Six people were heading south, cautiously traversing the cursed city full of horrors.
A woman was walking in front of the party, she was a tall slender girl, with clear grey eyes and silver white hair that seemed to reflect the light, she was Nephis, the Changing Star. She was clad in a stark white plate armor that contrasted sharply against the grey tones of the ancient ruins they were in. A step behind her was Caster, a man with broad shoulders and dark skin that gave him a galant and manly image contrasting with his handsome face and green eyes. To her left was tall and powerful Effie, clad in the archaic bronze armor with a white chiton beneath.
A few steps away was Kai, the prettiest man alive, wearing elegant brown leather armor. On his back, there was a quiver full of arrows. Walking beside him was Cassie, an exquisitely beautiful woman who had delicate features, pale blond hair and stunning blue eyes that were hidden beneath a piece of cloth. She was wearing a light tunic and bright cloak and had a sheath with a graceful rapier attached to her belt.
At the very back, with an unhappy expression on his face was a pale young man that seemed to be unaccustomed to the sun, he had messy black hair and a ragged light armor made out of dark-grey fabric and black, lusterless leather.
Of course, that was Sunny.
Their journey to the edges of the Forgotten Shore had begun. But what they didn't know was that they'll never reach it and they'll find themselves in the oddest of places.
---
"Damnation"
They were currently hiding in a collapsed building near the collapsed tower. This area was populated by an especially vile tribe of monsters, and attracting their attention would spell trouble for the entire cohort.
The situation was not good, it was far from terrible, but still not good. Just some time ago Cassie told him they were being followed, and after using his shadow to search for what was following them Sunny finally found it, or rather, found him.
It was Harus, the murderous butcher of Gunlaug that was following them with those glassy, lifeless eyes. After some deliberation Effie said they needed to run, they could probably deal with him between the six of them, but Harus was a mystery, no one knew his aspect, just that everyone he went after ended up dead without even seeing him coming, no matter how many or how powerful they were.
After that Effie slightly changed their course until they arrived at the place they were currently in. Before going into the lighthouse Sunny called his shadow back to keep it close, there was no point in using it to track Harus.
Staying low to the ground, the six of them dashed from their hiding spot to the broken lighthouse. Without wasting any time, they found a breach in its wall and climbed inside.
Effie summoned her radiant memory, bathing the interior of the ruined tower in light. Since it was currently lying on its side, they found themselves in a massive echoing tunnel.
Effie looked around for a bit until she found her bearings to led them deeper and then began to speak.
"Listen to me very carefully and do as I say. Once we're inside, don't separate from the group. Stay together and keep your weapons at hand. The place we're going to is full of Nightmare Creatures. They're not too strong, but they're… special."
They prepared for the battle. Nephis summoned her silver longsword. Caster was wielding a sword too, however, his was a graceful jian that was currently emitting a ghastly green light. Effie had summoned her large round shield, and after thinking for a moment she decided to keep her ancient bronze spear strapped to her back, just in case. Kai looked rather gloomy, with a sigh he followed Effie's example and strapped his bow to his back, instead summoning an elegant falcata.
The last one to draw her weapon was Cassie. Unexpectedly, she unsheathed a slender rapier from the scabbard that was attached to her belt… and let go of it. To Sunny's surprise, the rapier did not fall to the ground, but rather stayed floating in the air, as if attached to the blind girl by an invisible string. Then it rotated slightly and hovered in front of her… with its tip pointing straight at Sunny.
"Uh… what?"
Cassie smiled and turned her head to him.
"Ah, please forgive Quiet Dancer. She is shy around strangers."
"Huh… alright."
---
It turns out that what Effie meant with "special" was undead, so now, defying all logic Sunny could see skeletons surrounding them, thousands of undying skeletons pursuing them that kept rising no matter what they did.
Effie, Nephis and Caster were at the front dealing with most of the attack, the first two were facing the brunt of the attack destroying anything that came close and then was Caster dealing the finishing blow if anything got past them.
However, even if the three powerhouses made it seem easy, Sunny knew it was anything but. A mistake was all it'll take for them to be buried in a sea of bones and die. At first Sunny, Cassie and Kai were relatively first but eventually the cohort was surrounded by skeletons and everyone had joined the fight.
