Out from the infinite darkness, eldritch limbs razor-sharp and much like a deep sea creature’s tentacles reached and grasped onto two of the devil’s compatriots by the legs. Cries escaped their previously smirking mouths as the shadowy thing wrapped itself around their ankles with considerable strength, much greater than they could forcibly deter.

  They tried to grip the sleek floor, the velvet rugs, the artifacts lining every hallway they had come through (of which they had begun to suspect were repeating endlessly), but could not find a solid grip on anything. Their suit jackets were dragged up by the harsh flooring and nearly obfuscated their sight as the creature pulled harder.

  And as it did, the formless dark mass that made up its appearance revealed itself, pouring out of the endless container, numerous limbs extending from it as if it could create as many as it needed to feed. More of its arms wrapped around Bifrons’s mercenaries until their contending strength finally gave way. They slid across the ground, flew up into the air and were subsequently yanked into the thing’s colorless maw, their screams fading into nothingness like astronauts being devoured by the bleak darkness of space.

  Taken aback slightly, the devil-masked man assumed his usual carefree attitude after a moment of appreciatory silence. “Heheheh!” He put a hand to his head, shaking it like a friend had just told him an unbelievable story. “So you are a mage worth your salt, eh? Marchosias…” He dodged one of its flailing limbs, the wayward tentacle shattering a priceless table near him. “I did not expect this. Oh, no. Why hide your efforts, tiny lass? You’ve tamed a bonafide demon! Hahahaha! What a monster you are to tame a monster like this. You didn’t want to scare your friends, that’s it, huh?”

  Tien remained silent, her hands awkwardly at her sides. She missed her overcoat at times like these. Settling her hands in her pockets always brought her reprieve, helped her relax in these tense moments. In such a gaudy dress with tiny pockets, that calming ritual wasn’t available.

  “Bifrons, what do we-”

  Bifrons pushed one of his panicked fellows into the way of a flying limb. It hit him like a speeding automobile, shattering his ribcage and throwing him into the wall, flattening his intestines and transforming the middle of his body into a red paste smearing the decorative wallpaper.

  “Oi! I saw you pushed him, ya devil! I’ll kill you for that!” Another scoundrel fought off the creature’s spidery tentacles with a burning, makeshift blade, likely forged from Technicist machinery found on the upper levels. He turned his attention to Bifrons upon seeing his ally involuntarily die for him, but such a distraction was deadly at that moment. The indescribable demon’s limbs constricted him and dragged him into its maw as well, crunching on his bones and savoring his flesh as he screamed all the while.

  His last remaining goons attempted to flee, the ineffable beast proving to be too much for their psyche too, but they did not get very far. The wriggling mass’s thorny tendrils sent out even farther than they had previously seen, gripped them like a constrictor would, and devoured them promptly, albeit much faster than a snake ever could. Once Bifrons was alone, the demon’s arms receded, swirling and retracting, retreating back into the expansive case. Once it was fully back inside, Tien kicked the top once more and it closed with a clattering finality.

  Bifrons snorted, the dark comedy of his situation overpowering what fear he felt. “No, no, no. Don’t you dare spare me, little bird. The strong eat the weak, as they say. Let nature take its course. Kill me like the rest of ‘em. I was dealt the same shitty hand. I couldn’t get away in time…” He raised his pointer finger suddenly. “Unless, of course, there’s a way that I can survive this mess. Any way at all. I’d rather live, see.”

  “I do need something from you,” Tien said, picking up her case by its handle. The demon had gone completely silent, phased out of reality, swallowed by the solemn quietus of the infinite. “Unless you can tell me where it is by your own will.”

  “And what would that be, love?”

  “I know you came here for something a bit more substantial than a couple glass coins. You’re here for the Heart too, aren’t you?”

  “Heh. Caught red-handed, I suppose. Sure. I’m here for the bloody Heart. What of it?”

  “Judging by the noise upstairs, your little deal with that illum witch has seemingly come to fruition. You’ve driven the host mad with blood so you could run around his home pillaging his goods, yeah?”

  Bifrons snickered, wiping various viscera from his red and black suit. “That’s about it, yep. Poor sod’s obsessed with giving us all a good show, but half of the folk he’s entertaining don’t give a flying fuck. They want his riches, as if they don’t already have enough of that. Greedy bastards.”

  “Like you’re any different.”

