Stolid

PRO☆LOG . Sanctuary
I am stationary.

I am a lot of things, a lot of names, a lot of people, but I take comfort in two things. Constants in every identity, every facet, every reflection of myself. I am a lot of everything but I am stationary. I am grounded. I am my own sanctuary.

The other constant is that, no matter how many times I brush my teeth, my gums are sensitive and will bleed.

Tonight is a special one. The messenger told me I'd received a summons from a person in the Calliope, the largest encampment on the northern front. I'm not certain on whether my current mask would agree, but I'd say the Calliope is flourishing in these times. I think they've got a good chance at winning the war.

The client has requested I stand under the third lantern on the corner of two makeshift trails in a less active section of tents, where I will be received by someone who will take me to them. I spend the next several seconds tossing a pebble into the grass before a fennec sweeps past me, tilting its head to lock eyes with mine for the briefest of moments drawn out long enough to indicate it was the one, and then tipping its head forwards towards a small path between two tents. I've been in the business long enough to know a guide or informant if they shoved me into a lamppost and ran in the opposite direction, but I appreciate the gesture and follow after them.

I realize where this is going because we're headed straight for the Calliope's most important tents. Who was it, I can't help but wonder, who thought I was important enough to summon?

The fennec gestures towards a passage in the back of a tent waving the common Jamaasian flag at its peak and slips inside. I follow quickly afterwards, squinting slightly at the light, though even my mask, my borrowed person, cannot help but widen their watering eyes at who I stand before.

"General Greely." A warbling tone draws up from within me and I bow respectfully. The wolf, clad in the dazzling golden of a higher-up's uniform, clinking with the countless medals and chains of a weathered soldier,  turns slowly to face me, his amber eye closing as he nods in response. "It is good to see you've accepted my offer, Marten."

By the way, that isn't my name. I thought you ought to know that. "Of course, sir. I'll follow whatever you wish for me to do."

Greely's gaze returns to the map of Jamaa on the table before him, cluttered by models of tiny figures and flags. "As you may know," he begins, heavily, "the phantoms are pushing back."

"Yes, sir."

"They have grown far more intelligent than we originally anticipated. However. Recent informants point towards forces influencing their power and capability. There are animals actively supporting the phantoms, backed by magical ability. They are essential to the phantoms' forces: the Specters." Greely moves five crude purple animal figurines to the center of the map. "And, to keep things short and simple, they are hidden within our territory, and our typical forces cannot begin to assess and attack them. We don't know any of their exact locations."

"I see." I nod slowly. I am steady, I am stationary. But this, within, is quite a bit jarring.

Greely mutters something to the fennec fox standing by him, the one who led me here, and it nods and procures a large pouch with something wrapped around it. Greely pushes it towards me: an overstuffed satchel of coin, and a golden sash with a copper medallion affixed to it, attached to the sash with fine red ribbon.

"You will receive this as upfront payment. Wearing the sash recognizes you as an ambassador to lands outside the main region, and I will be in contact with you through letter to update you on the situation and objective."

"Where am I to go first, general?" I ask as neutrally as I can manage. Truth be told, this is big. Really big. The biggest job I've had in my entire career.

"We have been informed the first Specter is somewhere around Lowertown in the west," Greely replies, leaning forward. "If you accept, you will be transported there tonight."

I eye the bag of coins.

"And what comes after upfront payment?"

"Fame, fortune, respect…"

I cannot help but snort just a bit. I lean forward to meet him, the hood of my cloak falling to my shoulders. "Oh, I accept, general. I just don't think the masses are going to accept a Magicslayer as an acclaimed war hero."

I am stationary.

Steadfast.

I am Stolid.

Yeah, that's me. Stolid.

I . The Road to the First Specter
"Isn't it dangerous to travel by night?"

I'm sitting in a wagon, leaning against the side to steady myself as the wheels turn ceaselessly over the rocky trail into the forest.

"With a wagon bearing the symbols of loyalty to the army, the nation, and the throne, no less." The fennec next to me, driving the clydesdale-pulled wagon (yes, the same fennec who led me here) prepares to prattle a thousand complaints about the state of the government. "It's like walking into a den of lions in the dead of night. We're asking for trouble."

"Provided the lions aren't feral, I'd say the worst that could come out of that would be having to deal with a lot of irritated lions," I hum with a yawn.

