A lump of dark flesh pulsates like a heart, its flowing black fluid spilling into the well, mixed with rain with neither weight nor wetness.
Vertin: That lump of flesh is Arcana?
Doctor Dores: The threads ... They were drawn away somewhere deep below me. This—this isn't right.
She reaches to steady the spindle, only for golden wounds to bloom across her fingertips.
Doctor Dores: And the Wheel ... I can't seem to stop it.
Doctor Dores: Vertin, you must leave.
Animus: Spare me the theatrics.
Animus swings her longbow. Black, viscous liquid twists into bonds that pin them both in place.
Animus: The ritual has begun. The Mother will return! Such a moment is not to be disturbed!
Vertin: ...!
Step by step, Animus approaches. Through the chanting, she plucks a white bone from the water.
Animus: These bones are relics of a sacred age—primal, elegant, powerful, just like the era to which they belong.
Animus: They are but a fraction of the creatures from a time erased from history, from the Blank Era.
Animus: The moment is nigh. From the embryo, the Great Mother shall rise once more to restore what was lost!
Animus: And break the shackles that were forced upon us eons ago!
Doctor Dores: A Blank Era? Restore what was lost? No. Time should move forwards, not backwards!
Animus: It seems your blindness is not just of the eyes, but of the mind. Still, I shall forgive your blasphemies. You were the one to start the ritual, after all.
Animus: In fact, your contribution should be commemorated with a title. "The Unseeing Saint," perhaps? It is rather fitting, don't you think?
Doctor Dores: No, I ...
Doctor Dores: I must stop the Spinning Wheel.
Dores's hand shakes with pain as she reaches out once more, desperate to stop the turning.
Doctor Dores: Please! Stop!
Animus: Not while I still draw breath!
Animus's longbow strikes the ground with a resounding crash, sending a quake through the entire sanctuary. Responding to her command, threads coil out and around Dores's body, pulling taut around her weakened frame.
Doctor Dores: Ugh!
The ritual's glow intensifies, while her face grows paler still. As the golden light fades, she collapses into the swirling mist.
Animus: sigh of relief Heh ... For a moment, I thought you might've succeeded as you did in 1999.
Animus: But it seems your prime has passed.
Animus: The Mother of Resurrection will soon grace us with THEIR presence. Your fate is inevitable.
With a swing of the longbow, Animus encases Dores in black mucus, dragging both her and the Spinning Wheel down into darkness.
Vertin: Dr. Dores!
Animus: Oh, there's no need for haste, girl. The Mother shall welcome you both into THEIR embrace.
Animus: It is a great honor to become one with THEM. You ought to be grateful.
Animus turns to her weeping believers, still chanting hymns as the rising liquid engulfs them.
A liquid devoid of weight or wetness.
Vertin: ...
Behind them, an arcane item about to activate is violently struck down.
Animus: Well, that was amusing. But that's quite enough folly for one day.
Animus: You think too highly of yourself, just like that bullheaded fool who threw herself to the gate.
Animus: But she realized her error, paid the price in her blood, and thus has been forgiven.
Animus: If it is redemption you seek, then you must first make an offering of yourselves. The Mother, in THEIR great mercy, shall alleviate you of your suffering.
Vertin: Nonsense. Nautika didn't enter the gate to gain forgiveness. She died for her beliefs.
Animus: My, how ignorant of me. Do send her my apologies. After all, you'll be seeing her very soon.
The ropes tighten in a sharp heave.
Animus: Surrender unto THEM your flesh and blood, and pave the path to the Mother's return!
Through her obscured vision, the viscous hands from beyond the gate surge through the endless tube, grasping out over the mountain's heart with terrifying speed.
Vertin: ...!
Suffocation strikes instantly.
Woooo—wooooo—
The distant howl of wind escapes the sanctuary's gaping maw.
Animus: Enter into the Mother's embrace, and THEY shall reward you with THEIR great might!
Vertin: coughing
Vision tinged with red.
Vertin: coughing
...
It's a warm place, like a mother's embrace.
???: Open your eyes, that the dream may go on.
???: Relax, Vertin. The best is yet to come!
???: Wait till we take a breath of the real air, till we stuffed ourselves with delicious food, and till we get back to our country.
???: There's so much more for us to be shivering at, but in excitement!
Vertin: That voice ... It's ...
She moves toward the source of the sound, straining to hear.
Vertin: "The Ring"? Is that you?
Student I: Let's open it together.
Student II: Three, two, one—
Isabella: May the freedom be with us!
Vertin: Isabella, "Penny" ... Are they all here?
Student I: Let's goooo!
Isabella: Vertin! Come outside!
Vertin: Wait!
Schneider: Let's hear everyone's wishes. How about that?
Vertin: Schneider?
Schneider: My lord, you're actually lying here defenseless. Heh Heh.
Schneider: We have been with you for a long time. No reward? No way.
A soft, raspy voice drifts away like a feather.
Marta: I find myself uncertain of which way to go. Would you kindly give me some guidance?
Vertin: Ms. Marta? No, but ...
Six: The guidance I can offer you is limited, Ms. Marta.
Six: I think fate knows its own fate better than anyone.
Marta: Thank you for your advice.
Marta: I think I understand.
Vertin: No, don't go!
Vertin: Why?
Vertin: Why must I endure this time and time again?
???: For what was lost need not remain so.
???: Step forward. Return to us. Our arms are open. Come into the warmth of our embrace.
Vertin: ...
Her feet carry her toward the sound, then stop.
Vertin: No. This isn't right.
Vertin: This is the way I came.
Vertin: There are so many things to be done, so many questions to be answered.
