight, listening to the deafening sound of her own breathing.

All was silent. She dared to crack open her eyes, just a sliver.

The Cathedral had become luminescent. Light was falling like snow around her. Tiny points of anima, drifting away from the center and settling gently on the ground, where they faded.

At this point she might have wondered whether this was what death was like. But seeing as she had died before, she was fairly sure this wasn’t it.

The eggs were difficult to look at, but almost as soon as she tried, they began to dim. The anima around them was as strong as ever, but the visible energies had become almost transparent.

She was alone in the Cathedral… except for Zuk, looming large above everything, similarly frozen as all of the scenery.

His sword was in a downward arc; it had paused not more than a meter above her. She shivered, and quickly scrambled away from it.

“Hello?” she called out. Her voice came out as a rasp. “Wh-who’s there?”

She was sure that something must have caused this stasis, and she did not like her odds that it was something friendly.

As she slowly climbed to her feet, a voice sounded in her head, nearly causing her to jump out of her skin.

It worked. It worked!

Did you think it wouldn't?

Well, did you?

The noise — if noise it could be called — seemed out of place in the sheer silence of the Cathedral. Synesix flexed her hands reflexively.

“This is working?” Synesix whispered.

Why are you whispering?, Light asked. I think this is… Oh. Hmmm. Well, then.

We do appear to be frozen in time, Shadow said, sounding even less happy than normal.

That's… new.

Synesix looked at the eggs again. There did seem to be reason to celebrate, now that she really looked; the anima circuit was complete. Without the occlusion of anima, the eggs were lit from within like jack o'lanterns, their surfaces pocked by something like heat damage.

Were they on the verge of hatching? Or vaporizing?

Shadow and Light seemed to be conducting a debate in her head; a debate that she was not privy to. She hadn't been aware they could do that.

She might have pried more closely, but for the distracting sound of wings beating overhead.

For a moment, she froze, the sound echoing over the stillness like gunshots. Something, in all of time-locked Senntisten, was moving.

It sounded like a Nodon.

Cover was limited. She might have hidden under the furniture, but that would be little protection against a Dragonkin's fire. Near the eggs would be perilous in itself. She could run, but did she dare leave the eggs alone in the presence of one of Jas’ servants?

Almost by instinct alone, she allowed runes to crumble in her hands. In a moment, a magical barrier surrounded her. In the next, she reached for her wand and orb.

A shape appeared in the rafters, near where Zuk had broken through. A familiar face looked contemptuously at the molten demigod, and then turned its full ravaged visage back to her.

“Kerapac,” she breathed. Her disruption shield held… but the Dragonkin seemed in no hurry to attack her.

He snarled. “World Guardian,” he said, in the tone of voice one might use to speak of a debilitating disease.

He alighted from the ceiling, landing elegantly near the podium. His remaining eye studied her fiercely.

Her shield faded. Synesix resolved not to give any sign of it.

“I won't let you save them,” she said quietly. “You or… Jas.”

“Don't be so sure.”

Kerapac approached the eggs. Synesix held her breath, but he was not incinerated. Instead, he walked right up to Ful's molten shell, and placed his hand on it.

“They're in pain,” he said.

Her stomach flipped.

“On the very verge of death,” he continued. “The circuit is… sloppily done, compared to the elegance of the Mirror, but… sufficient. I must congratulate you. You almost did it.”

There were no warm overtones in Kerapac's voice, but there was a kind of detached, scientific appreciation, before he turned back and seemed to remember that he hated her.

“So what now?” she asked. “Are you going to stop this, somehow?”

“How would I do that?” he asked. “It’s already too late. In the very next moment, the energy overloading the eggs will detonate. The ruins of Senntisten will be annihilated. So will everything west of the Salve and east of Falador.”

Synesix choked.

“What? Did you think your victory would come without sacrifice?”

“I thought I alone would pay it.”

“Then you were a fool.”

Kerapac still spoke with that clinical air. But she’d spent long enough around him to recognize when he was trying very hard to conceal his emotions.

“If you’re looking for the Needle, you mustn’t worry. The Elder Artefacts are incapable of acting upon the eggs.”

“So, what? Why are you here? Delaying the inevitable?”

“What I mean,” Kerapac said, eying her, “is that it is not I who have stopped this. Look around. Think for a moment.”

But whatever Kerapac might think of her puny mammal brain, Synesix had already begun to suspect. She had just not believed that she would actually do it.

“Isn't Jas afraid of harming the children?” she asked, her mind whirling, thinking about the amount of power being extended, the bottomless reservoir of anima she had glimpsed only a morsel of in the eggs, now bent towards this very spot…

“She is. But the time for caution has passed.”

Synesix took the opportunity to take a closer look at Kerapac; partially to assess, if she could, the probability (or even the possibility) that Kerapac was lying, that Jas was trying to lull her into a false sense of security.

Instead, she saw something altogether more disturbing. It was difficult to tell in outright battle, but Kerapac was… nearly broken. She hazarded that she knew this Dragonkin decently well, having encountered him on several occasions, and she had never seen his stance this off-guard, his shoulders so stooped, his eye so dull.

Even when the fury of Jas’ curse was upon him, it had only inspired him to fight. Now… this.

“Even if I wanted to,” Synesix said carefully, “I could not reverse what has been done to the eggs. The instant the spell goes down, they’ll detonate.”

“How quickly you accept the price, World Guardian,” he sneered. “But no. That’s not why I am here. Jas dares not expend more of her power inside the Cathedral. Come outside.”

She stalled, hand on her wand.

Kerapac sighed. “She will not hurt you,” he said. “She wants to talk.”

“...What?”

“Just come with me.”

…

Synesix did as she was bidden, in the end, still wary, but accepting that she was already fully in Jas’ power. An Elder God outside, the nearly-exploded eggs inside; what was a little more danger?

As she passed through the great doors, she couldn’t help but gasp. There was the battlefield, frozen, just as the Cathedral had been. Their enemies had pushed nearly to the gates. The glacors had surged around Azzanadra, whom she could still spot in the distance, desperately holding back the Arch-Glacor, and the Nodon were battling Zilyana, still standing tall at the eastern gate.

The sight made Synesix’s heart ache. She and Zilyana had their, sometimes violent, disagreements, and she would never forget how eager the Icyene was to kill Guthix. But here she was, standing until the end.

She wondered if she’d ever get a chance to thank her.

“Here,” Kerapac said roughly.

“What?” she asked absently.

“Stand here.”

With the end of the Staff of Armadyl, Kerapac pointed to a particular point to the west. Tendrils of Croesus had grown in Gorvek’s absence, but they, too, had been stilled by Jas’ power.

Synesix picked her way gingerly to a point on the bridge. The gardens had overgrown with plant matter and the dead; the end was now inaccessible.

“Great,” Kerapac said. “I’m bid to tell you to… hold on tight.”

“What t-!!!!”

The rest of her sentence was cut off by a scream. The floor seemed to pull away from her at ludicrous speed. She looked up, sure she was about to slam into the rocky roof, but it seemed to have vanished in favor of countless stars.

She dared to look down again. A platform of rock and sand beneath her feet, and all around her, the sound of a dreadful tick.

Oh, no, she thought.

The impossible face of the Elder God Jas loomed over her, semi-mechanical tendril moving in their circuits around her.

The sand around her built, and built, and built, until it formed a pillar and a misshapen mouth.

“World Guardian,” it managed, before it collapsed again into nothingness.

“No,” she gasped.

“You have”

“Killed my”

“Children.”

The enormity of the structure around her daunted Synesix for a moment. The clockwork inner functioning of Jas, so vast and complicated she could spend a million years trying to understand them, loomed around her. She stumbled, then drew herself upright.

If she was to die now, then at least she would not cower.

“Answer.”

“I…” she looked around. For the moment, at least, she was not being annihilated. “...Yes. Yes, I have. I did not want to. But I had no choice.”

“Explain.”

“The Great Revision would destroy our universe!”

“Not destroy”

“Recreate.”

She drew a hand over her face. “Okay,” she said. “But what about us? Mortal life? You… you gave us a test to prove ourselves. Why should we have to prove our right to exist?”

“Explain.”

“We live and die as you do,” she said. “We exist — by accident, perhaps, but we exist all the same…”

“This is not”

“An explanation.”

She wondered if she'd ever have the words to explain to Jas. She wondered if it had ever been possible from the beginning to be “worthy” in the eyes of these blind demiurges.

