[Fsh] Chapter 57: Resilience

Caledon Brimstone lost track of time as they pressed forwards through endless corridors of void. His breath had grown ragged, and his muscles burned from their continuous passage through corridor after corridor.

Despite the Insanity of this place, his thoughts lingered on his Fear, his paranoia preoccupying him.

It had continued to build, burning in his body, present at the peripheries of his consciousness whenever he tried to turn his thoughts away from it.

His Fear of corruption had remained suspiciously dormant.

Since ingesting Tranquillity, Caledon had seen how the withdrawals affected his friends. Vale’s Fear had increased her susceptibility to possession. Moving past the realm of mere hallucinations and delusions. Shiver had glimpsed her decoy created almost turn into a Fear-shade, even with Icey’s assistance in holding back the greater symptoms of her Fear.

The worse Caledon had been confronted with since ingesting Tranquillity had been petty deceptions. His Fear, twisting Shiver’s actions in the Gloamshores – where she had helped catch him when he leapt to grab her outstretched hand. Again, when he killed the thundermare, which had taken on his mother’s appearance. Even when it posed as his mother in Solastra’s “mansion of madness”.

Never again had his Fear risen to the level of hallucinations he first experienced when entering the Dreadwood. When it had manipulated him into almost decapitating Vale, and succeeded in separating them and stranding him in the shadow woods.

Perhaps its because of the nature of my Fear of corruption… I was resistant to the Tranquillity, does it also assist me with dealing with its symptoms?

Caledon’s nails bit into his palm, using the pain they brought to root him in reality. He thought desperately of how he could discern falsity from truth.

The dread built in Caledon’s gut, as his question went unanswered.

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Caledon blinked in surprise as the endless dark corridor that they pushed through gave way to what appeared to be a sweeping cavern.

A “bridge” twice the width of his arm span extended outwards, branching across an abyss of darkness that loomed below them. While the pathway could be described as a bridge, it was unadorned with any means of preventing those that strode over it from tumbling into the inky void far beneath them with a single misstep. 

All around him were similar “bridges” extending between the two towering parallel walls so high that they could have been mistaken for cliffs. However, neither possessed the irregularity and contours that marred natural cliff faces. They were cast from the same, pale grey monolithic stone that made up the temple.

The artificial “ravine” stretched outwards in both directions, as far as his eyes could see.

What… is this place?

Caledon struggle to divine the purpose of the temple from its construction. It was an endless maze of unending dark, pathways that seemed to curl in on themselves interminably. The aesthetic of the temple, simple and monolithic. Sporting wide areas of unembellished, white, grey or black surfaces.

The scale of the place, was unlike anything Caledon had ever glimpsed. While the temple in Anhedonia was larger on the inside than it was from the outside, the structure he walked in now made it feel small.

Insignificant and diminutive, a trivial insect walking its halls.

“Careful, one slip and you’ll fall into the depths. Let’s go.”

“Of course, lead the way.”

Caledon nodded at Rathos, his expression impassive.

His gaze alighted on Vale’s back, in front of him. The girl had been subdued throughout their trek, and for good reason.

Caledon’s thoughts were interrupted by the sight of the inky abyss beneath him.

Something reached for him from its depths.  

In the moments between his thundering heartbeats, ragged breathing and rushing of blood in his ears as blood was propelled through his veins at regular, heightened intervals…

Caledon heard whispers.

They hovered at the edge of his consciousness, seductive in what they offered him.

The temptation to focus on them, to parse the meaning of the words that they uttered to him, was overwhelming. Yet he could feel the stench of Insanity’s breach in each word that they uttered.

Caledon tore his gaze away from the inky abyss beneath him, entering the dark corridor that awaited him, seemingly a replica of the corridor that they had exited from.

Until it wasn’t.

Abruptly, the corridor they had entered, identical to the one they had just walked through, came to an end, emerging into a garden.

A bastion of life, in a place of life in unending monolithic stone.

A vast, sweeping cylindrical structure housed the garden, its ceiling disappearing into recesses so far above him, even his vision could not reach it. The walls of the room were bathed in stars, that distorted as it curved around the area. Their light lit the area brightly, and his feet were greeted with dark grass, soft with moisture.

A short distance away, atop a hill with a moderate incline, was a strange structure that sat at the very apex of the garden. Caledon had considered their destination a temple, due to the similarities with the one in which they awakened. However, the unending structure filled with corridors of void couldn’t be further than the descriptor he had afforded it.

This structure, resembled a more conventional temple, its design resembling Soalstra’s Mansion of Madness. It embodied the symmetrical design of the Highlady’s strange mansion, built from monolithic slabs of pale, grey stone.

The only thing that lay between his group and the temple, were bodies littering the grass.

Creatures both familiar, and alien to him. Caledon recognised frost wolves, shadow wolves, and blazebears. Even creatures he had not glimpsed in his time in the Dreadwood, stonescarabs from the forest of earthen spires and even golems lay shattered in the dark grass at his feet.

Then, he was greeted to the sounds of battle and death.

“Let’s go!”

Rathos’ assertive voice washed over them. Caledon surged forwards with the group, running breathlessly up the hill towards the structure in the distance.

Then, he clutched at the sides of his head as a creature’s roar shook the ground, his ears bleeding from wounds that had never fully healed.

It descended upon them.

The dragon dove on sweeping wings of deep maroon, so dark that they bordered on black. Streaks of bright orange energy pulsed brightly, spidering outwards beneath its translucent skin, revealed by the light of the stars surrounding them that permeated its translucent skin.

This dragon differed in almost every regard to his grandfather’s visage. Its body was a similar size to his grandfather’s body, but it was more sinuous and flexible. Talons stretched downwards from its claws like curving blades, utterly disproportionate in their length when assessed against the creature’s size.

