Somebody Stop Us: [Ch 13, 14]

Chapter 13: The Search for Thunder

The forest stirred around us as I finished the last edible bite of Spine Elk meat. My borrowed body, frail as it was, had accepted about as much sustenance as it could handle. A strange tingling sensation spread through my limbs—more than just the satisfaction of a meal.

"Stats," I murmured, curious about the effects of the monster meat.

The silvery text materialized before my eyes:

| Mana: 8/52 |

| XP: 12 |

"Well, look at that," I said, staring at the numbers with satisfaction. "Eating monster meat really does increase mana and XP."

"No shit," Cinder commented, picking at her teeth with a talon.

"Wow, you're snarky even as a Phoenix," I observed.

"What else would I be if not a Phoenix?" She asked, flicking away a bit of elk sinew.

"A Quetzalcoatl," I said. "I think."

Cinder tilted her head, the fading sunlight catching on her feathers. "A what now?"

"A feathered serpent," I explained. "Your real form. Rainbow wings, cute snout, sharp teeth, blue eyes... though the gold-violet is a nice touch for your Phoenix aesthetic."

She scoffed, but her eyes betrayed curiosity. She studied her talons, turning them over as if seeing them for the first time. "If I'm... what you say I am, why am I like this now?"

"Best guess? Reality assigns forms based on... essence? Soul affinity? You've always had a fiery personality."

"Uh-huh. And what are you supposed to be? Something less... scrawny?"

"I'm a human," I sighed. "Just a regular, garden-variety human with a complicated soul. Though I was definitely less bony in my original body."

"Cry me a river."

My stomach churned uncomfortably, rebelling against the rich monster meat. I doubled over, nearly dropping what remained of my meal.

"You ate too much, too fast," Cinder observed. "Your decaying duplicate flesh can't process it properly."

"Thanks for the warning," I groaned, setting aside the remaining meat. My throat felt parched, the mineral aftertaste of the elk begging to be washed away. I reached for Jyndar's duplicated water pouch and took a long swig—only to immediately spit it out. Unlike the elk meat, the water tasted stale, wrong.

"Ugff. Duplicated water apparently has a short shelf life," I muttered, gagging at the hollow, dull, wrong taste.

"All duplicated stuff has a shelf life," Cinder said. "It's just magic bound into shape."

"Aren't you magic bound into shape of a Phoenix?" I asked.

"Technically, yes," she admitted. "But a Celestorm pours a lifetime of magical power into an idea. You have very little magic propping you up into existence. As a Phoenix, I am practically immortal—as long as I devour magic, I cannot die. You, on the other hand, are incredibly finite, even more so if you keep drinking that duplicated fluid that already smells of death."

"Right," I said, lowering the pouch. No need for further reminders of my precarious existence.

Looking at my Phoenix duplicates, I had an idea. "Cinderiss," I called to the nearest copy. "Take this and fill it with fresh water from the river we saw earlier. Don't get killed."

The Phoenix copy took the pouch without hesitation, unfurling her magnificent wings and launching into the air. The sight was both beautiful and unsettling—all the power and grace of Cinder but none of her fierce spirit or facial expressions.

"Freaky," Cinder muttered, watching her duplicate soar away. "It's like looking into a watery reflection that doesn't quite reflect properly."

I watched Cinderiss fly towards the Citadel, then turned my attention to my slowly recovering mana reserves. It wasn't much, but it might be enough for what I needed.

"Scrutiosmia," I whispered, focusing my will through the word. I stepped towards Cinder and inhaled deep.

The spell activated with a rush of sensation. Suddenly, the world was awash in scents—not physical odors, but the magical emanations of everything around me. The residual energy of the Celestorm lingered like ozone after a thunderstorm. The fading life-force of the Spine Elk carcass smelled of copper and earth. And Cinder... Cinder blazed in my magical senses like a bonfire, a complex tapestry of scents—lavender and ozone, smoke and violet starlight.

But most importantly, I could smell the connection between us—a golden thread of scent that linked my soul to hers, a bond that transcended the physical forms we currently inhabited. I focused on that link, inhaled again with my nose, following it deeper, trying to find where it led beyond Cinder.

There—faint but unmistakable—a third connection, the edge of the triangle. The scent of it was electric, like the air before lightning strikes, with notes of something metallic and lemony.

Vespera. 