All the language her religion had taught her came back to the feeling she had touching the Stone. The overwhelming feeling of life and light. The conviction beyond reason and rationality that existence was good; it was good because it was and it was because it was good.

Jas’ many eyes looked down at her. Synesix realized she would never know her own egg in the way that Synesix had. And that there was nothing more to talk about.

“Destroy me, then,” she rasped. “Do it.”

Jas was silent. Her clockwork mechanisms worked above; these, too, seemed to quiet down.

“Just end it, if that's what you want. We failed your test. Good. Nothing alive could ever pass it.”

She could not remember ever being this tired before.

“What the hell are you waiting for?”

Jas turned. A booming echo. Something within that vast machinery clicked.

“Do you”

“Wish for death?”

For a moment, Synesix didn't know how to answer. “No,” she said.

“Why not?”

“I… because I want to live.”

“Tautology.”

“Maybe.”

An eye opened wider, glowing with fierce light. Synesix averted her own.

“You resist”

“Knowing.”

Another turn. Another click.

“The eggs”

“Must survive.”

Click.

“The eggs”

“Cannot die.”

Click.

Synesix opened her eyes. She hadn't realized she had closed them.

Tautology.

“Kerapac.”

With that thundering name, the illusion shattered. Synesix fell on her knees on the cobbles of Senntisten.

The Dragonkin in question walked softly up to her, and even more softly offered a hand to help her up. The only reason she could tell it was compelled was the burning hatred that lingered in his remaining eye.

When she was stood, Kerapac prostrated himself.

“A gift,” he growled, and held up (hands trembling, as though resisting) the Staff of Armadyl. “From Her.”

For a moment, Synseix simply stared at it. All the grief that stick had ever caused her flashed through her mind; all the power-hungry hands that had wielded it.

Her own hands, driven by killing instinct, bringing the Staff down hard on Sliske's back, relishing the cry of pain he uttered…

Without knowing, she had reached out for it.

The Siphon revealed the connections between things. Her sight lit up before her brain knew what to do; all the magic around her, the Anima Mundi reshaped, everything connected in a web more vast than she had ever thought possible.

And there; divine and mortal, Creator and created. The gulf between them was so vast.

Yet now she knew without knowing that a bridge was still possible.

She wanted to weep. She was fairly sure she did weep.

Kerapac looked on with even more disgust. “If you're finished,” he said. “My… employer has a proposition for you.”

Chapter Text

“What proposition?” she managed. This was the longest she had ever held the Staff, and the only time she had been required to make conversation with all the information flooding her senses.

“Jas believes an accord between mortal and divine is still possible,” Kerapac said. “She wishes to… rekindle the deal she offered to you after you killed Sliske.”

“But how? Why?” she gasped. “The eggs are seconds from destruction.”

“But not destroyed yet,” he said. “Jas believes there is a way to save them, and spare the universe at the same time.”

She looked back at the Cathedral, then looked away as the brilliance of the anima surrounding them hurt her. “Jas can't stop what's happening to them,” she said slowly. “Why should we listen to her?”

“I have been informed,” Kerapac said, “that if the eggs are destroyed, Jas will have no mercy on mortal life, nor on anima itself. Better that it be condemned to Erebus rather than be of no use to continue the cycle.”

He was quiet for a few moments, but looked as though he were fighting a mighty battle within himself. “If you had the slightest shred of honor, you would let the universe be destroyed rather than come groveling to these—!”

He fell to the floor. Synesix, alarmed, took a step back.

Kerapac clutched his head and ground his teeth. “No more… no more…”

It did not take a Teragardian magitechnologist to figure out what was going on. “Stop,” Synesix said. “Stop what you're doing!”

Kerapac ceased to writhe. Doggedly, though his face was a mask of pain, he rose to his feet unsteadily.

“How kind of you, World Guardian, to ease my internment after you passed my sentence,” he rasped.

She was beginning to remember why she didn’t like talking to Kerapac.

Still, she considered his words. She was not ignorant to the impossible situation the Elder God Wars had placed the mortal races, and the grand power differential between them and their creators. She no more liked the idea of living in subservience to the Elders than Kerapac did.

Ultimately, though, she was not Kerapac. She had not yet given up on life. If there existed some way to live free, the mortal races would never discover it if they were destroyed before they had the chance.

Uncomfortably, Synesix felt that Jas was reading her thoughts, discerning this tepid disobedience.

“If there is a way to spare the universe and the eggs,” she said, “I will try.”

Kerapac snarled. “Of course you will,” he said. He shook out his wings and slumped his shoulders, as though the last of the fight had gone out of him.

“But,” Synesix said. “I have some conditions.”

“Adorable.”

“For one, you must free Kerapac,” she said. “Immediately.”

Kerapac was silent for a few moments. If Synesix was looking closely, she thought she could see his one good eye widening almost imperceptibly.

“After the eggs are safely hatched,” he said. “Not before… she says.”

Synesix thought about pressing her luck, but decided that Kerapac already hated her as much as it was possible to hate someone, and making this concession wouldn’t change that.

“Fine,” she said. “But you must stop causing him pain.”

Silence. Then, “Yes.”

“Good,” Synesix said. “Where shall we begin?”

…

As it happened, Jas already had a plan.

“Guthix merged your soul with a measure of shadow anima,” Kerapac explained as they walked the battlefield. “Jas intends to do the same with the eggs.”

“What?” Synesix asked, too loudly. “Isn’t that… uh…”

“Anathema?”

Synesix hated the smugness in his voice. “Quite right.”

“Once again, the time for caution has passed.”

Kerapac stopped, looking out over the Nodon front and the Dragonkin he had commanded. There was no indication that he felt anything towards them, frozen as they were in battle with Nex and Zilyana.

“You have noticed, surely, that the eggs are doomed,” he said.

“Well, yes.”

“I don’t mean the conduit. I mean before that. Mah was corrupted and Jas had to sacrifice her egg to fill her place. What do you think the absence of both their greatest and their least will do to the next cycle, should it be allowed to continue? Must Ful sacrifice her egg this time? And on and on, until there are none left?”

Synesix had seen this, too, but somehow it seemed unthinkable. There must have been a plan in place; something that would keep the divine machinery from grinding to a halt. Something that would keep creation itself from ceasing.

All of this seemed so far above her head, but she couldn’t dwell on that now. It wasn’t like it was her first time dealing with things that should have been the demesne of gods.

“Jas thinks she can avoid that fate?” she asked.

“Perhaps. I think it’s madness, of course, but what isn’t madness these days? Still, I admit, I was wrong. I’m glad you agreed to help. I’ll enjoy watching you be wracked against the rocks of this lunacy for as long as you can prolong your pointless life.”

“Lovely,” Synesix said.

Kerapac offered a cruel smile. “It was the touch of Anathema that corrupted Mah. But Jas has taken notice of Guthix’s experiments with shadow anima… and my own. The former, of course, resulted in you. A shadow abomination, walking among the light.”

The word “abomination” struck closer to home than Synesix would have liked. She closed her heart to it.

“Jas hopes to repeat Guthix’s success. To splice Anathema into the very hearts of her children, and create stable hybrids such as yourself.”

Synesix’s eyes widened. “What? But… how could they do that? Don’t they… aren’t they antithetical to shadow anima?”

“Jas is desperate,” Kerapac said, shrugging.

“And the others?”

“She’ll handle the others. So she claims.”

Her head was spinning. She almost reached out and touched the Staff, as she might have her rune bag or wand, a reminder of the magic running through.

She stopped herself, shying away from the currents of power in the artefact.

“They aren't all on board with this?” she asked.

“Not at all. It might just be me, but I detect a note of fear in her voice. It would be best if my vengeance on her came at my own hands, but it would be delicious in its own right to see her torn down and destroyed at the hands of her sisters.”

Then, he shrugged. “Of course, it would be better by far for you to enact this plan before that happens.”

“How much time do we have?” Synesix asked.

“Unknown.”

“Where should I start?”

“Do I have to do your thinking for you, World Guardian? I wouldn't, even if I could. Here, at the end, I have no problem admitting that Guthix's manipulation of the shadows was far beyond what I was able to achieve in the time given to me. Perhaps if my machine were still active… ah, but alas! You and your cronies destroyed it.”