The similarities with his grandfather ended in eyes that blazed with a mixture of dark red and gold, bearing within them an unfathomable fury. Caledon watched as black liquid leaked from the corners of its eyes, spraying outwards from its throat as it unleashed another scream.

The last thing Caledon glimpsed, was glowing energy beneath the dragon’s leathery skin brightening to a blinding degree. In an instant, the air around him filled with tiny orbs of light that reminded him of the Firelight Fields bordering the humble town of Eleric.

Then they flashed, and the creature immolated the ground around them.

Shadows curled over him protectively, forming a barrier that interposed itself between him and the flames. Still, Caledon felt his sweat surface at the intensity of the heat, and he gritted his teeth where was crouched, helpless as his feet crunched on the now dry grass.

Without Rathos, I would have been a goner.

Then the sphere of shadow dissipated, and his eyes widened.

A wolf wrought from shadow prowled before them, its gaze fixed on the dragon that flew past them, soaring in a slight curve and circling into the air above them. Beldrian, Rathos’ guide called out to them, as his protective orbs of shadow dissipated.

“Move, now.”

Caledon scrambled to his feet, and shot forwards towards the structure on the hill, on Rathos’ heels. He cast a quick glance towards his companions, and saw them trailing after him.

He burst into the structure, and realised that they were not alone.

Guides of all shapes and forms filled the space. Beldrian, the wolf of shadow, was accompanied by the dryad of roses that was Clona’s guide. Caledon glimpsed Cygni in the distance weaving beneath the circling dragon, attempting to impose its presence upon the creature to ground it.

Other unfamiliar creatures greeted him as well. He flinched as he glimpsed as a thundermare strode past him, surging from the protection of the structure onto the grass outside. Unlike those he had glimpsed in the Thundervale, this one had a black hide, and it summoned red lightning in its wake as it raced to meet the creature.

Throughout their time in Viridian, and even in the short time trawling through the temple, Caledon had wondered where Virgil and the Dreadwalkers’ guides were.

The answer delivered itself to him.

Beldrian regarded Rathos.

The wolf of shadow silently bore his fangs, making Caledon smirk despite the chaos around them.

It looks like I’m not the only one that has a rocky relationship with my gu-

Caledon’s eyes went wide as he watched firelight bloom within the temple. He lunged for Vale’s arm and missed, as he attempted to pull her behind one of the pale-grey temple walls.

Then dragon’s flames incinerated the temple’s interior. Flames gushed outwards, and he narrowly avoided getting seared by the outpouring of red-golden flames. He sighed in relief, when he noticed that Vale, Virgil and the Dreadwalkers somehow remained unharmed in the temple, likely having been protected by one of the guides within.

The dragon alighted on the ground ahead of him, and Caledon called his fear.

[Mirage of the anglerwhale]

He attempted to erase the presence of the approaching guides, and his group from the creature’s vision.

Then his Fearshaping shattered.

Bowing before an even greater corruption.

Black liquid poured from the wounds inflicted by the guides in its battle with them. It flowed like water from a fountain from its eyes, and Caledon recoiled as his attempt to impose his own corruption was subverted with ease.

He watched as the creature called its flame, which burned across its wounds, sealing and healing them.

Having drawn its ire, the creature locked its eyes with his, and Caledon’s attempts to erase himself from its awareness were rendered useless, as the deception struggled to take hold, now that he was within its active awareness.

Cygni desperately tried to subdue it with her gravitational field, but the dragon lunged towards Caledon, tearing through the space between them in a matter of seconds with a single sweep of its wide wings, the orange energy within surging once more.

Then, a mess of vines adorned with black thorns and roses emerged from the ground, scoring its leathery skin and drawing blood. Clona’s guide, the dryad, had its hand outstretched towards the creature. The dragon in its fit of rage tore free of the thorns, flying above the garden, heedless of the wounds its movements inflicted upon itself.

The thundermare called down a lightning storm upon the creature, as Beldrian advanced, sending blades of shadow sinking into its skin.

Caledon heaved a sigh of relief, and he cast a quick glance about for Vale, Virgil and the Dreadwalkers that had been within the temple when the creature had set it on fire. He frowned, when they were nowhere to be se-

“There you are! You’re safe, thank Avalkin.”

He heaved a heavy sigh of relief as Vale and her revenants’ burst outwards from around the corner. If she was unwounded, he was certain that Virgil and the Dreadwalkers were safe. Bladey began to send waves of blades towards the creature, that were loss within the haze of attacks levied against it by the guides.

Caledon watched as the golem called forth a towering pillar the circumference of his own body, that shot towards it like a spear of earth, then halted, as it fell short of where the dragon hovered.

Feardamnit, it’s out of rang-

Then he watched as a bladefrog leapt from the tip of the earthen spire. The grey bladegrass in the frog’s grip flashed, and Caledon watched open-mouthed as an entire section of the dragon’s right wing parted from its translucent leathery flesh and bone.

The dragon tumbled to the ground, and Caledon felt a surge of triumph at the sight of it, as the countless guides closed in to finish the fight.

Cygni, the moonbeast called down her presence with such force that Caledon’s own knees threatened to buckle, as far away as he was from it.

Spears of earth shot outwards in an arc some distance away from the dragon, and tilted with precision, hurtling towards the dragon, their force multiplied by Cygni’s abilities.

Blades of lightning and shadow alike enshrouded the dragon, even as long vines shrouded in black thorns tore into the creature’s skin, finding purchase, and ensuring that it was immobilised.

Caledon’s vision winked out.

The blinding light of the stars around him was replaced with the light of a sun.

Born from the body of the dragon itself.