The fennec scowls rather fiercely at me. "Additionally--"

"He's right, you know," the clydesdale pulling the wagon grunts. "We don't have room in our society for murderous lions no more. No killing of sentient animals. No eating of them neither."

"Oh, feral and civilized!" The fennec pipes up immediately. "Another ever-present moral issue."

"It isn't that hard to think about if you don't think about it." I yawn again. "The animals of the heartstones, most of them anyway, are members of society and mankind. The ones who aren't and haven't been awakened are feral and they go by the primal order of things. Simple as that. No moral or ethical argument there."

"You cougars," the fox jeers, waving one hand's reins in my direction, "are so simple-minded."

"I suppose you're right. You haven't even told me your name, while I'm going to be telling the world."

He opens his mouth to deliver some witty retort when the clydesdale speaks again.

"It's Papermoon. I'm Kingcall."

Papermoon frowns irritably down at Kingcall.

"Are we using our army names?" There's a particularly loud thump as the wagon runs over a rut in the road and I am jostled to the side. My claws dig into the wooden railing beside me.

"You know, this seat is built so that two people can carry the reins," Papermoon says, his green eyes narrowing as he stares straight ahead. "I'm supposed to have you be in the actual carriage. Not here."

"Well, it's too late. We're in the middle of the woods, which are dangerous to be in at night, as you pointed out. You won't pull over just to cram me in with supplies," I reply evenly, uninterested in the current conversation. He didn't even answer my question.

Papermoon yanks on the reins and holds them to his chest, forcing Kingcall to halt. "Hey, watch it!" Kingcall seethes. His teeth gnash together angrily as he struggles to remain quiet and calm. I'm surprised a scrawny fennec fox can hold down a clydesdale, though I'm sure Kingcall is only humoring him.

"Try me," Papermoon snarls, baring his teeth. I blink once, twice, slowly, rest my head against my paw on the side of the drivers' seat. I don't put up with people like this, but it wouldn't be any good to egg him on now, so I lean back and say nothing.

Kingcall continues down the road. We are silent for a long while.

"I bet Marten isn't even your real name," Papermoon mutters reproachfully sometime later. I can't believe someone's finally cracked my façade. Whatever shall I do.

Despite Papermoon's misgivings about the safety of the woods at night, we come up on Lowertown unscathed. It's early morning, about an hour before dawn, when we pass the weathered sign:

WE WARMLY WELCOME YOU TO 

Lowertown, Foothill Forest.

Populaton: 343.

Proudly home to the northernmost burrowing network in Jamaa for 72 years and counting.

I check my robes for everything. Daggers, vials, tools, all there. Good. I typically don't do it much, but the general gave me refined "ambassador's robes," specially altered to carry everything I needed. They were nice, fancy, sure, but somehow they didn't carry the same comfort and familiarity as my older worn cloaks. I poke at the golden threaded embroidery along its hem. I suppose the goal of posing as an ambassador is to ease the sense of hostility Lowertownies and like-minded Outer Jamaasians feel against newcomers alongside making sure they know I have more expensive clothes than they do.

I have no idea what I'm up against, but now I'm beginning to formulate a good guess.

II . Lowertown
The road into Lowertown slopes downwards into the valley it resides within, leading to a myriad of small burrows dug into the sides of the small meadow hills. I've never been until now, but I hear Lowertown used to be one of the leading producers in the mining, farming, and jewelry industry, all trades that shaped the explosion of primarily rabbit-populated villages in Foothill Forest and Jamaa nearly a century ago. The phantoms' first serious assault on the land seemed to alter many industries and towns reliant on those industries forever. It looks like a nice town, though. Jewelry and crops are still the odd pair that draw the occasional tourists and merchants to the valley. I guess that's what saved it from becoming a total ghost town.

As we roll down the road past the quaint burrows, I ponder. Perhaps the Specter is a rabbit, too. But why would it be here?

Kingcall halts beside what appears to be an inn. "The scout we got our info from is in there," Papermoon grunts. "They'll recognize you by your clothing, so just sit down at a table or whatever. We're going to be outside town hall."

I leap off of the wagon and approach the building as Kingcall backs up and heads further down the dirt path past me. Similar to the other houses, though quite a bit larger, the earth around its front has been carved away to reveal a stony wall with a rounded wooden door and two windows. The door creaks as I open it and step into a dim room, lit simultaneously by candles, glowing stones, and the strangely bright and narrowed eyes of several rabbits turning towards me.