  “You’re right, I’m not. But I’m not exactly wealthy myself, dearie. And I wasn’t looking for what they were. I was looking for a second chance. With a relic like that… well, you’ve seen it. This facade he’s put on. You and that Inkorpt slime seem to be the only ones aware of what this place really is.”

  “...You mean Grin? I’m not so sure. He might’ve had a hunch, but he has no idea.”

  “Maybe so. But we do. Makes this whole thing even easier, doesn’t it?”

  “No. Our actions here still send ripples outward. Now I know you don’t fully grasp it yourself. From your expertise, I thought you might’ve been a well-taught mage, but you don’t even know the basics.”

  “I know enough! I don’t need some goody two-shoes half-pint to tell me what I know and what I don’t. You’re probably some rich wizard’s kid, eh?”

  A shadow eclipsed Tien’s face. Her beautiful blue eyes darkened as if a storm had entered them.

  “That’s it, huh? You learned everything from some rich kid’s academy. Y’see, we can’t all be born into education like-”

  Tien opened her case. It sprung alive as if it hadn’t just been eerily quiet. One of the demon’s arms instantly reached toward Bifrons and pierced his chest.

  He looked down slowly, the cigar in his hand falling to the floor. It scattered its ashen end in a circle around itself, the flame burning out. “Heh… guess I should’ve chosen my words a little more carefully.” He went to take off his mask, hesitated, then chose to leave it on. In a low, hoarse voice he said finally: “Later, then.”

  The tendril whipped back out from the man’s upper body and flew back into the case just as it had before, creature and all. It closed itself with a loud bang.

  And Bifrons fell to the floor, among his cigar’s scattered ashes, a gaping hole where his heart had been.

  Tien felt the squishy item pilfered from the magician in her left hand. It was slick and wet. Countless droplets fell from it and painted the floor crimson. She raised it to eye-level, inspecting Bifrons’s heart with analytical ire. The demon had viciously ripped it from his chest cavity by her mental order. It was not the action of some madwoman, however. A mage’s heart could prove to be quite the useful ingredient. Something that could inevitably aid them in finding the true heart they desired… or, rather, that the Writer desired.

  The devil’s lifeless body slowly oozed out a pool of blood from underneath it. As it spread, the mage with the suitcase took a couple steps back from the reaching slough.

  She sighed. “I would have been willing to hear you out… if only you hadn’t mentioned that. The Academy wasn’t any easier, you know. Even among the rich and wealthy, there are those who belong to families which are wealthier than others. Everywhere you go, life’s a competition.” She pinched in-between her nose and brow, clenching her eyes shut as if to shut away the horrors she’d seen back then. The bullying. The abuse. She let out one last sigh, one much sadder than the last. “Why am I talking to a dead man…? Am I really so secretive these days that I’d rather discuss this with the corpse of a stranger than my friends, alive and well?”

  Her question met no one. Only the distant screams echoing off the castle walls met her somber query. The night was coming to a close. She had to find the others, and find the Roseblood Heart before it was too late. She turned her gaze from Bifrons’s corpse and what was left of Marchosias’s dinner, and set off in search of the others.

  “Tien’s an accomplished mage. She’ll be fine,” Sato assured Ma’at as they wandered the endless halls. “What she can do with technology and even modern, everyday objects is way more impressive than what I’m capable of.”

  “Really? Every time I think I’ve gotten a grasp on magic, I’m reminded I know very little.” She tossed one of her blades into the air, made it hover for a moment, then let the hilt fall back into her hand deftly. “This is all I can manage. Compared to you two, it’s nothing.”

  Sato shook her head and made a disagreeable noise. “No, not at all. I think it’s incredibly unique. I mean, all magic is unique, but yours especially so. It didn’t just come to you one day, in a fugue state. You realized what little potential you had and worked hard at it every day, eventually managing to do this. It’s admirable, really.”

  Ma’at laughed her off. “Hmph. I didn’t have much else to do during the war. In between skirmishes, I mean. All I had was this meager power. So I trained whenever I had time. Heh. Camelia would always tell me it was a waste of time. Not that I had no magical potential, though. She said I was capable of much greater things. But now I know she was just trying to be nice. But you know what? That’s fine. When it came to a one-on-one brawl, a real fight, I’d always beat her. Every time. Without all that mysticism and that act of superiority, she was just a frail little girl.”

