Hours had passed, and help still hadn't arrived. That… really couldn't be good, all things considered.

Still, the celestial tried to remain hopeful. In the months since Storyteller had left her behind in Jellis, Cadence had come to learn quite a bit about the enigmatic man that had been her mentor, and she suspected quite a bit more than she had been able to confirm. While she had always been aware of his power, at Novice level, it was hard to grasp just what that meant. It had been the reactions of seasoned, high level battle-gifted like Adeline, Elway, and Tobias that had begun to show Cadence just how far apart the man stood from those around him.

Storyteller, under any of his personas, was no simple adventurer, that much was clear. He was a force all his own, a one man army, respected by even the most stubborn men and talented gifted. She was also increasingly certain that he had been taking a hand in far more than seemed possible.

The winding roads that Cadence, Olivia, Tenebres, and Allana had walked seemed like they had joined together by happenstance, but Cadence just couldn't shake the idea that Storyteller had a hand in the formation of their little cadre.

Allana and Tenebres had been directed to Culles by an unknown adventurer named Sebastian Freehold. While Adeline didn't recognize the name, Cadence suspected it to be another one of Storyteller's assumed identities. The timeline made sense too–based on what the pair from Emeston had told her, their master had died around the same general time Hugo's caravan had been attacked.

And if Storyteller had taken steps to send both pairs of neophyte adventurers in the same direction, what else could he have done? Amongst the chaos of Cadence's first day in Kellister, Cadence recalled the adventurer claiming to Alyssia that he had directed Adeline to Elliven, and Cadence now knew that her presence had started Oli on the road to becoming an adventurer as well. Similarly, the silver knight's arrival to save them from Hellesa had been due to orders from the leader of the Argent Order. Could Storyteller have been behind those orders as well?

All of that had begun, over the months, to shake Cadence's faith in the man who had trained her, given her the gift of the echo, and pointed her towards the life she now led. She had always known him to be distant, but to imagine that the man was capable of manipulating people with such stunning subtlety, to arrange adventurers like pieces on a chessboard… it was disturbing, so much so that Cadence hadn't shared her theories with any of her friends, not even with Adeline.

But what had once been so disturbing was now reassuring. Storyteller wasn't just powerful and knowledgeable, he was careful, his movements small but always rippling into something bigger.

Maybe he hadn't arrived to help Cadence yet–but maybe he had, in some way she wasn't even aware of yet. She couldn't expect the man to just come kicking in the door to slay the hag himself–for whatever reason, that wasn't his way. She could only assume that he had already taken a more subtle hand in events.

That being the case, she needed to start working on saving herself, and just hope that Storyteller had taken care of the things she couldn't handle. Cadence had already prepared an escape route, she just needed to wait for the right moment–

The young adventurer suddenly stiffened as a pulse of foul, malignant energy swept through her.

Twice before, Cadence had experienced the magic of the Chained World in its most concentrated form. The first time had been before she even understood what she was sensing, before she had received a single gift, when she had gone to the barrens outside Felisen. She had immediately noticed something wrong about the place, something that had set her teeth on edge and made her nervous without any clear explanation.

She had a better understanding of what had happened the second time, when she had experienced the same sensation in the Cairn Glade outside Kellister. There, she had learned that what she felt was, in fact, the oppressive magic of the Chained World leaking into the Realm through what Storyteller had called "a thin space," allowing gnolls to enter the world in large numbers. That time, she had a new tool to resist the pervasive dread of the dark world's magic, and now she needed to use that same trick again.

[Soul Surge] activated

Will attribute boosted

Immediately, the disturbing sensation of the otherworldly magic seemed to push back from her, her soul better able to resist its fell influence. It was unfortunate that she had to burn a use of her most precious ability so early on, but being deluged by the foul energies of another world made both thinking and fighting much more difficult than they had to be. At least with Apprentice level, Soul Surge wasn't as draining as it had once been.

[Soul Surge] - Active, Buff - Increase one attribute by five points. Lesser duration, lesser stamina and focus cost incurred when buff expires.