I turned slowly, following the invisible lines that pointed from Cinder and me toward... distance. Great distance. My senses strained to follow the trail, to gauge how far, but it stretched beyond the horizon, beyond mountains and valleys, beyond what my limited mana could track.

The spell faded, my meager eight mana points exhausted to zero. I blinked, the world returning to normal visual perception, but the knowledge of the direction, the sense of the trail leading to Vespera thankfully remained in my head.

"She's out there," I said, pointing. "Vespera. Far."

Cinder's eyes widened slightly. "You can smell souls?"

"One of my skills," I nodded. "Scrutiosmia. Got it from a shark girl. Long story."

"And this... Vespera... she's really out there?"

"Yes. Our triangle isn't complete yet, but the connection exists. We need to find her."

Cinderiss returned, landing with the now-filled water pouch. I drank deeply, the cool, fresh water a blessing after the stale duplicate version. My mana and XP ticked up the tiniest bit–I guessed that the river circling the Citadel was filled with magic too. With my thirst quenched, I turned to Cinder.

"We need to go find Vespera," I said. "Tonight."

Cinder's feathers ruffled with obvious reluctance. "Tonight? You want to fly for Abyss knows how long, through monster-infested wilderness?"

"The sooner we find her, the sooner we can complete the triangle," I insisted. "Once that happens, all our memories should return. Besides, my clock is ticking." I gestured to my frail body. "This vessel has less than a day left before it falls apart."

"And what then?" Cinder challenged. "Even if we find this third person, what's the point? I have a perfectly good life here, hunting duplicates at the Citadel. Abundant food, no competition..."

"A perfectly good life?" I echoed incredulously. "Cinder, you live in a cave drawing pictures of memories you don't understand! You're haunted by fragments of your real self!"

Her wings flared with defensive anger. "Maybe I like my cave! Maybe I like hunting! Have you considered that?"

"Do you? Really? Is that why you fill your walls with drawings of another life? Of people you claim not to know?"

She turned away, her back to me, wings folded tight against her body. "I'm not leaving the Citadel," she said firmly. "It's the most reliable food source for a thousand wing-flaps!"

I sighed, nodding to myself. "Then stay here, alone. Just know that if we do not complete the triangle in less than eight hours–our current bodies will lose our souls. Then this entire world will cease to exist as time stops in this place. It runs only because we are the only three full living souls in it now! As long as we observe this place, it functions!”

“What?” Cinder sputtered. “What nonsense are you trying to claw at me, human?”

“It’s what Vespera told us,” I shrugged. “She might be wrong, but I doubt it. She’s a very clever bird. Anyway, I leave the choice to you.”

I walked over to Cinderiss, who still stood motionless, awaiting instructions. "Cinderiss, pick me up, fly following the direction I point at. Cinderoll, follow us."

The Phoenix copy obediently scooped me up in her arms. Her touch was warm, her wings igniting with familiar flame.

"You're seriously leaving?" Cinder asked, her voice a mixture of disbelief and annoyance. "With... those things? They’ll decay before you do, foolish zero!"

"I told you," I said as Cinderiss's wings spread wide, preparing for takeoff. "We have a triangle to complete. Stay and feast on shitty duplicates if that's what you want. I'm going to find Vespera before the clock runs out. Cinderiss, take off!"

Cinderiss launched into the air, the sudden acceleration forcing the breath from my lungs. Cinderoll followed, her wings a perfect mirror of her sister copy's movements. As we gained altitude, I looked back at Cinder, a diminishing figure standing beside the elk carcass.

For a moment, she just watched us, her expression unreadable from this height. Then, with a snarl that carried even over the wind, she ignited her wings and shot into the sky after us.

"Slow down!" she shouted, racing to catch up. "You can't just... leave!"

“Let her catch up,” I ordered. 

Cinderiss slowed obediently, allowing Cinder to pull alongside us. The real Phoenix's eyes blazed with irritation.

"What happened to 'stay here, alone'?" I asked innocently.

"Shut up," she growled. "I'm not doing this for you. I'm... simply slightly curious about this triangle nonsense. I cannot die, so wasting a day on this idiotic Quest of yours seems amusing."

"Sure," I nodded solemnly. "Pure curiosity. Nothing to do with the fact that you're remembering more by the minute."

"I said shut up," she repeated, but there was less bite in her tone now. "So, this is the way? You're sure?"

"As sure as my Scrutimancy tells me," I confirmed. 