  Sato covered her mouth and giggled. It was a light and pleasant sound. For a second, it made them all forget about the massacre that had taken place half an hour ago in the Great Room. “You really miss her, don’t you?”

  Ma’at stared into the rainy cosmos within the Maiden’s scleras for a while, then turned her eyes forward and nodded. This time, it wasn’t abashed. It was a resolute nod. Her dream hadn’t jumped from her heart. She was still following her own path adamantly, despite the many twists and turns along the way. “I just want to tell her… that I’m sorry. Before it’s too late. That’s all.”

  Sato gave her a sad smile. “You know, I should be a little more grateful I got to speak with Ryosai when I did. It was hard… to come to terms with my situation… the past… Ryosai’s deranged plan. But it was… necessary. Without any of that, I don’t think I would have been able to face the outside world like this. That endless guilt would have piled up every day with nowhere to go, and I would’ve drowned in it. You and the others… and Ryosai, in a way… gave me the catharsis I needed to burn away that guilt. So, thank you again. I’m right here to help you find yours. To find Camelia. Whether you like it or not, this Maiden of the Rain isn’t leaving your side!” she proclaimed, vibrant stars shining in her eyes.

  Ma’at cracked up, yet tried to suppress her laughter. “I don’t know how you can say embarrassing things like that with a straight face,” she said, wiping tears of joy from her eyelashes. “But I know. With every step, we’ll walk forward… together. And-” Ma’at stopped. It was for two reasons. One was because of Grin’s incessant groaning due to the nature of their conversation, but the other was due to their current predicament. “Hold on, I think we really are walking in circles. We’ve passed this same exact suit of armor for the thirtieth time by now.”

  Sato inspected the artifact, pinching her chin like some well-to-do detective wielding a giant magnifying glass. “Wait… you’re right! It has the exact same smudge stain Grin left when he tripped and smacked his face on it.”

  “I have no memory of that,” Grin responded stoically. It was surely a moment he had already wiped from his memory in order to keep his personal image from distorting even further. “Wait, do you hear that? That song?”

  “What song? We might need to get you checked out once we make it back to the airship,” Sato jeered. “Sounds like you hit your head a little too hard.”

  Grin nearly growled at her, his face contorted in anger.

  “So… we’re lost? The Count never said this place was a literal maze.”

  “Hmm… maybe we should stay put and wait? I’m sure Tien will find us soon. She’ll know the way, for sure.”

  Before Ma’at could settle on one of the ideas swirling around inside her head, four of the illum belonging to the Eternal Procession found them. “There! Slay them!” one of them ordered. They brandished their exotic blades and charged at them full-force, illusory cloaks billowing behind their backs.

  The Sirithisian threw one of her blades out, held it in mid-air, then jumped off of it and threw her other blade at one of the approaching enemies from the high-point with deadly accuracy.

  In the second before the boomerang blade met the illum’s flesh, the warrior acrobatically dodged it, her back bent and her body swerving in something resembling an airy dance. Her body missed the weapon, but Ma’at did manage to hit her Veil. However, that was how they functioned. When her noctite sword attempted to slash through the shimmering fabric, everything around the illum seemed to slow to a crawl. Time within that sphere of influence was almost completely frozen. Her blade met for killing her foe was locked in place, and so, the enemy dashed past it without issue.

  Sato’s eyes glowed as she raised her umbrella aloft to the heavens, or, to the ceiling. Eyeing the illum’s swift feet, she suddenly threw it down to her side. A chime sounded.

  Rainwater manifested below the approacher’s body and dragged her feet backwards, the rest of her falling to the wet floor promptly.

  Another behind her caught up and jumped over the flood, kicking off of the regal walls as if they were made of bouncy foam, and lunged toward the Maiden with her curved blade aiming straight for her neck.

  Ma’at called back the blade free of the Timeda Veil’s temporal prison.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Time flowed. The illum drew closer and closer, her sword dropping down on Sato’s throat with barely any time for her to react on her own.

  The Maiden made to move so that the attack wasn’t as deadly, but she’d noticed a tad too late. At best, it would slash across her chest. Not ideal, even in the best of circumstances.

  The blade came down, and blood was spilled. Sato’s? The illum strider’s? Both. The blade had nicked her, had cut into her chest almost halfway before Ma’at had finally caught her returning blade and jabbed it into the illum’s back. They both let out injured cries, although Sato kept her upright position. The illum fell, the wound grave.