Ignoring the inquisitive gazes and their sharpening as they note my ambassador's sash, I step through the mixture of glowing, faintly pulsating color and sweep aside my robes to sit at a stool by the bar. The young, dark grey and white rabbit behind the bar turns to fix me with another wide, silent stare.

I yawn. Despite the laws of the land, applying to the central cities and furthest reaches of Jamaa and everything in between on civilization and ferality, I sense an unease from the rabbits, a quivering denoting the presence of a predator (that's "one who ate other animals in the days of old for sustenance, typically animals who in this day and age are just as sentient as everybody else" if you didn't listen to the lesson on retired words in school). "Give me... uh.. whatever," I tell the anxious rabbit, gesturing vaguely with one paw. "My name is Marten Gloomwade and I'm the army's ambassador to the outer lands of Jamaa, you know, I'm sure you already know that. My identity is quite... wide-spread."

The rabbit nods quickly and vigorously. "Of course, sir. Everyone knows. I mean that... respectfully of course," it adds with a squeak, before darting off towards a shelf at the far side of the bar.

My ears instinctively angle towards a thump behind me, followed by the creak of a chair as someone stands to approach me. "Gloomwade," a neutral, feminine voice calls. A skunk with a dull red cloak, which bears the crest of a cartographer on its shoulder, hops up onto the seat next to mine.

She continues before I can speak. "My name is Umberfade. I assume P and K brought you here." Umberfade's head jerks up towards the rabbit, who is fiddling with several bottles at once. "Hops, get me two cups of 'shine."

"Hops" nods quickly and attempts to put the bottles back, nearly dropping several in the process as he reaches for a ceramic jug. Hops. What a stupid name for a rabbit. That's like being a crocodile and naming your child "Teeth," or maybe being my mother and naming me "Has Gums That Bleed Prolifically Upon Rough And Vigorous Physical Contact, No Matter How Many Times Said Repetitive Contact Is Applied To Gums Every Day."

Umberfade suddenly shoots a glare at me and mouths what I'm pretty sure is "it's not a stupid name." I blink in surprise. "Yeah. They're.. yeah." I nod awkwardly. I'm not used to working with the government. I don't know what kind of regulations they have on names and the whereabouts of agents.

The skunk procures a scroll from her cloak and slides it towards me. "There's been strange activity in the tunnels," she mutters, pausing to accept two glasses filled with a dark, unrecognizable liquid from Hops. "No one goes down there much, but several inhabitants have reported a strange energy whilst standing aboveground over the deepest parts of the network. Those spots of energy seem to change location day-to-day. That is a map of the tunnels." Umberfade gestures towards the scroll and takes a heavy swig from the glass. "...it's a special scroll that'll help you find your way, though the further you go down the more crystals there are to guide you. I'd explain it but there's a key in the map and everything you need."

I wonder if this skunk knows what job I'm doing.

"Yes, I know what you're doing." Umberfade narrows her amber eyes at me, her tone harshening pointedly but evening out quickly afterwards to add, "...you're taking care of that energy."

-

Waste as much time as you'd like, at the expense of the army, but you have two days to pinpoint and eradicate that force. Umberfade's words ring in my head as I walk towards Lowertown's somewhat desolate public library that afternoon. It won't take that long, I know. I didn't tell her that, but I figure that she knows, because I thought of it while she was staring at me and practically chugging whatever drink I didn't touch back at the bar. I want to get a better idea of what I'm dealing with, though, so I decide to start by reading a few things at the library.

The library-burrow is similar to the bar, lit by crystals and candles. There's a rabbit at a desk near the front, whom I sweep past towards one of the library's five shelves. ''History. ''

One particularly large tome is a ringed binder of family trees following and cataloging every resident. Stallfur, Oreleap, Pondrush, Digtrot, and Flathorn are the persistent lineages, with brief descriptions of their histories on the side of each family tree. One of them, Digtrot, seems mildly of interest:

''The Digtrot family, known for their contributions to the creation of the tunnels. It is said that the path through the deepest parts of the tunnel system is knowledge passed down through the generations. The late branch of the Digtrot family, descended from Leaper Digtrot and Indigo Digtrot (née Flathorn), are honored and revered for their service to the military during the First War.''