Cinder sighed, flames trailing from her wings like comet tails against the gray-blue sky. "Then we'd better fly fast. Night brings out the worst of the Celestorm-born."

Together, we soared onward, chasing the fading thread of a connection that stretched across this broken world, searching for the third point of our mystic triangle—the missing piece that might restore us to ourselves before my borrowed body crumbled to dust.

The sky above seemed to watch our progress with cold indifference, while behind us, the broiling mass of the Celestorm continued its slow, inexorable assault on the last fortress of fading humanity—a spine-like tower of copies making copies of copies, fighting a battle they could never truly win because there were no human souls, no original mages left at the top floor. 

It was duplicates all the way down, I was certain of this now.

. . .

The day went on as we flew, the landscape below a surreal panorama of post-Celestorms aftermath. Massive crystalline formations jutted from the ground like alien monuments, glowing with an inner light that cast eerie shadows across the barren plains. Occasional pools of off-color something that wasn't quite water and wasn't quite magma bubbled and hissed, releasing plumes of vapor that twisted into strange shapes before dissolving.

"Blightland," Cinder explained as we soared above a particularly desolate stretch. "Nothing grows here anymore—just crystal and corruption."

I marveled at the twisted beauty of it all—a world reshaped by wild magic. In the distance, violet lightning flashed within the dark storms that never truly abated, merely moved from one region to another, leaving destruction in their wake.

"Do you know what created all this?" I asked. "These storms, this devastation... what started it?"

Cinder was silent for a long moment, her wings beating steadily as she considered. "The oldest duplicates I devoured were told tales of a time before the Celestorms," she finally said. "Great human cities across the land. Then something... broke in reality itself and Celestorms began devouring big cities. Then a worldwide Celestorm came that lasted for a long, long time. When it cleared, the world was... this. Pockets of humanity persisted in citadels fighting the manifested, hungry beasts… until there was only Duskfall left.”

We flew in silence for a time, each lost in our own thoughts.

Hours passed. My borrowed body began to ache from the sustained flight, even in Cinderiss's grasp. Fatigue weighed on me like a physical burden, and I checked my stats with growing concern.

"Stats," I murmured.

| Mana: 4.02/52 |

| XP: 12 |

I noticed that a new stat manifested below:

|Affliction: Duplicate decay. Body Integrity: 78% |

The last line was new and alarming. My duplicate form was deteriorating. The monster meat had replenished some mana, but done nothing to slow the inevitable decay of this hastily-copied copy.

"How much farther?" Cinder asked, noticing my grimace.

"I don't know," I admitted. "My sense only told me direction, not exact distance. And I'm... running out of time."

She studied me with those predatory eyes. "You look worse. Your skin is... flaking."

I glanced at my arms and saw she was right. The surface of my skin had developed a grayish cast, and small pieces were beginning to slough off like ash. My fingernails were cracked all over. The decay was accelerating.

"We need to land," Cinder decided abruptly. "There." She pointed to a rocky outcropping that rose from the blighted landscape like a broken tooth. "We rest, you eat more monster meat, we continue."

I wanted to argue, to insist we press on, but the truth was, I felt like I needed to stand on solid ground for a bit. We descended to the outcropping, which proved to be the remains of some ancient structure, its purpose long forgotten. Stone arches, half-crumbled, created natural alcoves that would shield us from the wind and any wandering predators.

I instructed Cinderiss to stay with me while Cinder and Cinderoll hunted for more food. I settled against a relatively smooth stone wall, watching my skin continue to slowly flake away with morbid fascination.

Cinder returned within about ten minutes, carrying what appeared to be a massive lizard with crystal growths along its spine—similar to the elk but smaller and more reptilian. Cinderoll trailed behind with another of the same species.

"Crystal Skinks," Cinder announced, dropping her prey at my feet. "Not as good as elk, but they'll do."

I thanked her, and the cooking and eating process repeated. The meat was indeed less palatable than the elk—stringy and bitter with an aftertaste like burnt metal—but I forced it down, desperate for any sustenance that might slow my body's decay.

"Stats," I checked after finishing as much as I could stomach.

| Mana: 15/52 |

| XP: 17 |

| Body Integrity: 76% |

A marginal mana growth, but not enough to be reassuring since my body was still decaying away.

"Better?" Cinder asked.

"Slightly," I sighed. "But this body won't last much longer. We need to find Vespera soon."