Synesix frowned. Her heart raced with the suddenness, and fragility, of this thread of hope. “Okay,” she said. “Well. I know the Wizard's Tower has some research on Shadow Anima. Perhaps if—”

…

“—I — AHHH!”

Synesix nearly dropped off the ledge into the sea. The teleport had put her near the cliff-face on the island where the Tower was situated.

Clumsy work. Maybe Jas struggled with the finer points of geography, or maybe Kerapac had been aiming to drop her into the water and missed.

Either way, she instinctively reached out to see that the Staff was still with her, and again flinched away… before slowly, almost guiltily resting her hand on it.

The subtle connections of the Tower became apparent to her. A circuit of magical energy running from top to bottom; that was probably the lift. It swirled around various points on every floor like a field of stars, branching out from the middle conduit. Individual wizards?

“Great, thank you,” Synesix said to the empty air. “I'll… find my own way back.”

Reluctantly, she took her hand from the Staff, and started to walk up the well-trodden road to the entrance. The familiar magical wisps gliding around the Tower in the fading light and the not-quite-natural lights emanating from the upper levels made Synesix feel a bit more like home.

The place was eerily still. It was evening, and the sight of the sun reminded Synesix that she hadn't slept since Sanfew's celebration of life.

“Hello?” she called out as she got closer. She waved a clinging mist from her face. “Is anyone there…?”

Finally, a familiar face. “Wizard Valina!” she exclaimed.

No answer. The door-wizard's face was frozen in a vaguely pleasant smile, dividing her attention between her notes on her desk, and the possibility of a newcomer walking in. Her eyes stared unseeingly past Synesix.

It wasn't too difficult to figure out what was going on, but Synesix shuddered as she looked around and back out the door to the sea.

The waves weren't lapping. The sun wasn't setting.

The amount of power it must take to extend the stopping of time this far was mind-boggling. She wondered how far it extended. Over all of Gielinor? Into the Underworld? Over the entire universe?

Perhaps it would be enough to hold Jas’ sisters at bay, but she doubted it.

Hesitantly, she stepped into the halls. Wizards all around her were poring through books, collapsed over desks, or mid-argument with each other.

Others, though, were huddled close to each other in the corners, hands interlocking, faces lowered. The evacuation was well-underway by the time Jas froze time, and it wouldn't have been impossible for news to have already reached the Tower through whatever magical channels they chose to employ.

She didn’t linger on the wizards.

A quick survey of the books on the ground floor was unsatisfactory. They all had a great deal to do with magic, and almost none even mentioned its more shadowy sibling.

On the second floor, one caught her eye; On the World Guardian.

With only some trepidation, she opened it, scanned the table of contents (and how would they know what her greatest childhood phobia was?) and flipped to a chapter titled “The Enchantment.”

The mysteries of the World Guardian enchantment continue to captivate the magical community. At first, it was believed that the spell was simply strong enough — having been cast by the strongest known god — to deter the others. We now believe that it has a connection to the Edicts themselves; energy that repels divine essence!

She jumped ahead.

...energy remains a mystery. The term “shadow anima” comes to us from the scholar Reldo, but as yet, little is known about the source and uses of this power.

She closed the book in frustration.

Psst. Hey.

“Shadow? Light?” she asked.

Not so loud. Bad enough we're in Jas’ eye.

I don't think she likes us very much, Light chimed in.

“It's good to hear from you,” Synesix said. “I thought… well, I wasn't sure what I thought. But you were awfully quiet for awhile there…”

Jas knows we're here and may have accepted, for the time being, our presence. It's what inspired her to try this mad plan after all. But she really would rather not be reminded of it more often than she has to.

Synesix wondered if they were guessing, or if they knew something she didn't.

“Well, hey,” she said. “You're the manifestation of my World Guardian powers, right? Can you—?”

Sorry, kid. We don't know how it works any more than you do.

The druid threw her hands down. “I don't understand,” she said. “Jas is going to destroy the world if I don't figure this out!”

She felt a familiar flash of anger at Guthix. She knew that not even he could have foreseen all of this… but it all would be so much easier if he had just stayed to help.

Easy, easy, Light said gently. Jas still has the world all frozen and whatnot. You have time.

Time to do what? She almost asked. She bit her tongue. Now was not the time to melt down.

“Okay… okay,” she said. “Maybe we need an older library. Maybe the TzHaar—?”

…

In an instant, she was standing on the polished obsidian floors of Mor-Ul-Rek. And around her was devastation.

The market stalls and incubation chambers had all been swept up in some great cataclysm. Around her, tunnels had been buried, and only a few light-globes remained to give her a sense of what she was looking at.

She was mute with horror for a few seconds. Even Shadow and Light seemed to shut up.

“Zuk,” she said simply.

It must be.

“That… that…!”

I know, World Guardian. But we can't stay here.

Shadow was right, forlorn though he was. She clenched her fists and breathed deeply.

I've an idea, Light said, sounding a bit worse for wear.

“What?”

Well… if we want to learn about shadow anima, why not go right to the source? The Codex is a portal and a repository of knowledge, no?

It seemed a good idea as any. Synesix cleared her throat, eager to be gone. “Okay. To the Codex.”

After a few empty moments, she tried again. “To the Codex!”

Nothing happened.

Have you tried clapping your hands and wishing on a star?

“Not the time, Shadow.”

Sorry. I'm nervous.

So was Synesix. Jas’ lack of response could be nothing… or maybe something more dire had happened. Maybe Ful, Wen, and Bik had made their moves.

She'd spiral if she let herself. She breathed again, and pulled out the fragment of the Blade.

“Okay,” she said. “Let's do it the hard way.”

…

The ten minute walk across the Archaeology campus did little to assuage Synesix's nerves, although it at least reassured her that Jas’ time spell, was, for the moment, intact. There was a scene similar to that of the Wizards’ Tower; a few harried workers caught in the instant of rushing to and fro, a few nameless people huddled close to each other in out of the way corners, holding one another.

Jas did this.

Shadow sounded angrier than she’d ever heard him. “I know,” she said.

Just so long as you do. I keep thinking about it. We’re working with her now, but we can’t forget what she is.

Synesix wasn’t sure she had any idea what Jas was, but she didn’t want to press the point. In any case, it was strange to hear such a sentiment from Sliske’s mouth.

As they approached the Monolith, something else became readily apparently wrong.

“It's moving,” she said aloud.

Shadowy energy pulsed from within. The blocks of ancient stone carved in strange circuits bobbed, struggling to contain the portal within.

Oh, I feel quite ill, Shadow said.

Really? I feel… fantastic, actually. Rather better about this whole business, as a matter of fact, Light responded.

Er… no. That was wrong. Light had spoken first, grim and morose. And Shadow's words now shone with an optimistic, sickening pallor in her mind.

Synesix swallowed. “This is a repository of knowledge,” she said. “How can I parse it?”

You know how.

She walked up to the Codex, feeling a shiver — and a strange unburdening she had never experienced before. Light's feelings and Shadow's warred within her for dominance.

This was wrong. But, to use a clichè… it felt so right.

She reached out her hand…

There it was. Guthix had touched this place, the same as her. The Codex remembered. The information was crushed down, encoded into its vital architecture.

Moreover, something in her remembered. The shadow in her soul called out, and the Codex responded.

This was the source of her corruption/liberation. From it, it was all too clear how to repeat it. It was simple, so very simple. And it was the right thing to do.

Duck.

Synesix didn't know how she knew, but on instinct she threw herself to the ground. A bolt of clear crystal energy sailed over her head and obliterated a tree on the northern end of the campus.

“A pity,” came a voice just as clear and cruel. “I was hoping to do this quickly, and without pain.”

Seren stood unrobed behind her. Synesix scrambled to her feet, unable to look directly at the crystalline goddess.

The shadow inside her wailed. So did the light.

“World Guardian,” Seren said. “I can let you go no further.”

Chapter Text

“Seren,” Synesix said, trying to keep her voice from trembling. “Please, let me through. I'm trying to help them.”

“HELP them?”

Seren's voice was sharp like a scream, the sound echoing as it had when she had killed Mah. Synesix was fairly sure her ears were ringing.

“This is the only way they'll survive,” she pressed on. She thought better of saying chance.

“Survive? Survive as what? You're talking about pouring poison into their mothers’ wombs. Infecting them with the gross sickness of… well, you.”