Saint was using her sword and shield to deflect and destroy any enemy that came close and Sunny was glad that Effie made him summon her before going in. Quiet Dancer was zipping through the air supporting the Shadow and Kai was there if anything got past them. Finally Sunny was also in the fight putting into practice those hours spent sparring against Saint, proving he was not the same weak boy he had been seven months ago.
Things were becoming hectic. Sunny was putting himself to the limit fighting multiple opponents while having to keep the pace with the group at the same time, and he could see the others were not doing much better, Nephis's armor looked battered and torn and she had already summoned her flames, Effie's shield looked to be in the verge of falling apart. Caster for his part had a deep gash under one of his eyes and looked grim, even Kai was not much better, he was pale and visibly exhausted.
The only one who seemed to be doing anything close to fine was Cassie clad in her tier six-armor. Sunny strained his lungs and shouted:
"Hey! Effie! How far are we from the exit from this damned place?! When is this going to end?!"
The huntress briefly glanced back and grinned.
"What do you mean, "end "?!. This was just a warm up!"
A few moments later another wave of monsters were drowning the cohort attacking them from all sides, giving them no respite. Sunny was in his own state of flow, Changing Star dove into the sea of bones cutting through them like butter, Caster has turned into a whirlwind of green steel.
And then they were gone.
"Huh?"
"Guys, what happened, did we make it?" Cassie asked, she obviously couldn't see that all the skeletons just disappeared from one moment to the other, Sunny was pretty sure that wasn't meant to happen and that they did not reach the end of their way, but he still asked.
"Effie, do you know what happened?"
"No, I don't know we are still pretty far, we didn't even cross the bridge and that was not even the last hurdle"
Sunny would have called bullshit on that but he knew it was true, he could sense it in Effie's voice. While others were getting closer to each other to try and make sense of what happened Sunny took his time to look around the cave they were in, trying to make sense why he was feeling a sense of wrongness.
The cave was dark and quiet, but not completely silent. Sunny could see really well in the dark, but the darkness here was still oppressive. He could hear distant sounds, Nightmare Creatures most likely, but they did not move soundly as if they were also expecting to be attacked by the other dwellers of this cave. Sunny looked at the walls and then at the floor which had dust and debris that had been stirred by passing, and then he had it, the answer for the wrongness he was feeling.
"It's different." Sunny said.
"What was that Doofus, what is different?" Effie looked back at him from where the rest of the cohort was deliberating.
"Everything, the floor, the walls, even the noises, everything is different. I think we are in a completely different place from the ruins we were in just a moment ago."
"Are you sure about that? It doesn't make sense for us to be in a different place from one moment to the other." Nephis said giving him a look that showed that she did not doubt him but still asked to be completely sure.
"Yes, it does not make sense, but a sea of skeletons banishing from nowhere without us even realizing what happened also does not make sense."
Silence descended into the cohort after those words came out from Sunny's mouth and it made sense, after all, not knowing where they were and how it happened was probably even more dangerous than facing a horde of undying monsters.
Sunny looked at Nephis, noticing her sudden silence, she had her eyes closed in concentration, a moment later her brows furrowed as she opened her eyes and looked directly at him, Sunny noticed the slightest trace of panic in them.
It took him a second to realize what she was doing, or rather, trying to do. He followed her example, closing his eyes and then extending his hand as if trying to grasp something. Nothing happened. He reached for it again—more deliberately this time. The familiar, almost reflexive motion of thought.
No cold, distant presence. No whisper. No response.
His stomach tightened.
"Dammit."
"What happened, why are you looking like that, is something wrong?" Kai asked looking at Sunny and Nephis seeing them looking at each other.
"Besides us being in a completely unknown place without knowing how? Yes, there is something wrong, the Spell is gone" Sunny said.
They all went cold at his words.Then they tried themselves.
Effie went first. She blinked, frowned, then blinked again.
"…Huh."
Kai tilted his head, expression tightening slightly.
Cassie's hand trembled where it rested against the wall.
Caster's face went pale.
Then, after a few seconds, Nephis spoke giving voice to what everyone was thinking right now.
"…There is no response."
Not "it's not working."
Not "it's blocked."
Just—
"There is no response."
For a moment, no one spoke.
The implication settled over them like a weight.
Sunny let out a slow breath.
"…It's gone."
Effie let out a short, disbelieving laugh.
"Gone? Yeah, sure. The Spell just… disappears?"