“And then?”

“And I don’t know what then!” I snapped. “Vespera didn’t account for how shit my body would be. I didn’t expect to get Isekai'd into an effing duplicate of a duplicate times seventy seven or whatever. Maybe there’s no way to save the current me. Maybe this doomed world will stop once I decay away forever and that’ll be that. Maybe there’s nothing we can do to keep this place running…”

Chapter 14: The Goddess of the Mountain

The wind grew bitter as we continued our flight, my body growing more frail with each passing hour. I could feel pieces of myself flaking away—not just my skin now, but fragments of flesh, fingernails and hair, dissolving into dust that scattered behind us like macabre confetti.

"You're literally falling apart," Cinder observed bluntly as we paused to rest on a rocky spire. "Your left ear is half gone."

I reached up to touch my ear, feeling the jagged, crumbling edge where part of it had simply disintegrated. "Great. I'm turning into Van Gogh, but without the artistic talent."

"Who?" Cinder asked.

"Nevermind." I sighed, checking my stats again.

| Mana: 17/52 | | XP: 17 | | Body Integrity: 53% |

The numbers were becoming truly alarming now. My duplicated body seemed doomed to decay.

"We need to keep moving," I insisted.

Cinder's bird-fox expression was hard to read, but she looked irate. "If this Vespera is as important as you claim, why wouldn't she be looking for us too?"

"Maybe she is," I said. "Or maybe she doesn't know how to look. Most likely she doesn't remember anything—like you didn't."

“Why do you remember this stuff better than us?”

“I have four human souls in me. This makes me the most immune to dimensional shifts out of our trio.”

“I see.”

The sun was beginning its slow descent toward the horizon. The landscape below had gradually shifted from blighted wasteland to rolling hills dotted with twisted, crystalline trees that caught the fading light and refracted it in dazzling patterns.

As dusk approached, something alarming happened. Cinderiss, who had been carrying me, suddenly jerked in mid-flight. A shower of ash sprayed from her wings as the feathers began to disintegrate.

"What's happening?" I gasped as we lurched downward.

"Your shitty copies are decaying, that's what." Cinder called, swooping closer.

I watched in panic as Cinderiss's form began to crumble mid-flight, pieces of her breaking away like charred paper caught in a breeze. Her vacant eyes remained expressionless even as half her face dissolved into ash.

"Cinder!" I shouted. "Catch me!"

The real Phoenix dove beneath us just as Cinderiss's arms gave way entirely. I plummeted for a heart-stopping moment before Cinder's strong arms closed around me, pulling me against her warm body.

"Got you," she grunted, adjusting to the sudden weight. "Cinderoll is going too."

I looked back to see my other Phoenix duplicate trailing a long plume of ash, her wings more skeletal framework than solid matter now. Within moments, she was gone entirely, nothing but a cloud of drifting particles caught in the wind.

"Your turn next, human," Cinder said grimly, looking down at the crumbling form in her arms.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I muttered, clinging to her as we continued our flight.

"Just being realistic," she replied with a shrug.

The sun vanished below the horizon, painting the sky in deepening shades of purple and indigo. Stars began to appear, cold and distant, indifferent to our desperate flight. My body continued its slow disintegration, pieces flaking away in Cinder's grasp.

"I need to hunt again," Cinder announced as full darkness descended. "Flying is effort and I’m hungry. You need more monster meat too."

We landed in a grove of mundane-ish looking trees. Cinder set me down with surprising gentleness against one of the larger trunks.

"Don't die while I'm gone," she ordered before launching herself into the darkness.

I leaned back against the tree, feeling its hard bark against my deteriorating spine. The night was alive with strange sounds—distant howls that didn't sound entirely animal, the crystalline chiming of something, and an odd, rhythmic, slightly uneven thrumming that seemed to emanate from the ground itself like a dying heartbeat.

Cinder returned with something that resembled a cross between a rabbit and a scorpion, its multiple legs still twitching. Without her duplicates to assist, she prepared and cooked the meat herself, her fire serving perfectly for the task.

"Eat," she commanded, holding out a charred haunch.

I forced down as much as I could stomach, each bite sending a surge of energy through my deteriorating frame, but I knew it was just delaying the inevitable. I was a candle burning from both ends.

"Stats," I checked after finishing.

| Mana: 32/52 | | XP: 28 | | Body Integrity: 47% |

“Split,” I growled, burning through thirty of my mana all at once.