She recalled that, a few hours earlier, the hag had mentioned a ritual that would reach its peak just past dawn. That boded… poorly. This was only the first pulse of the Chained World's magic, and it was still a mere shadow of what she had felt in the Cairn Glade and the barrens. The ritual must've just begun to truly start its work, somehow thinning the boundaries between the Realm and the Chained World. And if this was just the start of the ritual's power, what would its peak look like?

This was what Storyteller had been wandering the heartlands looking for, Cadence realized. Somehow, this coven was able to weaken the barriers that separate the Realm from the dark worlds, allowing the hags to bring through large forces of minions to wage battle on the ensconced sanctuaries of the Realm.

Storyteller had been able to fix the thin places–but Cadence didn't even know for sure if he had come to Valley Hearth or not. In the note he had left her, he hadn't guaranteed that he himself would come to help her, only that he would ensure help came in some form.

That was it, then. She couldn't guarantee that Storyteller would be there to spoil the ritual, or that he even knew about it. That meant that Cadence had to do what she could to counter the hags.

It was time to get to work.

First, Cadence reached for the gift she had reflected from the young hunter that had checked on her a few hours before, for the ability that made her escape possible.

[Gift of Fire] reflected

[Ignite] - Briefly manifest a sphere of flame above your hand. These flames will not burn you. Minor quintessence cost can be increased to lesser to allow the flame to last for a minor duration. (Converted to a lesser and moderate stamina and focus cost, respectively.)

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The small ball of flame went to work as Cadence hoped, quickly burning through the rope binding her wrists–at which point she learned that, while the flame she had manifested wouldn't, itself, hurt her, any fires it caused didn't carry the same effect.

"Fuck!" she hissed, yanking her hands apart and jumping up, startled by the sudden burn around each of her wrists. She had at least reacted quickly enough that she was left with little more than a ring of red around each wrist, but still. It hurt!

"I really need to practice with this sort of gift more," Cadence muttered to herself. Even as she did, she approached the solid stone door of the cell, listening. While the door itself was too thick for much noise to pass through, it had been attached to the surrounding wall inexpertly, leaving plenty of gaps for Cadence to hear anything on the other side.

Thankfully, she didn't hear any hag, just a curse from a hunter who had apparently heard her pained cry.

"Oi!" he shouted through the door. Cadence recognized the voice of the young hunter she had used Gift Reflection on earlier, and rather than responding, she eased to one side of the door, next to its hinges.

The hunter responded like the whole thing was scripted–she heard him move the locking bar, and the door slid open. Then, once he realized that he couldn't see Cadence, the boy all but ran into the room, leaving his back exposed.

Not that she could take much advantage of it. She was still unarmed and she knew that the boy's gift of fire, like all elemental gifts, provided a defensive ability against attacks using the same element. Her pilfered fire ability would be of little use against the hunter, while she had already proven with her own foolishness that she lacked any such immunity.

So instead, she simply slipped out the door while he was distracted, closing and barring it again behind her, leaving him just as trapped as she had been.

Your mind is a weapon keener than any mere blade and more potent than any gift. Those had been Storyteller's words in his farewell letter, months before. She was forced to admit the man may have actually had a point.

The hunter tried to call through the door, but his attempted cries were muffled at best.

"I'd stay quiet," she suggested through the door jam. "I don't know how pleased your mistress would be with you getting yourself trapped."

Cadence turned from the door and found herself in a room barely any larger than her earthen cell, though this one was actually furnished with a large wooden table. Half-a-dozen simple chairs were arranged around it, along with one massive seat of gnarled wood that Cadence could only think of as a throne. She could picture the hag sitting there, surrounded by the traitorous guards and other proxies, like Fest, that she had cultivated in the valley.

A quick search didn't reveal any of Cadence's stolen gear, which was unfortunate. She did at least turn up a functional weapon, a battered old longsword. It was longer and heavier than she normally preferred, but Storyteller had ensured that Cadence spent time training with all of the most common weapons of the Realm, and swords were widely favored. The worn leather grip fit comfortably enough in Cadence's hand, and while the blade was heavy, she felt confident in her ability to wield it without a strength Surge. Maybe not enough to fight a real swordsperson, like Olivia, but enough to hold her own.