“And I survived, haven't I?” Synesix asked. “Seren, please. Guthix made it work, so can—”

“Not you. I mean… you. The illness that took root in creation from the beginning. The spreading, choking virus that has done nothing but kill the anima and starve our creators. You. Life.”

Synesix swallowed. “Seren, please. You're not yourself…”

“Oh, no. You're right about that. I'm not the sniveling divine mistake of Mah any longer. I know what I am, and what you are. It was that first wound, the one that destroyed Mah and kept her from fulfilling her divine duty. The spiral of ice… only it isn't ice. Is it?”

Synesix wasn't sure who she was talking to, but her stomach roiled.

“That wound in creation,” Seren said. “The hole in the whole that led to quibbling gods, to mortal souls that shrivel and cling to existence like tumors. Forinthry.” She paused. “Don't you see, Synesix? You have to see. Mah would've closed it. None of this would have ever happened.”

“Seren…”

“They told me the truth. I realized it only now. I've spent so long looking for my family… I've only ever hurt them, and they've hurt me. No more. No more!”

“But you come from Mah, too,” Synesix said in horror. “You come from that wound. She would never have made you, or Zaros, without it.”

“Exactly. We were mistakes. We were all mistakes. Polluting the anima with our fears and our pain and our pointless striving.”

She closed her eyes. Strange, alien emotions passed along her face.

“Imagine the anima, free and perfect,” she said. “No distractions, no loss, no destruction. Come, Synesix, please. You carried me across Freneskae and reforged my soul. You pledged yourself to the worship of the Anima Mundi. If I could make you understand, it would all be worth it.”

Synesix shook her head, unable to speak. Tautology, tautology. To exist was good. Right? If the anima had not wanted life, surely it would not have created it?

Or… was there truth in what Seren was saying? Was being itself a byproduct of an ancient wound? Was the natural state of the anima a tranquil, perfect stillness, only a mirror for the Elder Gods to recreate themselves?

Madness. Madness. She clenched the Staff of Armadyl in her hands and stood straighter.

“I can't let you do this,” Seren said softly, almost regretfully. “The Staff… the very tool that killed Guthix. Will you use it on me, Synesix?”

“Jas herself wants me to do this.”

“It wasn't enough that you want to destroy the eggs,” Seren said. “You had to turn our creators against each other. There is war in the heavens, Synesix, and it is your fault. Jas has been touched by the Shadow, driven mad by the pain you have caused her. Once her sisters have dealt with her, you are next.”

That answered that question. Synesix fought to tamp down panic. The Elder Gods fought? Could Jas hold them off long enough for the plan to succeed?

Forget that, she thought. Seren was standing in front of her, a column of power. The Staff was infusing Synesix with power of her own, but she doubted it was nearly enough.

Absurdly, she wondered if this was how Zamorak felt in front of Zaros, all those years ago.

“I'm sorry, Guthix,” Seren said aloud. “I'm sorry, World Guardian.”

Her raised hand was almost too fast to react to, if not for the Staff revealing to Synesix the connections Seren was drawing from the anima. They were almost too many to track. They roared with a blazing fire.

Synesix fell into habit. She manipulated the magic around her, created a shield for herself, flung spells at her opponent as quickly as she could.

Seren's attack interrupted her, slamming into her shield and pushing her back to the banks of the Lum. She gasped aloud, the aftershock seeming to reverberate through her very soul.

The Staff made her magic more powerful than she'd ever known, but Seren spoke to the anima in ways that Synesix never could.

She cast a few more spells at Seren with blinding speed before running for cover behind a pile of digsite machinery. With a flick of her crystalline wrist, Seren ripped it out of the ground and filled the air around Synesix with razor-sharp crystals.

She blocked, again, but Seren rained blows down on her, again and again, the force of which made reality tremble. Synesix gave up attacking, instead deflecting where she could.

Normally, when an opponent wielded such powerful magic, the trick was to bait them into overplaying their hand. It was easy for a mortal magician to lose control in their haste to draw on deadlier and deadlier spells. But Seren wielded this unbelievable power with deft expertise. Both strength and speed were on her side.

Nothing else for it. The field was lost. She couldn't keep up the defense forever. She would have to flee and regroup… but Seren could follow her anywhere, surely, in the blink of an eye?

A thought occurred to her. In an instant, she had dove to the ground and drawn her Blade.

…

The Cathedral was almost peaceful in comparison.

The eggs’ energy was still spreading in fanciful arcs and waves across the air. Synesix shivered, waiting for Seren to follow…

Nothing, nothing. Synesix had hoped she would not risk taking the fight to the eggs. The hope seemed to hold.

“Back already?” came a familiar, droll voice.

Kerapac was looking out over the battlefield, hands folded behind his back. All told, she had probably been gone for less than an hour. It felt like days.

“I have it,” she said. “A way to infuse the eggs with shadow anima.”

“Good for you.”

“But I need the Codex.”

“Alright.”

She sighed. “And Seren is there, guarding it. And I need to open it. And I need to transport the eggs there, so I can perform the ritual. Can you help with any of that?”

Kerapac was quiet for a few moments.

“No,” he said.

“No?”

“I don't say it lightly, World Guardian. But I'm no match for Seren, I don't know how to open the Codex, and transporting the eggs takes—”

He paused. Synesix knew him enough to see the wheels turning in his head. The ghost of an ancient engineer, almost buried by pain and hatred, to whom solving problems was his life's work.

“A vessel, perhaps,” he said. “Something strong enough to contain the latent magical energy of the eggs.”

“A god?”

“Perhaps, but we don't have any of those on hand, save for Seren, who seems less than inclined to help.”

“Could we ask Jas to unfreeze someone?”

“I believe Jas has other things on her mind,” Kerapac said.

Right. The whole situation had gotten that much more difficult to navigate.

“I can build a container for you,” Kerapac said. “But you will need something, or someone, strong enough to carry it. Physically and magically, you are no match.”

Think, think. The gods were unavailable, even if they had escaped Jas' spell by going off-world. Demi-gods? Could Zuk help? No, Zuk was frozen. Everything and everyone was frozen.

Except for Seren, imbued by Mah's parentage, and Synesix, resistant to the effects of the Elder Gods. Resistant because…

She swallowed her discomfort, again. “I have an idea,” she said.

“I'm sure,” Kerapac said.

…

The complex on Anachronia trembled in a half-begun wind. She was startled to find the trees swaying to and fro shortly, as if held back by invisible hands.

She could only guess why. The time-locked strangeness of Anachronia, interacting with Jas’ powers? That was a mystery for another day.

“Is this a good idea?” she asked aloud as she approached the complex entrance.

Silence. Then, Oh, uh, me? Shadow said. Well… I shouldn't think so.

“Thanks,” Synesix said. Where the hell was Light when you needed a shot of optimism, anyway?

She hadn't been here since the day Zaros had stolen the shadow anima. There wasn't a need. But if she was honest with herself, there was another reason she had avoided this place.

Something about the Raksha called to her, like it must have once to Kranon. Its voice seemed to linger in her ears, even though that shouldn't have been possible.

Perhaps, even in dreams, it could reach out. Or maybe not. Dwelling on it too long was what it must feel like to go mad, so Synesix tried not to do it too much.

But now, it couldn't be avoided. Was it possible the Raksha already knew what she was here to do?

She moved the ancient stone door and stepped into the darkness. Immediately, the lingering shadow anima settled onto her like a cloak. It was heavy, but not suffocating.

Varanus — what was left of him — lay dormant in the pod. Below, lit weakly by the failing lights of the ancient facility, lay the slumbering Raksha.

Zaros’ words echoed in her ears. The damage it could inflict is… considerable. More so than just to the rickety base camp. She could feel the poisonous Anathema pouring from the creature, infecting the very earth.

“I can't do this,” she whispered. Letting the creature free would be a betrayal to everything she held sacred.

And yet, she couldn't do nothing while Seren guarded the Monolith.

Think of it this way, Light offered weakly. You're waking it up to remove it from Gielinor for good. Like… lancing a boil.

Oh, that's a lovely image, Shadow complained.

“Quiet, both of you,” Synesix said. Something about the interplay between the two voices was more nauseating than usual.

Light was right. She had to enact the short term unpleasantness for the long term good. Right? Or was that just a fiction? If her own soul wasn't poisoned by Anathema, would she see this for the madness it truly was?

No, no. Couldn't think about that now. She could deal with the consequences of this heresy once she was sure there was still a universe left at all.