The First War, of course, being the first large scale modern-age conflict with the phantoms, including the catastrophic attacks on Foothill Forest (I paid attention in school... before I dropped out). I remember the uproar about the military being unable to return deceased soldiers' remains to their families for unexplained reasons, a controversy further heightened by their later statement of "...there is nothing to be returned." It brings thoughts of the old rumors in school that, in some circumstances, when you were "killed" by a phantom, you became one.

And that, of course, leads to thoughts of my discoveries last year in another big job that this silly rumor had some merit... but that's a story for another day.

"Excuse me. You've got newspaper archives, right? I'm looking for obituaries," I call to the librarian from my place near the family tree book's wooden, candle-lit pedestal. The rabbit blinks in surprise and then nods, hopping away from the desk and down the hall past the bookshelves.

After leafing through issue after issue of a stack of old copies of The Meadow's Buzz (which sounds more like a gossip magazine than an accurate local newspaper), nothing. I'm looking for a certain Halo Digtrot, the supposed end of Leaper and Indigo Digtrot's branch of the Digtrot family tree. She died during the First War along with her parents and just about everyone else in her close family. I'm just about to assume she went unrecorded when, thank Zios, I glimpse it in a particularly yellowed issue.

''Halo Digtrot was a medical student and artist born and raised in Lowertown. She is honored for her enlistment and service in the army as a doctor. She disappeared during the Siege of Tunneler's Fort and was proclaimed dead by the military on the following day after the attack due to a fatal phantom-delivered electrical shock. A creative and loving soul, Halo was admired around town for her detailed paintings alongside her compassion and drive to help her patients. Halo could not be recovered for a funeral and burial, and her headstone is placed by St. Geo's Church beneath a willow tree in accordance with the church's wishes.''

(...after that, where normally obituaries have the "they are survived by" section, there's nothing. It ends there. Damn.)

Another disappearance of the body, huh? There wasn't any burial mentioned either.

If my hypothesis about the Specters is correct, that they're made of captured and converted animals and, perhaps, their children...

I thank the librarian and take my leave.

I dislike being in tight spaces, but it can't be helped. To the tunnels I go, scroll in hand.

III . "I am No Claustrophobe; I Simply Hate Dirt" / Puissance's Prelude
So, the tunnels... well, they sure are tunnels. Dark. Dirty. Generally uncomfortable to be in. I enter them in the afternoon armed with everything in my cloak and a nifty sort of green metal staff with a ring attached to the end, where a lit glass lantern is affixed. I borrowed it without permission from outside a burrow on the way to the tunnels even though I can see alright in the dark. I've gone on enough night missions to hone my nightvision, which for most people has been dulled due to lack of use in modern society, but I suppose the lantern is more of a false comfort, because walking around in the open night air is different than clunking about in an abandoned tunnel built for rabbits.

When I open the scroll Umberfade gave me, I'm surprised that it's in fairly pristine condition, something difficult to be found in scrolls now that they're not often produced and most sane people just use books. More notably, the golden-yellow flecks of auxichlydrite sewn into the fiber of the paper, which is used nowadays for decoration by simpletons who don't realize its inherently magical properties, cause the scroll and the outline of the map to glow a soft golden, lighting the tunnel enough for me to see where I'm going without the lantern. I keep it by regardless.

The drawing of the tunnels on the scroll seems to tremble for a moment. As it stills, a small black star appears on one of the outer lines. The map key on the bottom translates. ★ = WIELDER.

Umberfade forgot to tell me exactly, or perhaps she purposefully withheld it, but I expect this map pinpoints and targets sources of living and/or magical energy, and leads the Wielder to the source. A moment later, words in scribbled blue ink appear underneath the map: PROCEED.

One line depicting the network glows a dim orange and pulsates. I grip the lantern-staff and carry on forwards on the route the map orders me to take deeper into the tunnels.

A few minutes later, after I take a left down a tunnel that widens as it slopes downwards, there is a rumbling. The soil around me is stirred and small chunks of earth fall to the ground at my feet from the ceiling and the sides. The tiniest pieces of crystal and metal embedded in the dirt around me, on the walls besides me, above me, beneath me, flicker to life, pulsate faintly with the glow of bright greens, blues, pinks, purples.

It's nearby.

Sure enough, the map drawing shakes again, evens out as a trembling magenta ♦️ appears in the center of the tangled lines. The color of the lines around it indicate, according to the map key, that it is one of the deepest parts of the tunnels. Wonderful. The map's route redirects to take me directly into the center.