Even better, Cadence found the perfect thing to swing the fight in her favor hanging on the walls to either side: a pair of oil lanterns.

On the far side of the room, opposite the stone door of the cell, a rough wooden ladder led through the earthen ceiling. From above, Cadence could hear the unsettling, sonorous drone of some sort of ritualistic chant, as much sung as spoken–though the rasping voice of the hag and whoever else was performing the ritual with her made the sounds more grating than soothing.

Cadence paused a moment, listening carefully, trying to get an idea of what she would be climbing into. She could make out three voices, the hags and two others, both high-pitched and oddly guttural. She didn't hear anyone else, though–no uncomfortable shifting or mutters or anything else that would imply guards overseeing the ritual. Unsurprising, really. Regardless of whatever deal Garol had struck with the rot hag, she wouldn't trust the traitorous battle-gifted at her back during such a crucial ritual.

Cadence blew out a breath and prepared for what was to come. From her experiments, she knew that she could manage about three Soul Surges at once before the after effects really sunk their teeth into her. She could stay functioning after three lesser costs, but a fourth would cripple her. Of course, Ignite complicated that, tapping into the same resources as the Surges.

"I really need a quintessence pool," Cadence muttered, taking only a moment to complain. Her will Surge from earlier continued to tick away, and she knew she couldn't afford to waste any more time. With brisk movements, she tucked her stolen sword onto her belt on her left, hooked an extinguished oil lantern on the other, and started to climb.

At the top of the ladder, Cadence paused, peering carefully into the room overhead. As she had hoped, there were only three enemies in the room, and all of them were too fully ensconced in their ritual to notice Cadence slipping in. If they had heard anything, they probably assumed it to just be the hunter they had left to guard her downstairs.

Rather than the circle she had seen gifted mages use for ritual magic, the three outsiders sat at points of a flowing design, three intricate tails spiraling out from a central point. Design aside, it left the three casters sitting essentially in a triangle. Opposite Cadence, facing the ladder but with her eyes closed, was the rot hag herself. Unlike Hellesa, who had been withered as a weeks old corpse, the rot hag was unnaturally bloated. Rather than carrying her weight like a human, the fat seemed to form ugly pustules and oversized bulges underneath her warted green skin, giving her an uneven, lopsided appearance.

Rough dark cloaks covered the two shapes closer to Cadence, but now that she was closer to them, she could make out what they were. Though she hadn't seen them before, Cadence had heard that gnolls were led by witches endowed with a shadow of true hag magic, and it appeared the rot hag had two of those bestial witches anchoring the far points of the ritual.

That was good, at least. Even if Cadence hadn't fought gnoll witches before, they weren't supposed to be any more resilient than any other gnoll, and she knew firsthand how easy it was to kill gnolls when she had the drop on them.

Alright then, Cadence told herself. They could turn around any time. I need to move before I lose the surprise.

Cadence closed her eyes and blew out a breath, stilling her jangling nerves. Below, she heard the trapped hunter's cries restart, muffled enough that the outsiders couldn't hear him over their chanting, but that could change at any moment–all it would take was a pause in the chant.

A rare few times, Cadence had accessed another part of her, a side of her personality she had begun to think of as distinct, just like Storyteller's disparate selves. The presence of the gnolls only reminded her that much more of the first time she had felt her rage crystallize into something jagged and brilliant, in the woods outside Kellister. She had felt a similar pulse of righteous fury later, when the bandits attacked Hugo's caravan, and again in the abandoned cult compound. When Cadence had put her life on the line to save her friends from Hellesa, she had given that piece of her a title that was as much a name as anything else.

For the first time, Cadence consciously reached for that part of herself. These outsiders were committing an act so foul Cadence couldn't even fully understand it. They were using the life magic of Keystone to fuel a thinning of the world, opening a gap for the forces of the Chained World to spill through. They had cultivated traitors, spread a plague, and apparently dosed countless people with fetter in an effort to summon an army of outsiders capable of razing the heartlands.

The Seeker opened their eyes. They couldn't–they wouldn't–let this continue.

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