Vertin: My calling lies elsewhere.
She turns. Faint murmurs beckon from another direction.
???: Ver ...
And so she strides forward.
???: Vertin ...
???: Vertin!
Vertin: ...!
Vertin: Where am I?
The dreamlike haze evaporates into an endless darkness.
The walls pulse like living tissue; each step slides over bones slick with gore, submerged in a mix of blood and bile.
The space throbs, each throe spewing another wave of nauseating stench into the abyss.
Vertin: Am I inside the gate?
Vertin: Are these the offerings? Ugh!
???: Be careful. One wrong move, and you'll end up like them.
Then, a child's voice, shrunk and rasped with tears, pierces through. The only faint glow in the dark.
???: That's the only reality in this place.
Vertin: Who's speaking?
???: I wish I could tell you, but I don't know either. I can't seem to remember my name, or anything, really.
???: I've just been waiting here because I wasn't ready to join them.
???: You seem to still remember a few things. How did you get here?
Vertin: I was thrown to the gate as an offering.
Vertin: I have to get out of here. Do you know a way out?
???: A way out? I-I really have no idea.
???: Maybe I can help you find a way. But where do you want to go? Why do you want to go?
Vertin: I need to exit through the gate.
Vertin: I'm searching for an answer, and I won't find it here.
???: An "answer"?
???: Is that why you were thrown in here?
Vertin: You could say that.
???: And you're still looking for it? Even after everything that's happened to you?
Vertin: I'm not sure.
???: What if, what if the "answer" doesn't exist? What if you finish your journey and find out there's nothing out there?
Vertin: I've asked myself that question more times than I can remember.
Vertin: Sometimes, it feels like I'm doing all this in the pursuit of a mirage.
Vertin: But I've come to be at peace with that possibility.
???: Really? But what about all the time and energy you put into it?
???: How do you keep going, knowing that it all could be for nothing?
Vertin: But it isn't for nothing.
Memories flash before her eyes.
Those sacrifices, those struggles, those who gave meaning to her path.
Vertin: I carry everything, everyone, with me.
They were real.
Vertin: So, even if in the end, the path I walk leads me nowhere, I know that ...
???: "I will pursue the unknown, no matter where it takes me."
The light trembles, uttering these words in a soft yet resolute voice.
???: Ah, that's it.
???: That's the answer I was looking for.
The faint light flickers again, brighter this time.
???: I remember now. I used to have the same belief.
???: That's why I'm still here, why I wasn't gobbled up by this place.
???: Because I died content. I died knowing I had chased the answer with all I had.
The light—no, it should now be called a "mass of light." It pulses closer, radiating warmth.
???: Come, take my hand!
Vertin: Your hand?
???: Yes. Here, reach into my heart. There's something there, something I need you to find.
She reaches into its core, and a comforting softness settles in her palm.
Vertin: It feels like fabric?
???: No, not that. It's somewhere deeper.
???: Yes! There!
Uncurling her fingers, she reveals a pendant resting there, its tiny crystal reflecting light that shouldn't exist.
???: That's it. That's what I needed you to find.
???: My purpose.
A faint warmth seeps through the pendant, its surface etched with that familiar name.
"Amundsen."
Vertin: Nautika? Is that you?
???: Oh, that's it! "Nautika"! That's my name!
Nautika: Thank you, thank you, Vertin. I found it. I found my name!
Flesh begins regenerating from the glowing mass.
Then, invisible hands grasp her.
Nautika: "The path to home, held fast in night's tight grip. Unloosed by breath, a name spoke on the lip."
As she speaks each word, the surrounding scene again begins to warp and dissolve.
Nautika: The Mother Spirit may not be here, but in my dream, She came to me and showed me the way out.
Nautika: Come, Vertin. Come. Let's get out of here.
COMBAT
She clutches Nautika's hands. Even in hell, those slender fingers remain strong.
Her body is dissolving, her vision darkening, as if the world itself were rejecting her.
Yet even in annihilation, their hands stay locked together.
Nautika: Take my eyes, and I will walk blind. Take my feet, and I will crawl on my hands and knees. Take my body ...
Nautika: And I will grow another.
Nautika: Because nothing will keep me from my purpose. Nothing will keep me from finding the great gift!
Nautika: Oh ...
Nautika: Vertin, we did it!
And the world's rebirth stirs within the wind.
Vertin: Are we in the air?
Vertin: Nautika, look at you!
Black mucus extends out from her body, forming bones, while white fabric weaves itself into wings.
A drum seems to beat from afar. She stretches her wings wide, catching the wind beneath them.
Nautika: I ...
Nautika: Oh, I look just like the Mother Spirit when She came to me in the dream.
Chin lifted in pride, she shatters the boulders that line the sanctuary. She leaps, and the wind follows.
Then, she rides that wind upward, breaking free from the countless grasping hands.
Nautika: And—Vertin, look! I have wings! I can fly! I can take us home!
Vertin: Watch out!
Nautika: ...!
She flaps her wings, dodging the flying debris, and turns toward the source of danger.
Deep within the sanctuary, tremors pulse outward.
Nautika: Wh-What is that?
Vertin: Arcana.
Throbbing black flesh stretches over countless hands, fusing snugly with the stone walls. The entire sanctuary breathes like a living thing.
Vertin: If the gate is the mouth, and inside it is the stomach ...
The wind courses through and around, carrying soft whispers with it. Until, all at once, it dives into the flesh.
Vertin: Then, it seems the ruins themselves are alive.
Vertin: And Arcana is its very heart.
Vertin: I fear it's only a matter of time before she's fully resurrected.