>>5239146You never thought silence could overwhelm the chaos of battle, but as with many things in the Crucible, you’ve been proven wrong. The next series of floors prove a trivial—if noisy—affair, where constructs go wild and tear both friend and foe asunder. Neither you nor Ozmas bothered much with proxy combat, so the Amalgams you find there are little threat. Without a thought uttered between the two of you, you ascend through one trial after another. In the next, Ozmas struggles as her own Phantasmal powers flare out of control, bodies rising from the earth as the floor drains her of biomass to fuel an unceasing horde that serves as a distraction to the main threat—an amalgam unlike any you’ve encountered before, draining you of emotion to turn it back on you a hundred-fold. You’re almost crushed under the weight of your own guilt, your own overwhelming cowardice, and Ozmas, well…
…her pain-wracked sobs still echo in your mind, the way she shrugged off your comforting hand still haunting you with every floor you ascend.
You press on, the next trial seeing you beset upon be a horde of stinging constructs. A mere annoyance, if any attempt to strike out didn’t see your own powers, your own bodies turned against you with agonizing effect. Your arm shatters when you bring the Contender to bear, Ozmas’ throat torn out when she uses her Lexicon, words intended to bolster your defenses only serving to render your chitin jelly-like, barely keeping you together. You accept the ever-growing pain, the din of buzzing wings and the hundreds, thousands of needles that pierce your carapace over and over until you finally escape that infested hell, trading it for yet another.
It’s a race against the clock as your health and biomass is siphoned into a relentless, immortal construct. Spawned of your mind and body, your powers that trigger at the beginning of combat don’t seem to register this thing as a threat or valid target, so while it slowly bleeds you and Ozmas dry, you run. You run, as it takes a hideous, mocking form of you and she entwined in a heartbound embrace, its whispers of sweet nothings growing louder the longer it takes you to frantically hunt for an exit. It’s screaming of love and loss when you both find the rift, escape can’t come fast enough as you lunge towards the tear, the feeling of
your hands on metal, gently shaping the light, delicate crown into something worth of her. You couldn’t have asked for a better day. The suns are shining, but the air has that cool, crisp edge that slips into your joints and makes you come alive as you work.
{How’s it coming along?}
You turn, and just like the first moment you met, she takes your breath away. She’s standing in the doorway of your workshop, resplendent and stunning. Just behind her, you can see that it’s a beautiful, quiet day in the city. There’s not a cloud in the sky. Not a person in the street. No one. Nothing.
You scowl.
[Where is