As I progress steadily downward, the rumbling occurs more frequently. I pass by abandoned crystal mining sites, some large, brilliant blue gems still exposed in the dirt, glowing brighter and brighter with each discharge of tectonic energy. I wonder, absentmindedly, about those rumors of phantom-animal hybrids or whatever. My classmates called them, aptly, "Phantimals." How profound. The earth quivers violently, this time throwing me to the ground and dumping a pile of soil and crystalline flecks from the ceiling onto my back.

I stumble to my paws, briefly admiring the lantern's flame for struggling and succeeding in staying alight through all this. The map quivers again. I lean against the wall of the tunnel, where it opens into an intersecting path, and reexamine my position. I'm nearly at the center. I step out into the tunnel that leads straight towards my target. Before I can turn towards it and carry on, the map's movement settles. The diamond at the center suddenly disappears. It appears in another tunnel and disappears. It appears in another closer by and disappears. And then the quiet rumbling around me dissipates. My head jerks upward as something appears near the star indicating my location:

♦️

A thunderous rumbling flings me into the dirt once again as a long, bright pink, spear-tipped bolt of magical energy soars down the tunnel over me. The rumbling grows louder still as the bolt disappears into the heart of the tunnels and the ♦️ on the map reappears at the center. Down the passageway, I hear what sounds like a child or adolescent's angered shout, to my faint surprise (dimmed by the electric aftershock of such a potent magical attack-- Zios, I had let my guard down, hadn't I? In the dark, abandoned, scary tunnels no less!... well, I am no claustrophobe. I simply hate dirt).

"Dammit! There's someone here! I missed them! Dammit... I know... I know there's someone there, I felt it."

I glance up at the ceiling. The bolt didn't hit anything. I scramble to my paws and rush down the tunnel to my target, gripping the lantern and map in my paws.

There's a dim pinkish light ahead where the tunnel opens up into what I presume to be a very open room. The tunnel slopes down into the deepest part of the network, and as I get closer I recognize the pinkish light as something like a cluster of crystals, the only thing lighting the room as I leap headfirst into it. I roll up the map scroll and jam it into one of my cloak pockets.

The rumbling tunnels fall silent. Even with the lantern, I can barely see a thing.

There's a faint hum as crystals around me slowly come to life, in a bright glow of blue, green, red, pink, purple, forming a vast circle around the dark room. Above me there's a series of faint, rapid pawsteps, accompanied by what sounds like the jingle of a tiny bell with each step, and I instinctively reach into my cloak and draw my best dagger immediately. Fastest draw in Central Jamaa, they used to tell me in the army, during my failed stint as a soldier. It doesn't take that long for most people to draw a blade when they know what they're doing, but yeah, I can sense the need, reach for it, and draw my dagger from the deepest folds of my cloak in less than a second. Again, though, this cloak is kind of weird to quickly rifle through when I'm so used to my old, humble ones. I probably could've done it faster if I hadn't been digging around in white silk.

The pawsteps come to a halt somewhere above and in front of me. "Hiya, Mr. Ambassador! It's nice of you to come," a high-pitched voice chirps. I hear the bell clink again as the owner of the voice tilts her head to the side. A quick sniff of the room: dirt, overpowering smell of dirt, beyond that, further... dirt, dirt, water, rabbit. Young rabbit. Rabbit, mixed with that, the stench, a wrong sort of stench mixed with rabbit, something that burns my nostrils. Phantom.

"It would be real rude of me not to introduce myself. My name's Peck. Peck Digtrot, but you can call me Peck. I'm an artist! How about you?"

A silence.

"All I know is that you're an ambassador. Don't be so surprised about that! We get around. Ambassador... or... uh, Magic-ck-slaugh... slough...sl...slayerrrr... Magicslayer! Did I get it right?"

I'm surprised. Perhaps the phantoms are getting better at disguising informants. Well, I would expect so, given.. this. More crystals, ones buried in the soil, begin to glow, leading up the wall and pausing at a ledge, outlining the silhouette of a rabbit. Yes, I was right.

"Y'know, none of us have ever seen your face. We didn't prioritize locating you or finding out more about you 'cause you weren't a threat to the fortress or the body." Peck pauses, tilts her head again. "What kind of animal are you, exactly?"

I remain silent, move the lantern's flame away from my face. The crystals seem to shift forwards and lurch towards me. I dig into my cloak again and grip a dark grey, circular object. Let's hope my aim is alright. I haven't needed it much recently. The crystals pause their movement as Peck raises her hands into the air and backs away.