She stepped forward.

Varanus seemed to twitch. Synesix jumped.

“Easy now,” she told herself, voice trembling.

She couldn't delay any further. She crossed the threshold, down the stairs, and stood in front of the slumbering beast.

She arrayed the ingredients on the ground in front of her. The summoning charm would aid her in moving her perception to the threshold of the Raksha's mind, the shards of the Spirit Plane help manifest the connection through the anima, and the offering of a sliver of Dark Animica would, hopefully, put the beast in a good mood.

The art of Summoning was, too, a sacred art to the Druids, and Synesix feared that the connection through the anima to the Spirit Plane wouldn't apply to the Raksha. But it was a far safer bet than simply waking it.

She crossed her legs, sat next to the ingredients, and closed her eyes. Summoning was the first art she was ever taught, after walking and talking. Through the anima all things were connected. If there was anything she was good at, it was this. It had to work.

Raksha. Hear me.

You want freedom? This is how…

…

One day, Synesix was dragged from her home and left abandoned on an infinite glassy beach.

The needles tore at her skin, at her mind. She cried out for the light, for everything around her was dark. The needles infected her with cold terror and made her heavy with truth. And of the ocean lapping at its shore, we do not speak.

The bright world was loud, but this one was quiet. She rose to silence, and peered through the darkness with eyes that could see.

The squirming daemons were no match for her teeth and claws, but there were bigger things lurking in the deep shadow, the deep shadow that went on forever. Her eyes were peeled open and she was forced to look inside.

Forever, forever. Nothing in the bright world was forever. But here she could hunt, down and down, further and further, getting stronger…

There would be no end of places to run. No end of strength to gather.

But then, ejected. Back into the light. It burned her now, this place. She killed her mate, her children, from the madness. All of a sudden, boundaries. Walls and limits. The Kin took her, sealed her within walls, hid her in shadow.

There, at least, she could sleep. Sleep, dream, pretend, think, dream, wonder, wander, dream…

…

When the vision finished, the Raksha was looking at her with one baleful eye, piercing through the mask Kerapac had placed on it so long ago.

It made no motion. Just stared. Synesix reached out a hand with a tenderness that surprised herself, then let it fall to her side. She knew without knowing that they understood each other.

“Let's get you home,” she said.

…

The Raksha gibbered its madness to her as she broke it free. She closed her mind to it, especially as it began to make sense.

Creeping ice, endless plains, hands of black stone. The beast almost seemed to like her now, spilling its secrets as a hunter does to prey in the moment of capture.

She didn't care for that analogy, she decided, but there was undeniably a certain way that the Raksha looked at her.

“the codex,” it said, or so it sounded. Synesix wondered if it was language at all they shared, or simply raw instinct.

“I can open it,” she said.

“freedom at long last?”

“Yes. Freedom.”

“we must be quick.”

It bowed its head down to the ground. It took Synesix a moment to understand what it was offering.

“the devourers have the world wriggling in their claws,” it said. “soon they will deliver the killing bite. i will not be their prey.”

Gently, Synesix laid her hand on the Raksha's scaly hide. “No,” she agreed, and hauled herself up.

“i can see it in your thoughts. guardian at the codex. we will destroy it.”

“The guardian is no concern of ours,” Synesix said. Appealing to the Raksha's sense of mercy was probably right out, but maybe she could avoid conflict with Seren this way. “She'll just get in our way. I can open the Codex. Then, we can escape.”

“escape will make us gods.”

Synesix wasn't sure about that, but didn't argue. She perched on the Raksha's neck, barely able to see over its crest. “You can break free?” she asked.

“with effort. strength returning. you carve the way.”

“I will.”

She was surprised that such a solitary beast knew how to cooperate so… tolerably. She wondered what exactly it had learned in Erebus.

The Raksha lurched to its feet, and roared. She could hear Varanus coming to life. “What? What is…?”

Familiar alarms blared in the facility. She sent a message to Kerapac through magic. Be ready.

“Forward,” she said, holding the Blade shard tightly. She desperately hoped she knew how to do this…

…

She'd never forget the look on Seren's face when she arrived with the Raksha. The goddess’ features had been transformed, but enough that was human remained to display the blackest horror.

“No,” she said. “No! What have you done?!”

Too late to think about that. The Raksha let out a roar, toppling yet more of the distant Guild's infrastructure.

Its very essence was causing plants to die. She urged it onward as firmly as she dared.

“Kerapac!” she shouted as the beast began to bound towards the Monolith. “Where are you?!”

It'd be no use if she opened the Monolith and the Eggs weren't there. Worse than useless if they were, but not properly protected. It occurred to her that perhaps Jas was already dead, and Kerapac freed from any obligation to help Synesix with this matter.

No. It couldn't be too late. They were so close now...

Seren took a few frantic steps back, the aura of Anathema repelling her. “Stay back!” she commanded, voice trembling. “Stay back!”

“almost home.”

She shuddered. Almost home. “Kerapac!” she roared, as if it would do any good.

Then, like beacons in the night, the Eggs were there.

The Raksha reared backwards as the bright light shone throughout the campus. Minor burns appeared on its skin as it roared in pain.

Oops. She hadn't considered that possibility.

Seren rallied in their glow. She pushed forward, preparing to attack again, as Synesix readied the Siphon to counter.

The light vanished, sealed away in a structure of bronze and gray. And Seren fell back again as the Raksha's Anathema reasserted itself.

Kerapac stood next to the finely crafted vessel, laying an almost proud look on it. “Don't say I never do anything for you,” he growled.

Then, he vanished, called away. Synesix wondered in what war he now fought; Jas, against her own co-creators.

“Now!” she said, holding the Siphon aloft. She made the connection solid between the vessel and the Raksha, ready to be pulled into Erebus.

If the beast noticed what it was now lashed to, it gave no indication besides a dreadful growl. Its wounds were struggling to close, inflicted by something so powerful, but they didn't seem serious.

“You can't!” Seren wailed. “Please, Synesix! Don't do this!”

Her wail tore through Synesix. Not by any aura of loyalty; simply the knowledge that they both shared. That, in moments, Synesix was about to betray the deepest held ideal she had clung to since her childhood. What was, to her, the foundation of the world itself.

And yet, the song from the Monolith still seeped out. It called to her, too. Freed by Azzanadra's inexpert sealing to whisper to the worlds of light.

It told her how to open it. It was so, so easy.

You must.

“Now,” Synesix said, holding her hands out, letting the shadow flow through her monstrous soul.

Just like that, the Monolith opened. Synesix imagined, in her delirium, it made a pleasant popping noise.

The whisper became a roar, a howl, a scream. And darkness fell.

Synesix spared one last glance at Seren as the very sky seemed to grow faint and dim. Winds lashed around the campus, and the chattering song of shadow cacklers filled the air.

Now, she'd have to rely on Seren as the only one left who could close the rift once she was through. From there, Synesix would be on her own.

As the Raksha added its voice to the song, howling victory as it charged for the portal, Synesix felt a kind of peace descend on her. Whatever happened, in moments, the Eggs would be through the gateway. They'd never threaten Gielinor again.

If she couldn't find a way out, at least she'd saved this. The campus, the trainee archaeologists frozen in their moment of cowering, the trees and the sky and the birds. Everything that was good. Everything that was worthy of existence in the bright world.

She offered one last prayer to the Anima Mundi before she was severed from it forever.

Forgive me.

Chapter Text

There was nothing, at first.

For a moment, it was like the sound was sucked out of everything. Synesix had barely been aware of the background noise; Seren screaming, Raksha thudding, the Codex opening its maw and spilling chaos into Gielinor.

So, too, for a second, she feared she'd gone blind. Raksha's crest in front of her had vanished. She might have screamed along with the crystalline goddess. She had no way of knowing.

Only one sound and sight broke through the weightless darkness.

The chattering movement of the shadow cacklers streamed around her. She blinked, and there was Raksha. She blinked again, and there was the light.

The portal they'd left behind opened to a dazzling brilliance. Synesix turned to see it illuminating the darkness, light lancing downwards into infinite darkness.

It made her heart ache to look at. To feel.

The demons were avoiding Raksha like schools of fish flowing around a whale. Idly, the Shadow Colossus snapped a few up and crunched them in its jaws, but it didn't seem overly concerned with them.