"I've heard of situations like this, where people cannot summon memories nor use his aspect, runes or even enter their Soul Sea. But in those cases it's because they are chained or in a sort of enchanted prison, that's what it's used to detain awakened and prevent them from breaking out, but it never happens out of nowhere.." Caster said telling everyone what he knew due to his upbringing as a scion from a noble clan.
Suddenly Sunny had a thought. If his Memories and runes are gone…
He started looking around looking for something to calm his mind.
'No no no, it can't be. She was with us all the time and everyone is here, she can't just be gone'.
It was pointless no matter where he looked he couldn't see her.
Sunny slammed his fist into the cave wall.
CRACK.
Stone splintered under the fist, dust scattering across the damp floor.
Pain shot up his arm.
He didn't care.
"…Damn it." His trusted, powerful Shadow, the Stone Saint who has been with these last couple of days
The others didn't interrupt.
Then, after a moment, he pushed himself back.
"What happened?" Kai, his good friend asked after seeing Sunny kike that.
"My echo is gone" He said, with his head still resting on the wall
When he turned, his expression had hardened.
"…We move," he said.
"Okay" Nephis said before anyone could say something.
"Are you sure princess?" Effie asked.
"Yes, we should not delay any longer, we need to move and look for an exit, we can check our current situation while we move" Everyone nodded at that, they all have been through a lot, enough to know that just staying around in an unfamiliar environment would not do anything.
"Sunny, can you use your shadow to scout ahead of us?" Nephis asked.
"No, my shadow is still independent but it won't separate from me." Said Sunny after casting a cursory glance at his own shadow which was frantically moving his head left and right as if trying to make sense of their situation.
"Good,you'll be in the front then. Cassie, how are you doing?"
"I'm fine, Quiet Dancer is with me so it's not that bad" Cassie said after thinking for a moment.
"Then we move, we don't know where we are nor what kind of enemies there are around so we need to be on full alert. Effie, move back and take Sunny's place in guarding Kai and Cassie, you'll switch if needed" Everyone nodded at that and started moving.
Sunny started slowly at first trying to make sense of the cave they were in, after a while he saw his shadow trying to get his attention. He looked at it and saw it was pointing somewhere.
Sunny looked at the place the shadow seemed to be pointed and noticed the floor in that place was particularly full of dust and debris in some places compared to his immediate surroundings, and if whatever passed through there did not want to disturb that particular place. He told that to the rest to see if they had anything to add.
"Could it be traps? I read in some books and comics that there are some places that are full of traps that have things like spears suddenly coming out of the wall or false slabs that are like land mines and explode when you step on them" Kai said with a dubious tone after thinking a bit as if not sure if that was really it.
"That only happens in novels and webcomics, this is real, such things do not exist" Said Caster with a slightly mocking tone.
Sunny scoffed at the young lord.
"We are in a completely new place and with no connection to the Spell. This is not a normal situation, whatever knowledge we had of the Dream Realm might as well be useless here."
He looked back at Nephis.
"What do you think?"
"Throw something at it and we'll see if something happens, if not, we just avoid it" She said after an instant.
Sunny looked around and found a rock that looked big enough to be thrown easily and heavy enough to make a difference if the supposed trap worked in it. He took a few steps back along with the cohort and threw it.
BOOM!
The rock exploded as soon as it fell. The cohort went white after seeing the big rock blow into tiny pieces in front of them.
"Well, that was new, I guess we are lucky we didn't step into that" Effie said after a few seconds.
"We need to keep moving, we'll avoid every trap without even trying to activate it, if there are monsters here, the sound of the explosion may attract them." Sunny said after regaining his bearings and then kept on advancing.
They kept on walking for a while avoiding any trap they came across which was not that difficult thanks to his shadow and his special eyesight thanks to both Blood Weave and his attribute Child of Shadows, even if he wasn't quite sure it was still working since the Spell was apparently gone.
Then the monster came. At first Sunny just noticed something in the distance but was not quite sure if he had seen it well, but then they came closer and Sunny grew sure.
"I see something above us, Kai can you try shooting them? It doesn't matter if you hit them, I think they are just waiting for us to pass beneath them and drop on us."
Without needing to say more Kai sheathed his falcata as well as he was able to and took his bow from his back and knocked an arrow on it. After taking a breath to steady his aim, he shot.
"Brace!"
Then they came, they were flying things with sizes that varied from a human's head to twice that much. They had what seemed to be really sharp and long claws, they resembled those 'bats' he had seen in one of those books teacher Julius made him read at the academy.