"Sorry... geez... I was just curious. You don't have to be rude... you are being pretty rude, you know that, Magicslayer? I'm just trying to make conversation and you can't even en-tear...no.. turr...ten? Tain? You can't even en-ter-tan, ente-rrr-tayn a poor kid who hasn't spoken to anyone human in soooo long..." Peck clears her throat. "Hey, are we even human? People used to call us animals. Primal. Sah-vage. What is 'human?' Are we animal or 'human,' whatever that is?"

Someone didn't go to school. I bite back additional comment. "You aren't."

"Whaaaat?" Peck's childish tone hardens mid-word. The crystals flare into a blinding light. I squint as golden stone in the walls begins to glow too, lighting the room. It's larger than I anticipated. The crystals sink into the paint-spattered ground, which is surrounded by a blue pool of water. The walls are adorned with more of these splatterings in between countless ledges spiraling upwards. Peck stands in the center. Her fur is several shades of light purple and magenta. The tops of her ears are a much darker shade of pink than the rest of her ears, and they look sewn on. A bell earring hangs from her left ear, and a deep, blackish purple collar is around her neck, a phantom's eye at its center, confirming my suspicions.

Under her short, dark purple hair, one eye is covered by a thick black strip of ribbon. Her other eye is deep purple and oddly cloudy, in a way I've seen before, in older folks and one very unfortunate young... target, one that keeps me up at night, makes me tremble to have to look at something like it again.

...she can't actually see?

''"I'm done talking!" ''Peck yells. "Take THIS!"

Crystals emerge from the ground and rumble through the earth towards me as two pink whips of energy lash out from Peck's body, shaking the tunnels with the force and noise of a thunderclap in my ears as they dislodge a ledge of earth and rock from above me and fling it downwards with the intent to kill.

...a child. I'm fighting a child. Again.

IV . "Showdown!" Puissance ♦️
I dart out of the way of the projectile just as another whip curls around a boulder and lobs that at me too, hitting the wall with a thunderous crack as I dodge it and it splits in two upon impact. Peck leaps off of the ledge she stands on and onto the next one above it. I don't have time to slow down and examine, but the crystals pushing through the dirt to pursue me seem to slow down whenever I halt. They haven't ever attempted to attack me, as far as I'm aware. I quickly discover I can collapse the lantern holder and do so, gripping it in my mouth to free a paw. I'm glad my teeth don't bleed too.

''"You're a cougar, right? Let's see how high you can jump!" ''Peck stops throwing dirt and rocks at me and her two whip-tentacle things withdraw just a little bit. Their tips round themselves and begin to glow white and light pink. As I leap onto the next ledge towards her, the crystals' points jut towards me and the whips release two bolts of sparking, crackling energy. They meet the wall inches away from my feet and explode in a burst of color that sends me rolling backwards and nearly onto the ground thirty feet below.

I jump to my paws, scramble onto the next ledge and the next and the next as Peck sends eight more shots my way, leaping onto the ascending ledges to meet me from the other side of the tall room.

Cougars? Leaping high? That's racist. Well, it's true, but you shouldn't expect that out of every one of us... Why, how, does she know I'm a cougar?

The crystals emerge from the ground around me in a slow spinning motion. I have a moment to glance at them, and note the strange, round sort of bubble encased within each of them floating slowly in my direction whenever I moved. I glance towards Peck, who's paused movement. There are a few crystals around her, too.

I spin around and do another rather tiresome cougar leap onto the final and highest ledge. Peck swings into life, and I sidestep off of the ledge and onto the second room behind me as she fires two more bolts. I grip my dagger and jerk the blade sideways, deflecting the bolts with a twist of the hand. I don't know if you missed it, but my title's "Magicslayer," and my weapons are a mix of magical items that counter and destroy as well as magical-but-not-magical items enchanted to defend against magic. All of my good daggers can deflect a measly old elemental bolt. I guess I should demonstrate more often so that it doesn't seem like I'm pulling a plot point out of nowhere.

"Hey," Peck growls, withdrawing her whips and hopping onto the same room I stand on. "Did I mention that I'm an artist? This room of my burrow is the art gallery. Magic is art too, but I have other ways of killing you before you kill me."

Now that we're on the same level, I have the high ground. I decide to pull out another blade and lunge at her with the daggers and in a flash of shining silver I'm almost upon the beast, the monster, not a child, not a child like that one, a monster...