Synesix couldn't stop looking at the light. They were falling from the breach; no, rising? She was transfixed in wonder and horror. Horror, as the cacklers streamed through the opening, ravenously intent on devouring the world of the living. And wonder, at the sheer luminosity. That was her world. She had never really noticed how beautiful it was until now.

She had done this. It was all her fault.

Finally, the light wavered… and shut. The cacklers wailed. Synesix screamed again. The totality of Erebus was suddenly all around her, blackness without end, form and function given to nightmare and decay. Uninterrupted by any reminder of the bright world she had come from.

The clerics of Saradomin sometimes described a place of endless punishment for the wicked, a hell without end for those whom Saradomin judged and found. She had always found the idea absurd. But here it was, empty and horrible and endless.

She had cast herself here willingly. Every part of her screamed to return. That she'd made a mistake. That the universe being returned to the Elders was not such a bad trade, so long as she didn't have to be here.

A weight, impossible to describe, crushed her like pressure at the bottom of the seafloor.

She blacked out. She welcomed the darkness.

…

She felt rocks poking her face, first and foremost.

She opened her eyes. At first, she needn't have bothered. The darkness was total, and all-encompassing.

Some impulse told her to flinch and curl up on the ground, expecting an attack. Nothing came. But the pressure from before still lingered, crushing her to the ground.

She gasped, and forced herself to breathe. It was like everything here was pushing down on her. Pushing her away.

The Raksha was gone. Off hunting, she supposed. So was the light from above…

Yet, somewhere, light did seem to be breaking. Or, rather, the shadow in her eyes seemed to be lifting.

A haze of purple surrounded her, hardly better than before. Even so, the ground — or something like the ground — distinguished itself. Darker, more solid.

There was a flash of pale skin as she tried to reach out, almost involuntarily. The very air seemed to twist and reshape itself around her.

“Hello?” she croaked. The pressure was like fire on her back.

World Guardian?

“L… Light?”

Afraid not. I think he's sulking. It's Shadow. Though, frankly, I feel pretty good right about now. Maybe I am Light now, and he's Shadow. Wouldn't that be interesting?

“Please…?”

What's the matter?

Shadow sounded genuinely curious.

“The darkness… I can't survive here…”

Well, that's just not true.

The bluntness of the objection took Synesix by surprise. For a moment, she forgot the crushing pressure, and lifted her head up, as if to look Shadow in the lack-of-eyes.

“What?”

It's not true. Come now, get up. You're making a scene.

“I can't…”

Whyever not?

And something about his voice sounding so condescendingly confused ignited Synesix's blood. “What do you mean?” she demanded. “You know why. It's why you're strong now, and Light is weak. The shadows…”

World Guardian, Shadow said. I am as much a part of you as Light is. And the shadows are as much a part of you now as the light.

Did you struggle to survive in the Elders’ world? So why should you here? You are half one and half the other, each permitting the existence of each in fragile harmony. Now, it's MY turn to rise. That's all.

“So why can't I…?”

You CAN. You're just… resisting. Every part of you thinks this is wrong… except the part that knows it isn't. Listen to that part of your body and soul. Let the light go, for now. Embrace the shadow.

“No. No… I can't…”

She curled in on herself. It wouldn't hurt so bad if she didn't know, on some level, that Shadow was right.

Was she so far gone from everything she'd ever believed in? She remembered Charos pulling her aside, first telling her about this infection in her soul.

Something in her was urging her to keep curling up, lie here until the end came, to die in memory of the light if she couldn't have the reality.

Something else was saying: Just stand.

“The eggs…” she coughed.

Yes, the eggs. We'll need to find them, lest the Elders take their vengeance on Gielinor.

Vengeance… yes, she remembered now. The job wasn’t finished yet. Even now, the Elders tore Jas apart. Would they turn on Gielinor next? Was she already too late?

She’d been asking that question a lot lately.

With trembling arms, she reached out, groping blindly around the barren rocks.

Yes, that’s it. Don’t fight yourself. Accept it.

“How?” she groaned, blinking desperately. The purple around her was beginning to clear, revealing the contours of the ground and sky.

Gods, the sky. She wasn’t quite ready to look at it yet, twisting and writhing as it did. She focused on the ground.

Only you can answer that, World Guardian. But I might suggest unclenching your jaw. You’ll give yourself a headache.

She took a deep breath. Stop fighting. How? Everything around her was inimical to everything she was.

Unless it wasn’t. She remembered how it felt to reach out to the Codex. There was terror, but also…

She hardly dared to admit it. But there was a rightness, too.

Maybe she was thinking about this wrong. Maybe there was something good in the shadows. Something that stemmed from the same source as the inner meaning and beauty of the light. Could it be possible? At one time she had thought Erebus was only a force of destruction, of emptiness. Was there more here?

Looking around at the bleak landscape and the boiling skies, she doubted it. But maybe, if she looked, she would find something more.

And lo; off to the side, so close she wondered how she didn’t see, there was the Staff of Armadyl. It still burned with an inner light. Like reflex, like a dying woman reaching for water, she seized it, before she remembered that her arms were supposed to not work.

Slowly, with trembling arms, leaning on the Staff like a common walking stick, she pushed herself up; first to a sitting position, and then, on equally unsteady legs, to standing.

Well done! Shadow cheered.

Synesix gasped, and steadied herself. The world seemed to swim around her, but the crushing pressure she felt had abated.

“What — what am I?” she asked aloud.

No answer.

…

She went wandering over the ragged plains, testing the limits of her strength.

It was like she was stricken with illness, but at least she could walk. Her breaths were heavy and painful.

“What is this?” she asked. “A world in Erebus, like how it is in our own, or is this all of it? Just a big, gray expanse?”

That, I don’t know, Shadow responded. I’m new here too, remember? Maybe Erebus doesn’t work on the rules we know. Maybe everything blurs together here.

What that meant, Synesix couldn’t guess. But she took the point. Now wasn’t the time for a geography lesson.

The power of the Staff hummed dully next to her. Synesix wondered if, left to its own devices, the Staff could warp the inhabitants of this place as the black stone could in her own universe.

Questions, questions. Too many questions. She kept walking.

She leaned on the Staff as she went. The visual metaphor was pretty clear. Shadow didn't say anything about it, thankfully.

…

She froze the first time she heard the chattering.

A clump of shadow cacklers were swarming over the far horizon. Not towards her. They seemed to be attracted towards something to the…

Well, direction was meaningless here, or at least she didn't know anything about it. She drew out the Staff.

Maybe they won't see us, Shadow suggested.

“Maybe,” Synesix replied doubtfully. That sounded too lucky to happen to her.

And, indeed, one of them veered hard. Its friends stampeded, running over it and across each other, slavering for something.

Half of the shadow cacklers made their way towards her. Synesix groaned, and held the Staff in the way the Tower Wizards had instructed her a lifetime ago.

The power was… unexpected. Against Seren, she felt like a novice, even with the Staff. But these creatures fell like wheat to the scythe, the spells she knew increased almost beyond her ability to control.

Even in her weakened state, it was quickly over.

She nearly doubled over in pain. “What was that?” she gasped.

I'm not sure I understand the question.

“Oh, come on. Why did they come to me?”

The creatures of shadow hunger for the light. It's why they came in such numbers when the Breach opened.

“They came for my soul?”

The bright part of it, anyway. I'm sure they didn't expect such a spirited response from another lost soul, washed up in a universe they're foreign to.

“Another lost…?”

Of course. The Zarosians. Now that she looked, pushed back the darkness around her, she could see them; scattered scraps of light, buried in the landscape, drifting aimlessly.

Was there any awareness left to them? Synesix had no way of knowing. All of a sudden, her revulsion for this place flooded her all over again.

World Guardian… Shadow's voice came, sounding concerned.

“It's fine,” she groaned. She had fallen to one knee; hastily, she dragged herself back up.

Carefully, she crept over to one of the lost souls. It burned weakly, shining out on her, and seemed to draw away as she approached.

She held up a hand, and the soul seemed to bob in place. It was, possibly, responding to her, but she had no way of knowing. After so long in Erebus, it was like the soul was a different order of being to her altogether.

A thought occurred to her. “The other shadow cacklers,” she said. “Where were they going?”

The soul bobbed uncertainly.

“Were they looking for more like you?”

A brief flare.

“Something bright?”

Not to criticize your methods, World Guardian, Shadow said, sounding like Sliske. But I think you're talking to a moron.

The orb flared again.