Sunny swiftly fell back letting Effie take the front with her spear and shield and Nephis following her just a step behind.
The huntress bashed the first one aside with her shield with more effort than it would have usually taken her since she didn't have her aspect to give her the strength she was known for, at least not all of it, since she still seemed pretty strong to Sunny.
Nephis on her part used her long sword to deflect the first bat and then cut the next one in half. Caster swiftly went ahead to deal with the bat that got past Nephis while Sunny stayed back protecting Cassie and Kai, who was shooting arrows at the monster that were going at them in a straight line. Sunny noticed the bat that Effie bashed getting up and went to finish it, meanwhile he noticed that the bigger ones were not falling to a single arrow.
He sent a look to Nephis to communicate his thoughts so she could guide the rest, and she did.
"Be careful! These bats seem to have tough skin, Effie try to kill them with your spear as much as possible instead of using your shield, Kai, target the smaller ones, Caster, keep dealing with the ones that gets past us, Sunny, deal with the ones on the sides, Kai and Cassie can fend for themselves for a while, there are not much of them left."
They kept going after that and after dealing with a couple more of them they were done and relaxed for a bit without dropping their guards.
"Is that all of them?" Effie asked, clearly fighting for breath.
"It should be, but are we sure they are all dead, we don't have the spell to confirm their deaths here." Caster replied, eyeing the fallen monsters with distrust.
"That's true, we should grab all the corpses and maybe stab them again to make sure they are dead, Sunny, can you do that?" Nephis said after a moment.
Sunny nodded without saying a word and started working on that, while he heard Effie talking.
"Hey, do you think these things are edible? I'm starving after so much fighting."
"Do we even have fire to cook them?" Asked Kai with a tone that left it clear he was not too keen on eating the little monsters.
"I think I can cast a small flame to light a fire, we'll need to set up a campfire, it's the same as Sunny, my aspect is not working but a bit of it is still there. What about the rest of you?" Nephis told the rest, trying to put their knowledge of their current situation together.
"I feel a lot weaker but my strength did not disappear completely. Is that what you were thinking, princess"
"I can barely levitate, flying is impossible for me now."
"I haven't really tried to use my aspect but I believe it'll make me just slightly faster if I tried."
"What about you Cassie?" Nephis asked the blind girl who had stayed mostly silent ever since they appeared in this cave.
"My aspect is also gone, I don't have any of my revelations. But I get a sense of direction, like a pull that tells me how dangerous a path is or where we could go." Cassie asked in a voice that was almost a whisper, it seems losing her aspect has affected her the most.
"That's good enough, Sunny can scout ahead for us and you can tell us what each path tells you. We can eat the bats and stop to rest here, there's no point in continuing exploring while we are exhausted. We'll have to take turns keeping watch,maybe even with two of us at the same time."
"Well, that certainly seems like a plan, but we should eat first, the smell of the meat is making me more hungry." Effie said after Nephis summarized their situation and what they'll do next.
They had to peel off the skin of the bats since it was obviously too tough to eat, another alternative would have been to melt it with boiling water and make a soup out of it. Sadly, they did not have the Endless Spring anymore and they did not want to risk using the water from the ponds they had seen before, something about it gave both Sunny and Cassie a bad premonition.
Once they finished eating it was time to decide who'll take the first watch.
"I'll take the first watch, I mainly stayed at the back so I'm not as tired as the rest of you." Kai proposed, giving them a tired yet somehow still dashing smile.
They all nodded at him and went to lie on the floor. Sunny rested with his back on the wall and closed his eyes, overcome with exhaustion. The next day they had to make it out of this place, the food did not seem to be a problem since they could keep hunting monsters but the lack of water would get them killed sooner than later.
He closed his eyelids and steadied his breathing to go to sleep. His last thoughts echoing silently in his mind.
'I've been through a situation like this in that frozen mountain, if I survived that I'll sure as hell survive this time'
[Scout Class Obtained]
[Scout Level 3!]
[Skill - Dangersense obtained!]
[Skill - Keen Eyesight obtained]
[Shadow Dweller Class obtained]
[Shadow Dweller Level 1!]
[Skill - Shadow Control Obtained!]
A short pause followed that voice, and then…
[Condition: Clear Conscience obtained]
His eyes snapped open and he started looking around in alarm.
"What!?"