Another gray Endull covered in cracks manifested in my right hand. I focused on the will of my entire soul armillary to transfer myself into the new copy. With a reality-wobbling snap it worked.

I summoned up my stats.

| Mana: 2/52 | | XP: 28 | | Body Integrity: 82% |

I relaxed. The self-duplication had worked, but I was still decaying, maybe a bit slower.

“Did you just copy yourself again?” Cinder asked.

“Yes,” I let out, letting go of my hollow copy. “Feel free to eat my old body.”

Cinder didn’t wait long. She obliterated the duplicate with a swing of her claws and inhaled the sparkling essence.

“Bleh,” she let out. “Tastes gross when it’s this close to expiry.”

“Shall we?” I asked.

“Yes.”

She picked me up and then took to the skies once more.

 The landscape below had changed dramatically—the rolling hills giving way to a vast blue expanse that stretched to the horizon.

"An ocean?" I asked.

"The Citadel maps tagged it as the Starsea," Cinder confirmed. "Named for how it reflects the night sky, even in daylight."

The water below did indeed have an unusual quality—dark blue, almost black, with swirls of lighter blue and silver that mimicked the patterns of violet stars and galaxies overhead. It was mesmerizing and slightly unsettling, especially when coupled with the occasional massive shape that moved beneath the surface, disturbing the starlike patterns.

"What lives down there?" I asked, not entirely sure I wanted the answer.

"Nothing you want to meet," Cinder replied grimly. "We should cross quickly and stay high in the air."

The sea seemed endless, stretching in all directions with no land in sight. My body continued its relentless decay, and I began to fear we'd miscalculated badly. What if Vespera was on the other side of this vast ocean? What if this doomed world was simply too large, and we were searching for a needle in a cosmic haystack? I spent my two mana to check the direction. Vespera was still far.

. . .

Just as despair threatened to overwhelm me, a dark line appeared on the horizon—land at last. As we drew closer, I could make out a mountainous island, its slopes covered in dense forests of bamboo and strange, twisted pines.

"Use your smell magic again," Cinder suggested. "See if we're still on the right track."

I nodded, gathering my remaining mana. "Scrutiosmia," I murmured, inhaling deeply and burning through the meager few mana my body regained over the passing hours.

The world once again transformed into a tapestry of magical scents. The Starsea below reeked of ancient power and slumbering leviathans. The island ahead was a complex bouquet of forest spirits, magical creatures, and something else—a vast concentration of power that smelled of electricity and metal, of thunder and lemons.

Vespera. She was here. Close.

I pointed toward the heart of the island, where a particularly tall mountain rose above the others, its peak wreathed in mist. "There. She's there."

We soared over dense forests, following the invisible thread of connection. As we approached the mountain, a small settlement came into view—a fishing village nestled between forest and shore. The structures were simple and rough, mostly made from mud and lopsided wooden beams and straw roofs. A few bent-over figures moved about, too distant to make out clearly.

Beyond the village, at the base of the mountain, stood a torii gate—a simple wooden structure supporting a horizontal crossbeam, with a small bell hanging from the center. It stood alone in a clearing, seemingly leading nowhere except the rock-strewn mountainside behind it.

"That's it," I said, feeling the pull toward the gate. "She's through there."

Cinder looked skeptical. "Through where? It's just a gate in front of rocks."

"Yes, yes, I know it sounds crazy, but the scent leads through that gate. We need to land. Take us down please."

Cinder circled lower, her wings stirring the tall grasses as she settled in the clearing before the gate. She set me down carefully, and I staggered, my decaying legs barely supporting my weight.

"Why not just fly over the mountain?" Cinder asked, eyeing the gate with suspicion.

"Because she's not over the mountain," I explained, my patience wearing thin. "She's through the gate. It's... it's not what it appears to be. This is either dimensional magic or an illusion of some sort."

As we approached the wooden structure, I noticed intricate carvings along its posts—foxes, lightning bolts, and strange runic symbols that seemed to shift when viewed from different angles. The bell hanging from the crossbeam was small but ornate, crafted from some silvery metal that caught the light in odd ways.

"Lo, travelers!" a voice called from behind us.

We turned to see an elderly, gray-scaled, hunched over fish-man approaching from the direction of the village. He wore simple clothes of undyed cloth, and carried a wood and stone spear over one shoulder. His face was deeply lined. He studied us with large, gray-white eyes.