Either that, he said, or a shell.

“A shell? What do you mean?”

I mean the mind and awareness is gone. Perhaps enough time in Erebus simply drove it mad. Or maybe…

“Maybe what?”

...Nothing. I don't know. What could scoop out a mind and leave a vessel of soul behind — if such a thing is even possible — I have no idea. I think the important thing is you're not going to get anything useful from this one.

Synesix sighed, and looked back at the orb, which was beginning to drift away.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I wish I could help you.”

Soon, it was carried away by fell winds. Synesix stood, and, absurd though it felt in this world, said a prayer.

She'd never know the name of the person it once was, or where they came from, or why. But it mattered, she hoped, that someone saw them.

…

The idea she had earlier didn't go away.

She walked for several more hours, feeling her body scream in protest. If she stopped, she knew she would collapse.

There was no sun or moon in this place, and no way to count time, save the eternal decay of living things. At one point, she saw what might have once been a tree, shriveled and petrified, but strangely, given its apparent age, with a litter of dead leaves around it.

Hang on, Shadow said. I think I recognize that one. I think Seren flung you into it when you were fighting, back at the Guild. Broke it right down.

“That's what you were paying attention to?” Synesix groaned.

Well, it's not like I had anything better to do, sitting in your head all the time.

She paused for a moment by the tree. Shadow might have been right. It did seem familiar.

What did it mean? Did it die, and come here? Did it arrive fully clothed in spring leaves, and over the last few hours transform into a fossil? Was the shadow in her soul the only thing preventing her from meeting the same fate?

Was the tree Zarosian? Shadow asked.

Synesix was thinking the same thing, but didn't want to say it. “Let's move on.”

…

At long last, she found more shadow cacklers.

She kept a greater distance this time, watching as the migrated over the dead plains. From out here, it was an almost peaceful sight.

As one, they were concentrated on something far off in the distance, moving towards it with a singular purpose. Their hungry, baying noises, so similar to when they emerged from the Codex, chilled her blood, and spoiled whatever tranquil image they had before.

“How far have they traveled?” she asked aloud, quietly.

For once, Shadow had nothing to say. Maybe for the best. It wouldn't do to become too dependent on talking to the voices in her head.

Once she thought they had drawn far enough away, she set off, keeping low to the ground and moving quickly. She kept them just on the edge of her sight, going towards the horizon.

(She made a mental note: Probably, this world was round, judging by the way the horizon worked, but she supposed she could be certain of nothing here.)

It was hours, likely, that she walked, and the pressure was incredible. The power the Staff leant to her was, she was sure, the only thing keeping her going.

Even so, the feeling began to change. She was more used to it, better able to shrug off the effect of the shadow anima.

Shadow's continued silence wasn't encouraging, though. She didn't know whether it was her own will, or simple time and acclimation that made her more used to the animasphere of Erebus — or what effect that would have on the enchantment Guthix had placed on her.

Eventually, she slowed. The demons had all gathered by one great golden case.

Rather, a case that had once been filigreed with gold and built with fine metal. Kerapac's pride and artistry, refusing to submit to mediocrity even in the midst of a war. Now, though, it was rotten all the way to the core, reduced to nothing but tarnish and rust.

Within, though, miraculously still sealed, something shone brilliantly.

The demons were fighting to get inside, a roiling mass of desperate scavengers. As soon as one broke free from the mass of gathered spectators, it would be torn to shreds by its fellows, clawing over each other to be the first to breach the metal.

Even from the distance, something seemed to wash over Synesix. A peaceful feeling, like something gone wrong had been put right. A light that shone from the world of her birth, piercing the darkness to remind her of where she came from.

She gasped, and put a hand to her face. Tears soaked her cheek. The urge to give way to heaving sobs was overwhelming; to fall before this light and take in every last shred of it, hold it close so it could not escape.

Had the eggs always felt like this? Or did she only now, lost in this world of shadow, realize their true importance?

More importantly than anything, she had to get those things away from them.

The Staff surged to life in her hands once again, and before the demons could react, blinding lightning raked over half their ranks. Thunder cracked, rumbling over the world. They screamed, and turned to ash.

Rather than engage, or flee, the remainder seemed to redouble their efforts to get inside the receptacle. To the credit of Kerapac's genius, even the age-worn metal did not give under the assault of the remaining demons.

Another sweep of the Staff, another peal of lightning from a storm that seemed bigger than the world. The rest died.

Synesix hesitated on approach. There was nothing she wanted more than to get closer to the eggs, but another part of her seemed to shrink from them.

Her dual nature. Maybe she was too much a thing of shadow, now. Or maybe now that she had found the eggs, she no longer needed her shadow half. Hope had found her, unlooked for, unasked. Perhaps now, in lieu of the Anima Mundi, she sustained herself by the power of the children.

She wanted them. She wanted what was in them. Her mouth practically salivated at the thought.

For a moment, she forgot what it was she had come here to do. And for a moment, she was not paying attention to the horizon.

World Guardian? a voice asked weakly.

“Not now, Shadow,” she said, barely listening. She thought she could hear the song, now, the song Seren thought was so beautiful…

Er, it's Light, actually. The voice was exhausted, and uncharacteristically hesitant. Maybe you should look behind…

“I'm almost there,” she assured Light. “Once I tear down the metal, we can begin.”

Right, but…

The very air was lighter now, and her body was filled with renewed vigor. Nothing even seemed to hurt anymore. It was like a trance induced by a Druid’s potion — no, better. It was almost how it felt to come with Sanfew into the Spirit Plane, to feel the height and purity of everything around her.

Then, it all came crashing down.

The shadow came upon her from behind. It filled the air with a biting cold that went deeper than bone. The light of the eggs themselves seemed to retreat into its metal prison, suddenly so much more diminished than it used to be.

She reached for the Staff, but her hands were numb and it slipped from her grasp, clattering dimly on the rocks. She whirled around, and pressed herself up against the container.

The figure would have blotted out the sky, if there was very much sky to blot. A hundred twisted arms were silhouetted against the raging purple, and thirteen bright eyes stood above a gleaming, toothy mouth, stretched wide in a comical grin.

“Ah!” it said, opening more eyes along its sinewy length. It looked down on her, towering. “Heavens, you've brought me my old playmates! What unlooked-for luck! What grace! I'm so very happy to see you all again. This time, I won't let you get away. I promise you that.”

Chapter Text

Synesix cried out, but her training as a battle wizard reasserted itself almost quicker than thought.

She cast a disruption shield around herself, shifted her stance to aid the flow of magic through her body. She brandished the Staff as if it might frighten something like this off.

The creature spared her barely a glance. “Come here, lovelies,” it cooed, reaching out with a long, terrible arm, folding out from the shadows. “Come here. No more running away, now. Let's just…”

She released a storm of fire, roaring up the arm and briefly illuminating the thing's awful face.

It flinched, just so. It withdrew the arm.

“Ow,” it said. “That wasn't very nice.”

A terrible, icy sensation crept up her back when the creature's many eyes turned to her. Despite the terrible depth of that gaze, it still seemed idle, and bored.

“Give up, little shadow-thing,” it said. “You may have found them first, but I'm bigger than you and I can make you go away. Anyway, you wouldn't even know what to do with them, little thing that you are.”

“I'm warning you,” Synesix said, though she didn't quite manage to keep her voice from trembling. She thought about intimidating it with the Staff, but thought better of it. “Their parents will be looking for them, and they won't be happy if they've been damaged.”

“Their parents can't find them here,” the creature replied. Then, its neck twisted, turning its face on its side. “Though, hang a moment. What do you know about the parents, little thing? There's something a bit off about you, isn't there?”

The face righted itself. “What's that you're holding?” the creature continued. “Such a… a bright thing. Just what are you, little scavenger?”

“I am not a scavenger,” Synesix said. “I am the World Guardian. I come from Gielinor, the last plane of the Elder Gods. I brought the eggs here, and I intend to bring them back.”

Here we go, Shadow said.

“Impossible!” The creature said. Its grin faltered. “Impossible thing. You have brightness in you… and shadow. How can this be?”

“Just leave,” Synesix said. “Leave, and we will—”

…

Her disruption shield held, absorbing the vast blow from the long arm with greater strength than any of her shields had before. But that was cold comfort when she was dozens of meters in the air.

