It was to be expected, but they had not been able to follow the group of Fleshsmiths through the first fog for long.
Nyxala had been following the echoes of their voices for near half an hour when they’d found themselves in a dead-end. She had still been able to hear them. The subtle reverberation of their voices continued for almost an hour after. But finding them again? That was apparently impossible within the fog.
Lysyra had tried more than once to spread her replicas out through the constant grey wall, but that was always an act of futility. Despite Nyxala only being attacked by the gloombeasts a couple times now, Lysyra’s copies were always, with great prejudice, cut down the moment they stepped into the fog.
Whatever the gloombeasts really were, they apparently abhorred Lysyra.
A deep, bellowing wail ripped through the fog. It cut the silence and forced Nyxala’s tendrils to curl back in reaction. The horn sounded one part artificial, and three parts whale call. A loud thrum that did not belong.
This was the fifth time the unnatural blare washed over them. The earlier hours they’d been stuck in here, the fog had been almost peaceful… if she ignored the gloombeasts lingering at the edge of her sight, or the few instances where they were attacked. But after a certain point — likely the arrival of the second fog — it became… agitated. There was no other word to describe it. The mist that coiled around her body tensed as soon as it arrived, and the calm, predatory nature of the air around her shifted to a sensation of being digested. As if the fog itself was a stomach intent on churning her up.
It wasn’t all bad, though. The irregular fog-horn blasts consistently came from the same direction. Considering the fog smothered her upper eyes as well as her normal ones, it was somewhat of a relief that they had some way to tell that they were headed in the right direction.
And the gloombeasts? While they were quick and struck whenever one least expected it, Nyxala was quicker.
The few times they’d tried to attack her — or the Lysyra replica that walked beside her — she’d been able to dodge easily enough. Too bad they never lingered for a fight. The huge tentacles or the misty wraiths, they should be dangerous enough on their own to be a danger — she’d glimpsed the staggering names of one — yet as soon as they were seen, they always disappeared. Always.
Nyxala wasn’t sure if she was glad to avoid the danger, or disappointed to lose the chance to improve herself.
“Lysyra, I’m curious. Can you send out another replica?”
The girl curled her lip and gave Nyxala a glare. “What? So I can be struck down again? It’s not exactly a pleasant experience losing a consciousness like that.”
“Humour me?” She had a hunch about the nature of the first fog.
Lysyra’s frown remained a moment longer before she sighed and did as asked.
“Oh, and leave it visible this time.”
A second Lysyra manifested before her. The duplicate didn’t pop into existence, as was the typical way they appeared. Rather, the second Lysyra stepped out of the body of the first. Usually the girl kept them all invisible, so the casualness of the girl seeming to split in half took Nyxala by surprise. They both stared at her, unimpressed.
“Alright, now slowly walk away.”
As Lysyra resolved herself for her fixed fate, Nyxala made sure she was as aware of her surroundings as she possibly could be. Her heart rate pushed what was healthy, and the eyes that still worked darted around their surroundings for the moment a gloombeast appeared.
“Stop,” she said when the replica was far enough all that could be seen was her silhouette. Only a few metres.
Nyxala kept the full weight of her attention on her surroundings, catching and following every little motion that flickered at the corner of her eyes. A full minute passed with the replica remaining intact. Considering the gloombeasts had crushed her invisible variants almost the instant they were created, it was significant.
Nyxala closed her eyes. She knew what was going to happen, but was still caught off-guard by just how quick the gloombeasts acted.
The Lysyra before her vanished in a plume of white, and only the vestigial remnants of a ghostly four-pronged beak indicated the appearance of a gloombeast at all. Her hand left Lysyra’s shoulder. The test wouldn’t have worked if she was watching herself as well.
“I think I get it,” Nyxala announced. “The fog has a set of rules it imposes on the gloombeasts. They can only attack if they’re not seen.”
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Lysyra was glaring again. “That’s why you had me get swatted again? I could have told you that. It’s common knowledge for any of the Bodytwisters that the safest way to traverse is to keep awareness on in all directions constantly. Best to have a small group, so long as you don’t get separated.” She frowned, sulking. “Not like that’s ever worked for me.”
“Ah.” Nobody had ever done her the benefit of telling her that during her stay within the Bodytwister Temple. “Then you’ve tried not leaving your replicas invisible?”
“Why would I ever do that?” she asked, as if it should be obvious. “The last thing I wanted was for the Bodytwisters to discover I’ve got thousands of myself everywhere, listening in on them.”
“Then I guess you never considered the fog has other rules,” Nyxala said. “Something like, say, only the gloombeasts may remain hidden? It would explain why the fog and the beings within it really don’t like you.”
Lysyra was about to dismiss her, but paused to consider. “Then why do they still attack me so much more viciously than normal when I don’t hide?” She gestured to her destroyed replica.