Suddenly, Peck is holding a paintbrush. She lashes it through the air, sending a splatter of dark violet paint directly across my eyes.

I stagger. I can operate fine without sight, but this isn't normal paint. It can't be. It's cold, too cold, numbing, makes my mind addled. I have a strategy but I'm forgetting it as soon as I think of it... what was that again.. Paint? Paint on my eyes, I have to get it off.

I step backwards and trip on a crystal.

"I've always wanted to see real color," Peck says. I'm pretty sure she's moving away from me, her voice is... somewhere else. "My mom and the phantoms weren't happy when I was born blind. They thought my mom was defective. My mom.. well, you read her obituary, you know her name. Halo. They took her off the battlefield, the phantoms, and they showed her the true path when they put that collar on her. She fell in love with a phantom, I'm not actually sure how, they're kinda gross. I think it was another rabbit that the phantoms stole, but she told me my father was a phantom. They were gonna get rid of me but someone showed me that I could see another way. I figured out how to use Crystal Sight, and see through the foggy lens of the crystals. I can see and attack general shapes that way. But it isn't enough!"

I hear a crackling and a bolt connects with my body, which sends me tumbling towards the ledge I was on just a moment ago. Ow.

"You're a letdown," Peck grumbles in disappointment. "I was expecting more. And it's too bad you won't live to see my art."

Smoke.. Sm.. what was I just thinking about? Right. That. I've been waiting.

I hear the whips charge, preparing to send me off the ledge and onto the ground. I toss the lantern to the ground (yeah, I somehow managed to remember to hold it) and drop one dagger to grab the smoke bomb from my cloak and throw it directly at the crystals around me.

"Hey!" Peck screams. "I can't see! Goddammit!"

I hold my breath, pick up the dagger and stumble to my paws, turning away from the ledge and kicking as many crystals as I can into broken, useless shards before dashing towards Peck's voice. Stumbling pawsteps scramble away from me.

I fumble around for my flask and pour water over my eyes in an attempt to remove the paint. Surprisingly, it fades and almost melts away nearly instantaneously. So that's the secret: Water.

The room before me is a dark gallery, filled with framed paintings of blind swipes and paint splatters. I follow steadily after Peck's steps.

I catch sight of her, stumbling down a hall with noticeably less crystals than before following her. She spins around to face me suddenly, and with a strangled scream sends the whips towards me. They coil around anything they can find as they go: shelves, frames, easels, all flying at me, all easily dodged and sliced through. Peck's form was getting less precise and more desperate, but I didn't say it, didn't think it. It would hurt more.

The gallery led upwards to the surface. If I recalled correctly, according to the map, the northern side of the center which we were going down right now led fairly quickly up into a meadow.

I would have caught up with her by now, but Peck keeps finding things to fling at me, and though they're easy to get through they're still a bother. Finally, though, as Peck manages to break through the surface without ending the barrage of random items, she hops several more steps before tumbling down a meadow hill. I follow after her. She doesn't get up.

''"No!" ''Peck screamed, now throwing pebbles at me as I approached with my daggers. "No! You can't! You won't!"

''A tiny young lynx with cloudy blue eyes. He's crying. "You can't! You can't do this to me!"''

I draw nearer. That phantom collar on her neck... was she normal before it was there?

''"No!" ''Peck sobs. She rips out her bell earring and throws it in my direction. It hits my forehead.

For the second time in my life, I give pause.

"I can't," Peck cries. "I can't stop. I can't make them stop. I want them to let me go." She grips her collar, her pawpads digging into it. It doesn't budge. The protruding phantom's eye wobbles and moves about.

I stand there (on all fours), daggers at my paws. I don't move. I can't.

For the second time in my life, I am paralyzed.

"I can help you," the cougar says, dropping its weapons.

"I can help you," I say. I dropped my weapons long ago. I dropped them as soon as I thought of that other time.

"Please help me," Peck whispers, trembling. Her bell earring fell into one of my pouches.

I extend a paw. Daggers at my paws, crystals, the earring.

Crystals at my paws.

Four whips lash out from the ground, wrap themselves around my neck, lift me up and throw me into the dirt.

"I gotcha gooooood!" Peck screams as she leaps up, four whips at her hands, a laughing scream, hatred in her blank, cloudy violet eye.

My own vision is blank.

My daggers. Goddammit, my daggers-- where?