She barely had time to scream before she was watching both the incredible bulk of the creature and the cage for the eggs recede into the horizon. The creature had swept her aside like so much stale bread from a tavern counter.

Instinctively, she manipulated the air around her. It groaned, as though unwilling to obey a yoke from a foreign universe, but eventually settled into a rudimentary cloud spell that bore her along like a soft, swaddling cloth.

The creature's eyes fixed on her for but a moment. Then, it turned back to the case.

“Oh, no, you don't!” she shouted as she commanded the air to set her down. She sprinted as fast as she could back towards the beast, raising the Staff as she went.

More lightning hammered the side of the creature. Such a spell would have turned a farm to glass with the power lent to her by the Staff, but here, the storm seemed to cover only the creature's broad forearm. It shrieked, and retreated, shaking itself.

“Terrible thing!” it cried. Its voice was like glass shards raking over skin. “Agent of the Creators! Why do you fight the natural way of things? I will have the eggs, sooner or later!”

It took another swipe at her, but Synesix was prepared this time. She blocked the blow with a spell of force, then cast another great storm in the middle of all those eyes. The sheer power of the god-weapon was exhilarating, but her opponent only seemed to flinch.

“I think I've figured it out,” it said, voice both sharp and pathetic. “You aren't an agent of the Creators, are you? You were sent by my masters. You want to test me. To see if I am still good enough.”

“What are you talking about?” Synseix couldn't help but gasp.

“Don't play dumb with me. The eggs are mine. Mine! I claimed them a cycle ago! It was I who won the right to take the first one, and I shall have the last! I don't care what they told you! You can't have them! They're mine!”

It lashed out again, more quickly than its great size would suggest. Tendril-like fingers slammed into her shield, probing for a weak point, before Synesix made it to cover behind a boulder.

There was an awful noise coming from the case. The cries of the children, once a harmonious song, shattered into moaning shrieks.

“Do shut up,” the creature said. “You'll alert a Leviathan at this rate and we can't have that.”

“What do you mean, you took the first one?” Synesix called out from behind the rock. Keep it talking, she told herself. The damn thing certainly liked to talk.

“Yesss,” it said. “Surprised, aren't you? It was I who snuck into the world at the dawn of time and wounded the youngest. Little Mah, little ickle Mah, so helpless, adored by the rest. Though perhaps you wouldn't be so sympathetic if you knew what she did to blemishes like you before.”

It flung another boulder behind her, though its heart wasn't in it.

“I am the last of my kind,” it said. “You've seen them, haven't you, on your side of the mirror? Gibbering Ocularis. Grand old Yhaldybyath. Oh, Mahbahamahil. None of them had the appendage to do what I did. None of them would have dared. And so they were exiled, and I alone was permitted to stay. I am Azazoth. The only one left. No purpose, no cause. My masters grow weary of me, over these long eons. I grow weary of me. But no longer. I'll show them. I'll devour the rest of the children, one by one. Then, they will know they were right to keep me.”

It finally lifted the boulder. Synesix whirled around, but in its multivarious eyes there was merely… confusion.

“I sense you don't recognize most of these names,” Azazoth said. “Are they gone? My old companions? How can it be? Are they hidden, in such deep, dark places that even a shadow-thing like you can't find them?”

There was such deep, tremulous sorrow in its voice. Azazoth held a grief deeper and older than any god's.

“Maybe I should have gone with them. Yes, maybe. What is it like over there, anyway? Where do my people now dwell?”

Azazoth stared at her as though it was really expecting an answer. Synesix recast her shield, but the creature did not react.

“Your people lived on Infernus,” she said slowly. “The elemental plane of Smoke. We called them the Chthonians.”

“Plane? Smoke? What are these things?”

Synesix wasn't sure how to begin explaining that. “Never mind. They lived very far away from the perfect world. But then they were overthrown and exiled by their servants.”

“Exiled…” There was a tremulous quality in Azazoth's alien voice. At least, so it sounded. “What ill fortune. Cursed, perhaps. Yes. Cursed to wither in the light… for their failure. Do any remain?”

She was beginning to wonder whether she should be telling Azazoth any of this. “Some, in the Abyss,” she said. “Or on the perfect world.”

“Ah. Such suffering.” It bowed its head, many eyes shutting along its length. “Such weakness. My siblings… why did you fail? Why did you go and leave me here alone?”

For an instant, Synesix felt something like pity. Azazoth turned its many eyes back towards her, but there was a dimness in them. An ancient grief. She wanted to say something. To come to some accord with this creature who was abandoned for the crime of doing what it was asked.

“Well,” it said. “Can't be helped now, I suppose.” Then, it slammed its fist down on Synesix as hard as it could.

Her shield compressed and released, sending her flying. Something broke and was mended so quickly in the maelstrom of empowering magic that she didn't even have time to know what it was. Even so, the pain shuddered along the length of her body like a coiled serpent.

She landed hard on a pile of rocks to the south of the case. (She'd decided, subconsciously, that the direction she had come from was east.) Azazoth loomed over her.

“I know what I'll do,” it said. “I'll have the eggs, pleaseandthankyou. And I'll take you too, little light, little light-and-shadow. My masters will love to open you up and see what makes you tick. And then, I will earn my place. Won't I?”

She scrambled to launch another spell to block the creature's incoming fist, and then ran, and ran, and ran.

The case with the eggs. She needed to get it far away from here—!

Azazoth grabbed her and squeezed. Her armor, magically enforced, resisted, but it still drove the breath from her lungs.

“You are a tough little thing,” it said. “And your Creators are so fragile. I think that's funny.”

“I…”

“You what, creature? Speak up. I'm listening. I'd love to know more about you. I think once I bring you to the masters, I'll never see you again. That'd be sad.”

Her vision was darkening around the edges. Pain bloomed around her legs and back, and — disaster! — the Staff slipped from her fingers and clattered onto the rocky ground far below.

“...won't let you…”

Azazoth peered closely. “Won't let me what?”

“Touch…” Synesix opened her mouth, and felt the flames building inside of her. “...them!”

“Oh,” Azazoth said, before the flames erupted from her mouth, consuming his arm with the smell of burning demonflesh.

Zarosian curses flowed from her tongue, as natural to her now as the prayers she was taught as a child. They felt stronger here. She could feel herself absorbing Azazoth's wretched soul energy. Some of her pains were soothed… some.

It dropped her, and she fell inelegantly. A hand landed on the Staff.

“You are making me angry,” Azazoth said. “But that's okay. We're still friends. You'll help me, won't you? I'll help you, too. Once you meet the masters, they'll purge all that horrid brightness from you. You'll be perfected. Maybe… maybe they'll even let you stay.”

The look in Azazoth's eyes was almost hopeful. It was appalling, and sickening.

Synesix made her way towards the Elder God eggs. A splitting pain was in her side, but she forced herself to ignore it.

She fingered the Elder Blade at her hip. What she had was not really a plan. It was more like a spasm of delusion. Teleportation in her world worked on the principle of the Abyss, the glue-plane that served as the waystation for near-instantaneous travel. Whether or not such a thing existed here, in this universe, seemed highly in doubt.

She didn't even know where she would be cutting. But she knew she couldn't stay here.

Azazoth, for his part, watched her mournfully. Synesix imagined a child, watching an ant limp across the ground, regretting their instant of cruelty but feeling satisfied that the offending creature would soon be dead.

“What are you doing?” it asked. “I won't let you eat them, if that's what you're thinking.”

She drew out the Blade. Careful, careful… she thought to herself in the voice of Hazelmere, barking at her in her mind when she was about to attempt a spell beyond her abilities.

Azazoth raised his hand, ready to crush her. At the same moment, Synesix cut.

“What are you-?” Azazoth asked, alarmed, before a wound of pitch black appeared around Synesix and the case.

She heard it shriek as the case tumbled inside. Where did it lead? She had no idea.

“You!” It cried. “Filthy, cruel trick! Come back! Come back!”

She let herself fall into the wound, and watched as even the pale ghost-light of Erebus vanished with a snap.

…

She was alone. She wasn't alone.

Hands. All around her.

They covered her mouth before she could scream.

They enfolded her, held her close.

She was trespassing.

Between.

Nothing came here.

Old light.

Old worlds.

Dead gods.

Life.

Death.

Shadow.

Lower.

Lower.

No.

Knife.

Shining. Staff. Blade.

Cut. Open. Walk through.

They are not welcome here.

You are not welcome here.

Not yet.