Fauna's heart lurched as the light from her staff flared to life, illuminating a tableau she thought she had consigned to distant, painful memory. Before her stood two tall, wiry Hopla figures whose ears drooped in exactly the way she remembered from her childhood. The shapes of their faces were unmistakable, though time and torment had ruined them with sickly pallor and twisted skin.

The creatures' hands rose slowly, contorted claws that once might have been gentle fingers running through Fauna's fur when she was very small. A wave of cold passed through her, and for a moment the swirling darkness in the corridor expanded, threatening to envelop her completely. The gruesome laboratory around her—littered with the bodies of other victims and the stench of foul, necromantic magic—seemed to pull back, leaving her in a ring of trembling light. Those creatures took a step forward, stiff and stuttering, their lips parting to form the words she dreaded to hear.

"Fauna," the mutants crooned in a voice painfully close to that of her long-deceased mother. "It's so good to see you again. We... love you, child."

Within her chest, Fauna felt her heart hammer. Instinct told her to run, to shrink away from this horror. Yet the sorrow that she had carried for so many years threatened to break open like a festering wound. She recalled the smell of baked pastries on sunlit mornings, the feel of her mother's warm arms around her back. She remembered her father's proud grin when she first demonstrated her magical sparks. But these memories were a sword twisting in her gut now, for these wretched figures were no longer the gentle souls she had lost. They were mockeries—mutations conjured by dark magic or twisted illusions, revived from death only to torment her. Still, a flicker of doubt wormed through her. Could it be that Lamphrey's surmise about illusions and "echoes" was incomplete? Could a piece of her parents truly linger here, seeking to reassure her in a place so filled with despair?

One of the Hopla reached out to her.

"My darling," it rasped, broken voice splitting the air like a blade of sorrow. "We have waited for you." Its elongated, cracked nails almost brushed Fauna's cheek. She felt hot tears prick the corners of her eyes, clashing violently with the pounding in her skull that insisted on caution. The reek of rot was strong; every labored breath from these monstrous figures carried the stench of decay. The gloom around them stretched and shrank, as though consumed by an unseen heartbeat pumping raw darkness through the chamber. Fauna's knees trembled. She could feel the trembling in her own arms as well; her staff shook in her paw, threatening to slip from her grasp.

"Fauna," the second figure moaned, a paternal rumble that dredged up recollections of safety and home. "Don't be afraid. We are—"

"Stop," Fauna hissed, voice trembling. She tried to call out for Lamphrey, but her voice cracked and would not ring across the corridor. She sensed Lamphrey was present somewhere in this suffocating gloom, possibly watching. But the Tialax's presence was elusive. Fauna's breath came in short, ragged bursts. Her survival instinct told her to strike first—blast these apparitions away with the same conviction she had used moments before. But the waver in her heart made her hesitate. The illusions, if illusions they were, felt too present. She could hear the rasping breath in each malignant exhalation. And when she stared into their pale eyes, she caught faint glints of recognition, as if, for just a second, a spark of her real parents shone through.

Yet beneath that veneer was the sure knowledge that her father had died with blood on his lips, fighting to protect their warren, and her mother had perished soon after, consumed by the same brutality that had taken so many Hopla lives. They could not be here. Their bones lay in an unmarked grave far from this vile fortress. And the magic that pulsed within these rotting shells felt rotten to its core, steeped in the same malevolent aura that laced the cages all around. The bodies pinned to the walls, with jaws agape in endless silent screams, served as proof that whatever sorcery existed here was meant to break minds and hearts.

"Come," the mother-figure whispered. "We can finally—"

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"I've faced illusions before," Fauna snarled. Her grip on the staff tightened; she forced her knees to lock so she would not collapse. The swirling gloom in the corridor seemed to thicken, pressed in by the partial radiance of Fauna's staff. "I'm not stupid. You think I don't know my parents are dead? You think I'm so weak that I'd believe your vile trick?" She let out a bitter laugh, a strange sound that trembled with grief and fury in equal measure. The father-figure paused, head tilting as if confused, while the mother-figure still reached out with quivering arms. Something brushed against Fauna's fur—a phantom touch of a loving paw. In that instant, she shut her eyes, biting back sobs. She mustn't falter.