  She called forth her other blade, but still it did not obey her. Or, rather it did obey her, but couldn’t move according to her order due to the Veil’s influence. That moment in time it was part of was stuck in some kind of temporal moratorium. The sphere containing it shimmered as though the area was within an oversized snowglobe, bereft of any outside influence.

  Instead, she called for the sword she’d just impaled Sato’s attacker with. It ripped through her abdomen and out of her back, sliding into Ma’at’s hand just in time to clash with the two who’d rushed at her.

  The last illum attempted to jump over the mess and take advantage of the situation, but upon leaping over them all, she came face-to-face with Grin, scythe in hand. The strider paused time around her feet, just enough to render gravity non-existent in that area, and pushed out of it with all her might, aided by the magical properties of her Veil. She practically flew across the hallway and landed harshly, her foot dragging a velvet rug backward, knocking over a concrete bust. In one smooth motion, she put away her blade and instead switched to her cerulean and silver bow. She took aim, nocking one of the few arrows from the small quiver on her back. It slid satisfyingly into place as she closed one eye, looking down the hall where she’d just been moments before. She saw the scythe-bearer there, about to run toward her.

  Grin rushed at her.

  She took a deep breath, pulling the arrow back. Her heartbeat grew louder in her ears.

  He readied his scythe without fear of the incoming shot.

  The arrow came all the way back, her arms extended in the perfect firing figure. Tension grew in the bowstring. Excitement grew within her chest. A fine kill. All she had to do now was let it go. Let the arrow do the rest of the work. She’d put it where it needed to be… now it just needed to be sent forth. As the tension reached its climax, she let her fingers slip from the feathered end, and the arrow shot out like a missile taking flight, careening through the stale air, heading directly for the man in black.

  He breathed in deeply, letting loose any stray thoughts for one singular attack. “Scythe Technique: Aria’s End,” he whispered. Flourishing his weapon, the Reaper raised it above his head, his eyes obstructed by his oily-black hair, and waited just long enough for the arrow to come into his sight. Right before it struck him in the heart, the scythe came down in one powerful two-handed strike as if he were wielding a battle hammer.

  And the arrow was split in two. Disappointment and regret filled the illum in a flash, but soon enough those emotions were followed by a loss of feeling entirely, save for a brief moment of intense pain.

  A vertical, rippling, necrotic, onyx blade of air and shadow extended from the edge of his scythe and flew straight toward the illum archer just as thin and unwavering as her precise shot had been. As if a cold rush of wind had blown through her hair on a winter night, the rippling blade slid through her, unfettered by the physical body, and bisected her down the middle.

  Her body, now in two halves, dropped everything, faltered for a moment as if reality itself hadn’t realized what had happened, then slid down and fell into a goopy, bloody mess on the carpet.

  Two down, two to go.

  Sato came to her senses at last. The blow she’d sustained, she realized, wasn’t nearly as deep as she had previously thought.

  She and Grin returned to help Ma’at just as she was losing ground to the Procession soldiers, and after some struggle, the last two were slain even quicker.

  The hall was just as bloody as the rest of the castle now.

  Ma’at sheathed her blades like a gunslinger holstering his sixguns. Her other sword had finally been freed once they’d all been killed. “Haah… I told that damn seamstress I couldn’t do my job in this thing. Almost died because of this dress!” She reached down and ripped the hem of her clothing, the black feathers torn in the process fluttering to the floor. She threw down the ripped-off piece like a prisoner tossing aside his unlocked shackles.

  “Ah! Ohhh… such a shame,” Sato muttered.

  Grin would have chuckled at the display, but after gazing down at their busywork, the violence they’d wrought for survival, depression settled back into his chest. “Why does everything have to end in blood? At the start, I thought that this really was going to be some grand event. I thought we’d get to forget about the world outside for a while. But… of course not.”

  “This is how the world is,” Ma’at said.

  “Why? Why does it have to be this way? People used to say… after the Advent, they used to say that from then on, everything was going to get better. That our world had been cursed, but now, it was free of that evil. Can we really do nothing but watch? Can we really do nothing but…” A tear welled up in his left eye, pushed out and onto his cheek, and rolled down his face slowly before dripping down into the bloody remains at their feet. A distant sound, alien and melodic, poetic, leapt from his soul.