I am flung into the air again. They're choking me. The whips are choking me and it's because I extended my heart, believed. Well, that's a good lesson on why I don't do that. I guess I needed the reminder.

"You can't hurt me," Peck shouts from the ground below. "Not after I tricked you! I knew it would work when I saw how you looked. You should have seen it! That was hilaaaaaaaaaaarious!"

The whips drop me again. I'm about to hit the ground hard when one grabs me at the last moment.

"...on second thought, maybe the phantoms will want you to join them." The whip smacks me into the ground and coils around my neck again. Peck hops towards me with my daggers and drops them oddly close by.

"OK, I'll just knock him out and contact the fortress and then..." Peck mutters to herself as she stares off into the distance. I decide not to move, since when I struggle and attempt to break the whips and their energy with my bare paws, they only tighten. Peck refocuses on me. I keep my gaze blank and distant, as if I am still startled. As if I haven't been betrayed by people that I've known for more than thirty minutes, as if this is so impactful. Well, I mean.. whatever. Anyway.

"Here's a lesson," Peck tells me with a very irritating grin. "Don't let your guard down. The only reason you lost is because you let your guard down!" The rabbit raises a paw and a glob of dark, almost black purple manifests and shapes into something like Peck's collar. She leans forward. "And now you're going to be.. what was it again... Speak... Spoct-or? No..." She frowns in thought and averts her eyes. "Spect.. spoke... Specter!" Her eye lights up. "Yeah. A Specter, that's what one of yours called it. Well, that's just life, I guess! I don't need crystals to see this, either. And you're too weak to run." The whips uncoil and disappear. I'm... in-de-pe~n-den-t'uh. Dent. Indepen-dent."

"You let your guard down too," I say quietly, gripping an arrow I had recovered from my cloak after she had recalled the whips. Peck freezes in surprise, looks around blindly (ha ha). "Wha-"

My arm lunges upwards, piercing through the eye of the collar.

"UHAAAAAAAAAAHhGghggjhgjhg!" Peck gurgles, stumbling backward. I had pushed the arrow through and past the collar, but only because I hadn't expected it to give way so easily. I stand up as Peck falls to the ground. The collar itself seems to writhe in agony and it coils into itself, one sphere around the arrow's shaft. The tiny sphere runs up the shaft and off of the arrow into the air, where to my surprise droplets of water fall from it and transform into clouds bearing strange images.

Memories.

''"The collar won't help you, but this will," an elderly monkey with a black collar rasps, pushing pieces of crystals into the hands of a young bunny. "Plant these in the ground. When they sprout, you must learn to control them."''

''"Mama!" A purple rabbit shrieks as phantoms drag its mother away. A monkey with a collar grips the rabbit's shoulder with one wrinkled hand, holding it back. "Watch," the monkey orders, dragging the rabbit towards the edge of a pit. "Watch. Now. Summon your crystals or I'll throw you in too."''

''"I don't want to wear that!" A tiny rabbit screams, struggling against the grip of two phantoms as a monkey jerks its head upwards and affixes a black, eyed collar around its neck. "Be quiet. This is the only way you'll be useful."''

"Help me!"

"Mama!"

A rabbit is pushing its mother into a pit of screaming, bloodthirsty beasts.

"You resisted."

"Killing suits me just fine."

"Mama!"

"I don't wanna wear that!"

"No!"

"The body most be fueled!"

"Hey, the Magicslayer's coming your way soon."

"Mama!"

"I gotcha goooooooood!"

"I'll kill whoever the damn body wants me to kill!"

"Never had a dad."

"I'll kill you!"

"What's the woooooooord.... uhhhhh."

"MAMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

"UAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA--"

I raise the dagger and slam it down into Peck's chest. The other thing, the sphere of phantom ugliness, dissolves.

The last cry was in the present.

''"Why?" ''Peck gurgles. I turn away.

"Why couldn't I amount... to anything..."

In the distance, I can make out Umberfade hurrying over the hills towards me. Probably watched me get beat up. I put my daggers away and head towards her.

"The body.... will prevail."

I can tune out nearly anything but I can't tune out Peck's last breath behind me.

''"Gloomwade!" ''Umberfade calls distantly. She doesn't seem too happy, which I would hope is her version of concern for me. That's nice. I knew she liked me. Time to put away these stupid thoughts before she can read them, though.

What a stupid battle.

..."battle," more like.

V . "What Makes Us Human?" En Route to Timberland
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