For a breathless heartbeat, Fauna's sorrow almost overwhelmed her. Tears threatened to blind her. A thousand memories bubbled up, almost suffocating in their intensity: her parents bending down to kiss her brow, bandaging a scraped knee, telling her stories of wild, dangerous worlds so she'd dream of adventure. But those recollections were weapons she must now wield. They fueled her anger toward those who dared corrupt the memory of her loved ones. These walking cadavers were nothing but cunning manipulations, soulless puppets crafted to torment or break her resolve.

When she next spoke, her words were iron. "I won't let your rotten bodies get in my way."

With a forceful flourish, she slammed the base of her staff onto the stone floor. A surge of energy crackled along the black metal, making the runes etched into its surface glow with ferocious power. The staff's tip erupted in blazing light—white-hot, swirling with arcs of molten gold and shimmering green. Fauna's ears pinned back as she channeled the raw magic, pouring her pain and rage into it. Instantly, the illusions—if illusions they were—screeched, their mouths stretching unnaturally wide as brilliant magic scoured their flesh. The stench of something vile burning assaulted Fauna's nose. She grimaced yet stood firm.

Her mother's voice echoed one last time. "We... love... you," it rasped, melting into a spectral hiss. Then the shapes began to dissolve under the onslaught, skin and fur sloughing away in ribbons of sickly black. For one terrible moment, Fauna thought she saw tears in her father's eyes. But it was too late to waver. She forced more energy into the blast until the unholy caricatures were reduced to lifeless husks crumpling onto the slick stones. The darkness receded at once, replaced by the harsh glare of Fauna's crackling staff-light. Her arms burned with exertion; sweat matted the fur on her brow. She swallowed hard, torn between heartbreak and relief.

In the aftermath, a dreadful hush settled. Fauna willed the staff's energy to ebb. The laboratory's ceiling arches and walls, all etched with symbols of dreadful experimentations, now reemerged under the calmer glow of her magelight. She stared at the shriveled remains of what had once pretended to be her parents, no more than curled lumps of blackened flesh. She drew a shaky breath.

Behind her, Lamphrey's voice finally spoke, calm, almost clinical. "You did well, Fauna."

A snarl rose in Fauna's throat. She whirled, eyes wet with residual tears she refused to let fall. Lamphrey stood leaning against a cracked table, arms folded across her chest, the slightest hint of admiration in her gaze. "You did well?" Fauna repeated, a half-laugh escaping her muzzle. "That's all you have to say?" She wiped her eyes roughly, banishing any hint of weakness. "Why didn't you help me? You saw me hesitate. You knew how painful this would be. And you just stood there and watched!"

Lamphrey's horns cast flickering shadows in the renewed light, giving her an almost demonic silhouette. She shrugged. "This was your burden to bear," she replied, voice as casual as if she were discussing the weather. "I wanted to see if you were strong enough to do what must be done."

Fauna's jaw clenched so hard that her teeth hurt. She swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth, fighting back the instinct to lash out again.

"If I struck at the images of your family," Lamphrey said, tone measured but sharp. "Are you telling me you would not be more enraged than you are now?"

Fauna bristled, and turned away

"I'm not here to prove myself to anyone," she said. "Especially not to you."

"Well noted."

With that, Fauna stormed past the Tialax mage, staff still crackling with residual energy. The corridor beyond beckoned with darkness, and the swirling sense of dread had not entirely left. Yet Fauna pressed on, ready to tear through the rest of this place.

Lamphrey lingered for a moment, allowing a small, crooked smirk to curl at the edges of her lips.

Once you were a conflux of raging emotions, and now you are focused. Present. Hardly ever does a spell fail you anymore, Fauna the Wildglance. Battle has made you strong, in mind and in body. Perhaps war will make you stronger still.

She watched as Fauna disappeared into the corridor, and only then did she straighten, quietly following at a measured distance.

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