  Crushed underheel by giants

  Screaming and crying, begging and pleading from beneath the folds

  And no one can hear me

  None at all

  And yet, I am still alive

  I am alive

  I am alive

  Across the river which serves as my domain

  the wind whispers a swift tune that never ceases to inspire

  Hush

  Whoosh

  Hush

  Whoosh

  Upon cavalcades and mountaintops stained red as rusted iron

  a soul recovers itself and pulls against the strings that bind

  and a crackling thunderbird roars above, its cry scary and sad; the same

  A tumbling, revolving machine toiling reminds me of what lies beyond

  and I wake

  and I run

  and I seek that everlasting light inside, burning so brightly, so painfully

  Yet, I never reach it

  Never

  And the spires that look down on me, their reflective, rectangular eyes judging

  make me want to scream

  But I know deep down

  that there will be a great migration, a transfer of the soul on the day of my demise

  Swirling with souls

  Bright and pure

  Full of possibilities

  And that day I will not feel the weight of those heels

  I will ‘feel’ nothing

  But I will attain everything I had ever so desired and more

  And bliss will find me, and enlightenment will come

  All can hear me

  They still can

  And they will chant:

  I am alive

  I am alive

  “Grin!” Sato cried.

  His raven mask had long fallen from his face amidst the poem surging forth from his heart. Though, what had resonated at first to their ears as a series of serene chimes now seemed to collide into a violinistic melody. A piano could almost be heard amongst the strings as well; ramping into a frenzied yet coordinated rush of beautiful, mesmerizing songs meant for those dear to him.

  “Is that…?” Ma’at eked out, astonished.

  “The light!” Sato cried. “This was the light I was talking about!”

  But there was no light. None that they could see, only Sato could imagine it. But they could hear the melodies emanating from his being. That was clear to them; reverberating deep into their ear canals and calling forth their own dormant feelings.

  “The music you could hear… we can hear it too.” She looked around. The maze of the castle had begun to shift. The dusky halls filled with cobwebbed clutter rearranged, and a path had begun to form between jagged walls and fixtures.

  “The music I could hear…” Grin murmured. “It was… a song. A song my mother used to sing to me and my brother. She’d sing it to us to cheer us up. Usually after telling us that sad story…”

  Ma’at’s face lit up in remembrance. “A sad story? The same one about your name?”

  “About my name…?”

  “I mentioned your name was interesting, and you said it was a sad story. Hmph. In hindsight, I should have asked you what that meant. Why didn’t I…?”

  “A sad story…” he repeated.

  “What’s the story?” Sato asked. “Could you tell it?”

  “Is this really the time? Look!” His gaze shifted from them to the jumbling halls of the Crimson Castle, seemingly awakened by the song pouring from the lad’s heart.

  “That’s…” Ma’at began, her eyes glued to the figure appearing amidst the tumbling architecture.

  As if a television channel had switched, or a radio had glitched, or a wavelength had synced, a woman in black appeared, her mask now absent from her pale face. Beatrice Blackthorn had appeared at the end of the newly arranged hallway. The remains of the Eternal Procession still lingered here and there in fleshy clumps.

  Upon seeing her, almost as if her existence alone had silenced it, the song emanating from Grin vanished amidst the rumbling castle and whatever light Sato had seen before had gone away with it.

  “Beatrice…?”

  “Yes, I am Beatrice Blackthorn. I hope you remember me.”

  “That’s a strange joke,” Sato replied. “Of course we remember you. We just saw you in the Great Room before everything went… well, awry. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Do not mind me. Allow him to tell the story.”

  “What? How do you-”

  In an odd, uncharacteristic move, Grin placed both his hands on the women’s shoulders as if to sweep away their confusion. He placed an open palm upon his chest, as if to feel his own warmth. “No, it’s alright. For some reason, I feel like I should tell it. Before anything else.”

  “Go on,” Beatrice urged.

  A sickly feeling poisoned Ma’at’s stomach, but she decided to go along with it. After all, she was curious too.

  “My mother named me. She said it was from an old story about a planet named Steruin that was orbited by two moons. One was named Kolapt, and the other Grin. The planet actually orbited a black hole. Grin was safe from its pull, but his brother Kolapt was being slowly dragged into its abyss as the years went by. He tried to bargain with the black hole. He asked it again and again what it wanted in exchange for his dear brother, but he was met with silence every time. All Grin could do was sit and watch as his brother inevitably sank into nothingness. He had no choice. I told you, not the happiest story.”

