The red outline of Lian, a construct that only the girl can see, has been overly active since she first felt a second ting of pain on the back of her head. Her crimson fingers would wave frantically in patterns that overlapped, pinched and swirled. All while its caricature of eyeballs stared, unblinkingly at the amnesiac redhead; wide circles that tried to torture Lian into doing a bidding. 

At some point, after being ignored by the girl for hours, the outline copied the telescope hand gesture and held it over Lian’s eyes, rotating in and “locking” in certain positions. What she saw was a vision like nothing she managed to use until then. Everything around her plopped from existence, leaving only thin, colored lines like the ones summoned by firgs when they used an ability. “Or the bridge stones”, thought the girl, who couldn’t help but be fascinated by what the outline was showing. Even if she knew that it wasn't a good idea to trust its “help.”

It then pressed a thin red finger on the colored, floating fabric and twisted it around. The vision then changed, and a shiny whirlpool of air and dust stood where the twisting was happening. Then the back of her neck pulsated again once her group took a left turn. Right, she was being carried by Ogda to Feth’s arena.

…

-” Looks like our hunch was right, Feth’s eyes don't seem to be everywhere inside the mist. C’mon-”, Perren tried to move his small group ahead, but found Brigit and Maci were distracted by a sad sight. They passed by tens of white-eyed, zombie-like caer sidians like the one in front of them, but this was the first one they could properly study.

Just like the Head librarian told them, every single citizen caught in the fog was a prisoner, kept safe, snug and cuffed by his power. A few were shambling around, moving at a snail pace, unaware though of objects that stood in their way. A few were getting stuck into walls, but the majority were left dead cold on the ground. 

Perren's shaky hand finger-snapped them just barely out of their stupor, enough to set back on a track. “ We’ll save them, ok?”, he reinforced it into their head, which was the push Brigit needed to regain some spark in her eyes. Maci, on the other hand, was rethinking her choices, as the boost from her bravado slowly dwindled down. After swallowing an entire frog of doubts, she steeled her feet and nodded back. “I’m, uh, good to go.”

-” Good. But I’ll also be honest, the road to the library might have some sights that a kid your age shouldn’t have to see. Do you understand?”, asked Perren.

Maci- “ Que? Que, que- I mean, what are you talki-”, but then Brigit gently brushed her head to calm the teen down. 

Brigit- “ Listen, when the fog hit, many were out, doing their daily…routines. Which, for us firg, could involve a lot of ways.” But the teen was still confused. “ For example, people might have gotten caught mid flight, Maci. Accidents could have happened, many types of serious, scary accidents. “

The example was simple and made sense, but somehow, Maci’s mind still refused to acknowledge what it meant; still, she didn’t have any reason to cause an argument, so she agreed to close her eyes when asked to. 

Perren- “ Good, because I’ll need you to do it right now.” Maci felt her breath slowing down and her eyes getting wider by the second. She closed them after getting on Brigit’s back; she felt every bump more intensely. After a while, she could hear a weird blop-like sound, and soon realized that Perren and Brigit were running through puddles. The wind that was beating her cheeks was also a messenger of a curious smell.

A battle of curiosity and fear started to wage inside her, with the latter winning ground by the second. “If I just take a peek, it wouldn’t be that much of a problem, right?” Which she did, only to find a little red drop shaking on her forearm. This led to her eyes catching sight of a red line underneath Brigit’s feet, traveling down the same inclined road as they did. 

-”Is that blood?” was the first thing her shaken mind brought up, after which she immediately closed her eyes. For a moment only, as curiosity pried them open. An impulse which Maci regretted the moment she found the source of the river. It came from their left, and the further ahead you went, you would find a banquet of crimson, branching liquid flowing. Then, as if it was a crimson sea, a large puddle stood between two colossal continents.

-”Are-are those toes?”, she guessed after catching the soles of a giant caught in the wreckage of a demolished building. Maci’s mind tried to obfuscate the truth with lies that maybe it was only caught in the fog spell, or maybe knocked out or -” but the amount of blood?”. After having a back and forth with her own thoughts, the teen decided to do as she was told. Eyes shut out and face hidden in Brigit’s green cape.

…..

The weird architecture that allowed for multiple types of firgs to coexist was now proving to also be an excellent ground for run and duck maneuvers. From a bent building easy to escalate you could then easily reach the climb to a set of equally high rooftops and then slide down through a set a round of windows.

Lian’s group, led by Masso and Arim used the two’s familiarity with the landscape to easily traverse the landscape, while the redhead was on spotting duty of Feth’s green spying jewels. “ All the streets look as if they are filled with bonfires in a snowy desert, but there’s a noticeable drop in temperature when the eyes pass through”, explained Lian in their impromptu briefing when they met underground.

-” Uh, what if he can see us through his victims or some other way?”, asked Brigit.

Masso -” Then we improvise”, advised the leader, an advice that now echoed in everyone’s thoughts when one of the shambling citizens started to screech in a high pitch tone when it bumped into Masso while taking a corner. A chain of screams then started to infect one captive to another, like an alarm set up by the Head librarian.

Masso- “ Everyone keep up, we’re making a run on the main street”, he yelled out, before getting cut off by a  glistening yellow chain that was digging into the pavement. The leader quickly recognized it and summoned a weapon in response. 

The chain stretched from an open window, but there wasn’t anyone on the other side. A moment later, another chain flew from a floor above, four windows to the right, which Masso managed to deflect. A third chain came flying from the left, two stories below, and this time Giol managed to catch it with his spear. But his attempts at dragging the owner fished only dead air, as the elusive fighter disappeared once again.

Arim- “ Masso, isn’t this a stalling tactic?”