"You seek the Mountain Gate," he observed, leaning on his spear.

"Yes," I confirmed. "We need to pass through."

The old fish-man's gaze lingered on my deteriorating form, then shifted to Cinder's predatory presence.

"We're looking for someone," I explained. "She's beyond the gate."

"Few return from beyond the gate," he warned. 

"What is behind the gate?"

"She who grants wishes," the old man said. "The goddess of the mountain."

"The goddess?" Cinder repeated, voice laced with skepticism.

"Yes," the fish-man elaborated. "Guardian of the sacred Tirashiss mountain, keeper of wisdom and trickery." He pointed to the bell. "Ring once if you wish for entry. But be warned—she demands a price for her audience."

I approached the bell, my cracked hand reaching for the small rope that hung from it.

"How do we know this isn't just superstitious nonsense?" Cinder muttered behind me.

"It doesn't matter if it is," I replied, grasping the rope. "This is where we need to be."

“Fine.” She crossed her arms, tapping her taloned foot impatiently.

The bell rang out with a surprisingly deep, resonant sound that seemed to hang in the air longer than natural acoustics should allow. The tone vibrated through my disintegrating bones making me wince.

Nothing happened for several long moments. The gate stood as before, the rubble-strewn mountainside clearly visible through its frame.

Then, in about a minute like mist dispersing, the view through the gate began to change. The rocky slope faded, replaced by a stone path that wound upward into a deep, dark bamboo forest. Standing in the gateway, a figure materialized—a woman with fox-like features: pointed ears protruding from silver-black hair, a white-furred face with delicate vulpine characteristics, and two bushy tails swaying behind her—one long and full, the other shorter.

Her eyes were the most striking feature—silver-blue with flecks of gold, like lightning caught in an ocean storm. She wore a silver-blue kimono embroidered with patterns of flowers.

"What do you wish for, mortals?" she asked, her voice melodic but carrying an undercurrent of power.

“I’m not a mortal,” Cinder said. 

The kitsune girl raised an eyebrow. “That is yet to be determined.”

“Rude,” Cinder huffed.

"I'm looking for Vespera Simmi," I said. "I believe she's here, on your mountain."

The kitsune tilted her head, studying me with those unnerving eyes. "There is no one by that name here," she said finally.

"Then I wish to see the goddess of the mountain," I persisted.

Her lips curved in what might have been amusement. "The goddess does not grant audience to any who ask. What payment do you offer for such a privilege?"

I looked down at my deteriorating body, then back to the kitsune. "I have nothing material to offer."

"Then your life will suffice," she said simply, as if suggesting I offer a copper coin. “Surrender your soul to me.”

Cinder suddenly stepped forward, wings flaring protectively. "His soul isn't on the table," she growled.

I placed a restraining hand on Cinder's arm. "I agree," I told the kitsune, "My soul is a gift for the goddess herself if she is who I think she is, not for her messenger."

The kitsune's eyes narrowed, then she threw back her head and laughed—a sound like silver bells. "Clever mortal! And what do you offer… Phoenix girl?”

“Ummm…” Cinder pursed her lips. “I offer... not murdering you.”

“If you kill me, you shall not pass through the cursed forest beyond,” the kitsune shook her head. “Your offer is rejected.”

Cinder sent an irate glare at the fox-girl.

“Offer a song,” I said.

“What?”

“A song,” I repeated. “You’re an incredible singer. I’m sure the local goddess will appreciate your singing.”

“Ugh, fine. I offer… a song of the Phoenix to the mountain goddess or whatever,” Cinder grumbled.

“Very well,” the Kitsune nodded. “Follow me along the path, and perhaps the goddess will deign to receive your... gifts." She stepped aside, gesturing toward the stone steps that disappeared into the misty bamboo forest.

As we passed through the gate, the world seemed to shift around us. The air became thicker, more charged with magical energy. The bamboo forest loomed on either side of the path, dense and watchful.

"Do not stray from the path," the kitsune instructed as started to walk in front of us. "Do not look back. And most importantly—do not listen to the voices that call to you. The mountain spirits are tricksters and devourers of the unwary."

We began our ascent, the stone steps worn smooth by countless feet over what must have been centuries. 

Almost immediately, the voices began.

"Martin..." They whispered from the bamboo groves in the voices of Cinder and Vespera. "My Alexander... Champion... My kobold..."