  “A tragic tale, yet beautiful and meaningful nonetheless,” Beatrice stated. Her two soulless eyes glared at them like a spider would stare at its next meal, coccooned and ready for consumption. “One is safe, unchained by his brother’s misfortune. The other is doomed to a fate worse than death. One can only watch in horror as the other perishes, forever lost to the outer cosmos.”

  “Your brother… the one the Blue Lotus are holding for collateral… his name is Kolapt?”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “Dear Grin,” Beatrice spoke. “Do you know what lies behind me?”

  “No, lady. Haven’t ever seen-” A shudder ran down his spine at the sight of it. What he saw, however, was personalized. The door ahead, at least to Ma’at and Sato, appeared completely normal. It looked like a simple brown, ornate door. “No…! What the hell is that place!?” he screamed.

  “Hehe. It’s just a door. It’s just a possibility. A door = a possibility. A possibility = a door. Should I open it? Should we look inside?”

  “Get that creepy bitch away from me!” he yelled, tearing himself away from the women and running in the opposite direction.

  Beatrice opened her mouth. No sound came out, but the word and its meaning were etched into place:

  A U T H O R I T Y

  Everyone present besides the lady in black writhed much how an ant might when its queen has died. Their minds were assaulted by a presence that shouldn’t exist. Something they couldn’t quite comprehend.

  The way out shifted into a chaotic jumble. A mess of broken architecture, dangling chandeliers, and drifting viscera blocked his path.

  “Authority. The world is governed by it. The Union of Isles, with all the power they believe they wield, tempt the other worldly powers with mutual destruction. They claim all that they can find in the Technicist Leylines… even the wellspring of knowledge… yet they cannot hold them forever. They are not theirs to hold. They do not control them. No one does. None but I.”

  “Grin, what’s wrong? It’s just another door.” Sato tried to calm him, but there was no way he could be calm in the face of such terror.

  “It’s NOT! It’s NOT another door! Sh-She’s not what you think she is! That’s not…!” He tried to get the words out.

  Beatrice opened her mouth. No sound came out, but the word and its meaning were etched into place:

  M Y S T E R Y

  His lips clammed shut suddenly, as if he’d changed his mind. But his expression made it clear that he hadn’t made such a choice. His voice had been silenced against his will.

  “Mystery. The world cannot exist without it. Magic’s fundamentals are built upon mystery and emotion. Life, in essence, is mysterious isn’t it? There can’t be life nor magic without mystery to outline the edges of understanding. My world and your world are completely different, completely different perspectives shining through the keyhole, yet our gelatinous forms are still bound by the mystery life presents. Hehe. You’re trembling, scythe-bearer. Why? Do I scare you?”

  He did not answer. The normally talkative, disrespectful Inkorpt agent couldn’t force out a single word in response.

  “Beatrice… what are you doing to him? Stop it!” Ma’at ordered her. “What are you showing him!? Where does that door lead!?”

  “Hehehe. I’ve been saying it all this time, haven’t I? I told you to enter it from the start. The simplest task. But he doesn’t want to follow you there. That would be bad manners. Why shouldn’t a friend follow his friend?”

  “From the start…? You mean… that’s the Reliquary Room?”

  Her dark eyes widened in response. She curled a finger at Grin, and following the action, he was pulled straight to her. Geometrical shapes coalesced to form a massive black greatsword in her hand, and wasting no time, she cut Grin in half from the torso. His two severed halves, his legs and upper body, fell to the ground in front of her.

  “No! Why!?”

  “Grin!” Sato screamed.

  Beatrice opened her mouth. No sound came out, but the word and its meaning were etched into place:

  M I R A C L E

  The door opened. An eerie, golden brown glow unfurled from it. It was like something out of a dream.

  “Miracle. Come. Let us lead an expedition into the room… into the feretory of eternity. Do not look back. Enter it, and you will find what you have sought this whole time, Ma’at. You will find your dearest Camelia, the Witch of Warmth. She’s waiting for you.”

  The light from the door… or perhaps a sudden wind… began to pull them toward the Reliquary Room’s entrance. They tried to hold on to various bits and pieces of rubble and malformed furniture, but it was much too strong. Before they knew it, Ma’at, Sato and Grin’s severed body were sucked into the enigmatic place with nothing but the autumnal light to welcome them… and an inexplicable clawing sensation scratching at their minds.