Masso- “ Yeah, Krass is probably trying to buy time for Feth to get here. Coins, can you use your fire attack? But like, a big one?” Lucky for him, Scramble was ready for such a request and acted quickly to engulf part of the street into a giant wall of fire that distracted the Union’s priest enough time for them to make a run for it. 

Masso- “ Sorry pal, would have loved to add you into this mission”, he thought, thinking that they managed to get away.

Lian- “ Stop!”, cried the girl just in time for the group to avoid the meteoric slam of the Lord of Masks, Ecne, as he crashed right in front of them. Before anyone could even grasp their cornered situation, Arim and Ogda were already leaping into attacks aimed at the Tuatha.

Arim- “ Leader, you take care of Krass”, shouted the boy, as he, his armored partner and Ogda kept the dusk coated demigod on the defensive in close combat. 

Zinc tried to catch and analyze as much as he could from Ecne’s fight with Ashen and realized that, even though the Tuatha had close-range strikes, his skills in hand-to-hand combat were probably somewhat pedestrian. Mostly just wide, flashy swings and strikes. That didn’t mean that the three had the advantage though.

While Arim managed to get in a few well-placed kicks to his head and sides, all of them felt as if he was striking a pillar made out of diamonds. Luckily for them, Zinc was also made out of tough material and the two slowly chip at each other. The duo’s backup also held up some of Tuatha's attention, using his liquid body to his fullest to both deflect deadly strikes and parry in some whips that did cracks into Ecne’s mineral body. 

On the other side, Masso took Giol as his aid, while ordering the coins firgs to help out Arim. “ And you, little coral”, he then addressed Mincha -” be ready. You’ll deal the final blow.” The little coral’s heart beat in erratic manner, but she held herself steadfast and even managed to give him an “yes sir” nod. 

With that cleared out, Masso favored a pair of gauntlets with drills above his palms as his weapons of choice against Krass. Mostly out of nostalgia than any other reason. “ We’re to quickly knock him, got it?” he addressed Giol, who was already in a fighting stance. With an extra heap of help from Lian, the two could easily trace Krass’s location, and the bug warrior’s expansion ability managed to cut off his path by blocking them with his collection of large rocks.

Giol- “ 4 out 10”, he murmured, as if keeping count. “5”, when he used one to shield himself from an incoming chain. A light static yellow screeched out of them, and Giol found himself unable to move anymore. But he expected that, especially since the plan was for the bug warrior to be the decoy all along.

Masso used that opportunity to jump from window to window, until only he and a blanked out Krass were face to face. 

Masso- “ I guess there’s no other way after all”, he added, mostly to himself, after which he lunged fist first, ready to end it in a few strikes.

Down below, Temitayo and her guardians keep the pressure on their Tuatha employer, with the girl shouting constant apologies. “ We’re doing this for your own good, sir”, while blasts of fire and rock spikes hurled constant damage to the demigod. For a while it looked like the four had him on the ropes, but in a moment of weakness of the group, Ecne slotted in a mask that gave him the upper hand he needed. 

Temitayo, recognizing the mask, shuffled through her own collection to find a counter - “ Grushie, quick, change to spr-”, but before she could finish her call, the Lord of Masks was like a wisp, fading in and out of sight. A blink and he was standing in front of Grushie, forcefully dragging the mask off him. Next up, he did the same for Scramble, while at the same time parrying Ogda’s whips. Arim and Zinc ran as fast they could, but the vanishing trick added more and more distance between them and the target.

Ecne’s lighting attacks also kept the duo at a distance, giving him free reign to catch Temitayo by her backpack and forcefully snatched her pouch.

Temitayo- “ No! Give that back, those were collected by my iyaye, don’t touch them!” The girl kicked and screamed, with tears pouring while the Tuatha rapidly ate two or three masks, one after another. His blank eyes looked at the her distraught face and his destructive attempts slowed after each bite, until only two masks were left.

-” Fia…little historian?”, blurted out the Tuatha, gaining some sense of self. His vision was split between the illusion Feth’s fog kept him under, and bits of the world outside. “ I..I..no, I was back hom-”, he tried to remember, before feeling an unusual weight on his shoulders.

To everyone's surprise, Finley and Mincha stalked around the field, hiding in the background with the teen’s ability. Once they found the proper time, the coral firg put her vines to use and just like with Perren, she managed to wash away the fog inside of Ecne, while Finley splashed the Tuatha with some ash from the old dragon.

As if woken up from a nightmare, Ecne remembered everything. A copy of Feth attacking him on the ship, the lies of that put him in conflict with Ashen, the image of his king being surplanted by Feth. And to his horror, what he just did to Temitayo’s masks. “Oh no, fiar”, he whispered before turning his face to a terrified girl, who looked at him as if he was some kind of monster. “ I…I…wait, I didn’t want to do any of that”, was all he could say before a hiss covered all the other sounds. 

The mist from all the city started to drag and gather around their location, whirling in a giant vortex, focusing on their group specific. A pair of green emeralds were travelling around with, and a familiar voice started to bellow before them.

Feth- “ I’ve already managed to find a way to break down that ash”, was all that he said, before a wave of white foam washed over the entire group, covering them in a blinding mist. Seconds later, it all returned to the way it was, capturing back the borders of the Caer Sidi.

Masso, Giol, Temitayo, Ecne, Grushie, Scramble, Finley, Mincha, Arim and Zinc were all face down on the ground, with a halo of mist circling their heads. Only Lian and Ogda stood wide awake, while the wind blew away the surviving pieces of ash before getting broken down into nothing inside the mist. 

Feth- “ I win, girl. See you soon, in front of the gate”, was all that the head librarian said before departing back to his own machinations. Neither of the amnesiacs knew how to respond, and stood idly by, unsure of what to do.