I kept my eyes fixed forward, trying to ignore the susurration that seemed to come from all directions.

"Your body fails you," a voice crooned from just behind my ear. "Stay with us. We can give you a new one. Perfect. Eternal. You'll be happy. So happy."

"Ignore them," the kitsune guide warned sharply, seeing my head begin to turn. "Do not look at them."

Beside me, Cinder was having her own struggle. Her wings twitched and flared as voices called to her, promising power, freedom, endless prey.

"Phoenix Queen... Rainbow Serpent... Cassiopeia... Stay with us, sing with us... Your voice could command armies... We have enough magic for you to feast for a thousand winters... free to hunt."

The whispers grew more insistent as we climbed higher, taking on the voices of people I knew—Io, Mags, Katherine, even my mother. They made promises, offered memories and happiness.

Just when it seemed unbearable, when every fiber of my being wanted to turn toward those seductive voices, the path opened onto another, much fancier gate. The kitsune girl went through it and we arrived at a plateau surrounded by more trees. As I stepped out of the gate, the whispering ceased abruptly, cut off as if by a knife.

Before us stood a lavish structure—a temple complex of stone, paper and wood, its architecture elegant and harmonious with the mountain landscape. Stone fox statues guarded the entrance, their eyes seemingly following our movements.

A group of twenty kitsune women emerged from the temple, each identical to our guide—the same silver-blue eyes, the same delicate vulpine features. Only the number of tails on them varied. They surrounded us, their identical faces betraying neither hostility nor welcome.

"You bring strangers to the sacred mountain, sister?" one asked our guide.

"They seek audience with our lady," the guide replied. "They offer soul and song payment."

The group murmured among themselves, then parted to form a pathway toward the temple entrance.

"You cannot approach the goddess while bearing the stench of the lower perishing world," another kitsune with seven tails announced. "You must be purified."

Before we could protest, we were separated. Kitsune attendants guided me to one building, while others led Cinder to another. Inside, a large wooden tub filled with steaming, fragrant water awaited. The kitsune efficiently stripped my deteriorating form of its armor and helped me into the bath.

The water burned at first, searing my decaying flesh, but then a wonderful numbness spread through my limbs. I watched as flakes of dead skin and bone sloughed away, dissolving in the misty water. Whatever remained seemed to harden, felt less wrong.

"The waters of the sacred mountain spring temporarily halt entropy," one of the kitsune explained as she scrubbed my back with a rough cloth. "Your body decay is slowed while you remain here. When you see our Lady, bow deep and do not show disrespect or you will lose your head."

After the bath, they dressed me in a simple but finely woven kimono of silver-gray, embroidered with subtle flowery patterns that seemed to shift when I wasn't looking directly at them.

When I emerged, Cinder waited outside, similarly attired in a silver-gray kimono. Her dark feathers gleamed, the bath having restored their luster. She looked distinctly uncomfortable in clothing, dark feathers fluttering up and down.

"This is ridiculous," she muttered as we were led toward the central temple building. "They washed me, implying that I'm dirty! I do not get dirty! I burn all dirt off!"

"Just roll with it," I whispered back. "We're close."

The main temple hall was a vast space, supported by ornately carved red wooden columns with gold foil squares plastered all over them. Paper lanterns cast a warm, golden glow over everything, and the air was heavy with incense. At the far end, upon a raised stone dais, sat a figure surrounded by cascading silken curtains.

As we approached, the curtains parted, revealing another kitsune woman—identical to all the others, with one crucial difference. Nine magnificent silver-white bushy tails fanned out behind her like a peacock's display, each glowing with a faint blue light and flickering with transparent echoes when they moved.

She came down and sat on the stone stairs, admiring us.

Her presence was overwhelming, a pressure in the air like the moment before lightning strikes. Sparks danced around her head, leaping from tail to tail forming an electrofractal spherical halo behind her. She stared at us with the same unsettling, glowing silver-blue eyes as her sisters, her expression impassive.

"What do you wish for, mortal?" the nine-tailed kitsune demanded.

I bowed low, as the attendants had instructed during my bath, before meeting those electrifying eyes directly.

"I've come for you," I said simply.

"For me?" She smirked. "Really now? A hollow, dying man wishes to posses me?"

"Yes," I said. "I believe you are my destiny. I’ve come to offer you my… soul.”