Nyxala shrugged. “I’m not saying these rules are rigid. Maybe the fog remembers how many times you tried to hide?”
The only reason Nyxala had settled on the idea of rules the fog had to follow in the first place was that comment Little God had made all that time ago. The fettered god. The supposed origin of the first fog. If the Bodytwisters truly had managed to bind a god under their temple, then it would be restricted by rules. Rules that would, in turn, be reflected by the fog.
She still felt the entire concept unbelievable. Who would believe the Bodytwisters capable of fully containing a god? Of keeping a god tied to Coral? Even the times Nyxala’s flesh called upon gods, they didn’t stay for long, and likely without their full power. For a god to be behind the fog, it meant the being had been fully manifested. And contained.
Gods didn’t tend to linger. The low relative corruption of Coral compared to wherever these gods came from was typically regarded as the reason they weren’t all thralls of these beings beyond imagination. They preferred somewhere like, say, the centre of the black hole. Well, it was that, or people believed that the cult leaders themselves fended off the gods.
Some were very devoted to their cults.
Though… if all gods had a personality like Euphoria’s, then Nyxala wouldn’t put it past them to limit their manifestations entirely for their own entertainment. Better to watch them squirm than end them for eternity.
But if the Bodytwisters had access to a god, could they wield its power freely? Did the first fog have an intended purpose, or was it an unrestrained consequence? But most pressing was the question of the second fog. If the first fog was indicative of a bound god, then what were the Cult of the Everseeing Eye hiding at the base of their Observatory?
The black fog was worse than the first. Unquestionably.
If two cults already held a god within their control, then it wasn’t unreasonable to assume others did too. It wasn’t even a leap to think that’s what the Fleshsmiths were attempting to accomplish with this ‘masterwork’ of theirs. Rituals that required a peripheral island called upon a god in some form or another.
What else was dangerous enough to risk casting off so many cultists?
The best course of action would be to put an end to the ritual before it ever started… but Nyxala knew getting onto the Island at all would be difficult enough. Not to mention destroying the bridge. Between the number of high creeds congregating, and the protections on the bridge itself, the only opportunity she would have to get anything done would be when the cultists were distracted by the ritual.
“We’re lost, aren’t we?” Lysyra asked after another hour of walking.
“Of course. I’ve been guessing since we lost the echo of the Fleshsmiths.”
Nyxala ignored the deep sigh besides her.
“Will you find a place to rest after the fog recedes?” Lysyra asked. “I think I’ll need to roll out on my mattress before we attempt to breach the deepest parts of Fleshsmith territory.”
Nyxala narrowed her eyes. For Lysyra to become this chatty while they were still in the thick of the fog, she must be bored. That was not a good sign.
“I think I’d rather just push through,” Nyxala said, her gaze suddenly alert. It had been a while since the last gloombeast attack. “A week or two without sleep shouldn’t be the worst.” She’d gone entire years without it, after all.
“Your gem eye?” Lysyra questioned.
They’d spent most of the night in silence, listening for the things that lingered in the mist. With every word that the other girl spoke, Nyxala became more tense. Something was going to attack any moment now; she just knew it.
“Yes,” she said.
Her eyes flickered from one indistinct silhouette to the next. Nyxala was so sure that a gloombeast was tensed and ready to pounce that she never considered another danger.
Like, say… falling off the side of Coral?
The ground disappeared beneath her next step, and suddenly she was falling. Nyxala yelped. Her wings snapped wide and she twisted, throwing both claws into the ground her feet just left.
Barely an instant passed after she scraped to a halt — not nearly enough to gather her bearings — when a shriek sounded from above. Nyxala reached her tail back. Lysyra thumped on her tail, forcing a breathless grunt from the girl as she curled around the appendage. Luckily, Nyxala’s spikes had settled so the girl didn’t get impaled.
With claws digging into metal, her tentacles reached back to stabilise Lysyra. Sure, it was only the girl’s replica, but this deep in Fleshsmith territory, it would be a challenge and a half for Lysyra to find her again.
Nyxala allowed herself a breath of relief before she began climbing. At first, she simply assumed they fell down a pit obscured by the fog, but the fog was finally clearing, and she realised it was anything besides a simple pit.
They really had fallen off the side of Coral.
There, right out across the eternal Darkness of the black hole was their target. The Fleshsmith Island. The cult’s architecture was unmistakable. Predominately steel fortifications interconnected by flesh. But it was the bridges that were the most distinct. Massive interlocking chains of flesh and steel that locked the kilometre wide mass from floating out into the waiting maws below.
Bridges. Plural. Seven of them. Not the singular that Nyxala had been expecting.
To the left, there was a similar floating mass, though entirely made of otherflesh. The Bodytwisters’ Island.
Well, it looked like they’d found their goal.