Episode Thirty-Six: The End.

A few hundred feet away is an intersection, two paths leading opposite directions. It is veiled in gloom and shadow. Something darts past. Mary screams in fear and cowers behind Castor. Tobias places a hand on her shoulder and promises, “Don’t worry. I’ll go first.”

Castor casts a light spell. It works but the glow it gives is hardly comforting or illuminating. Ivetta tries her flashlight and the same problem occurs. They find they don’t cast shadows on the odd material surrounding them. Ivetta has a panic attack as quietly as she can, the memories of her mind labyrinth coming to the fore. Castor comforts both her and Mary even as her own legs feel like jelly.

“Let’s go the opposite direction.” Castor suggests pointing to the path that stretches behind them. She raises her hammer and moves forward, Tobias by her side, Ivetta and Ellen Mary behind. They reach the crux but don’t yet turn the corner. They hear the sounds of eating to the left, someone or something absolutely chomping down on their meal. Ivetta catches Castor’s shoulder and points backward, her face fearful. All the same, Castor leans ever so slightly out and peers around the corner.

A man crouches down where the floor meets the wall. He is stuffing his mouth with meat torn from a body laid out on the ground. He chews the flesh, ripping the sinewy tendons with his teeth. Several corpses line the wall all adorned in strange garb. He has his back turned to the group but it is very obvious what he is doing. Castor stifles a scream, clapping her hand over her mouth and pulling back.

With the precision he has come to be known for, Tobias fires a shot that strikes him down in one blow. The man screeches as he collapses to the ground. He is dressed in rags, a scraggly beard drips with blood half covering awful, chipped teeth. Tobias looks back to the group, “He’s dead but I don’t know if you want to see him.” Castor nods, a hand still over her mouth and leads Mary. Ivetta follows suit, her head turned and spear ready to strike to the right to make sure nothing was coming at them from the opposite direction.

There are several more bodies in the hall. Each of their faces are chewed down to the bone. Castor and Ivetta recognize the clothing of one wearing Native American garb, a club in his hand. Another has on a Roman toga, a gladius gripped tightly in his fingers even in death.

A scream echoes from behind them. A deranged, mad scream. They all startle at the sound.

“Castor, could you try to discern what you can from this realm?” Tobias asks, distracting them from the horrible noise. She nods shakily and grips Ivetta’s hand as she closes her eyes. She casts the spell and receives a single, disturbing, cryptic word:

“Welcome.”

They all feel a pang of terror wash over them as Castor whispers this to them. Tobias, Mary, and Ivetta have the fortitude to withstand the onslaught but poor Castor doesn’t have the will in the moment. Tears pour down her face and she sinks to her knees. Ivetta tries to hold her up with the hand holding hers but she fails, kneeling beside her. “Why did it welcome us here?”

Tobias says, “Welcomed us?” He ponders a moment, “It seems as if this place could just be a test. I don’t know that this place poses any real danger. If we can get out of here…”

Mary snaps back, “It poses a great danger, you saw those bodies, same as us.”

Ivetta rubs soothing circles on Castor’s back asking, “do you have any notion…any gut feeling about which way to go? If you have anything we should follow that.”

Through a waterfall of tears Castor manages, “...no. The realm said ‘welcome’ and that’s it. I don’t know what in God’s name is happening or where we are! Didn’t you see that—that sight up there?!? It's like nothing we’ve ever seen!”

Ivetta sighs and pulls out her father’s journal. The pages are still stained black, negative space outlining the terrifying corridor from before. She tries to write, Which way, dad…We’re lost! Where are we? The corridor appears to lengthen, getting longer and longer. She slams it shut, frustrated. She gathers Castor up and they shuffle on. As they move forward, Castor’s mental state deteriorates further.

She blinks and finds herself staring off in a direction. She hears things, noises far away, scuffling, muttering and murmuring. The others shake their heads when she asks if they hear them too. But finally Ivetta, Ellen Mary, and Tobias do hear a voice.

Around another corner someone mutters to themselves. They freeze. Ivetta holds Castor and Mary back. Tobias moves up, hugging the wall. He leans around the corner, his gun trained. His scabbard slightly scrapes the wall, but it's enough to make a noise.

An old man crouches, hunched over himself mutters the same phrase over and over in Latin. “Signa secutus sum. Signa secutus sum. Signa secutus sum.”

Tobias speaks, translating first to himself, “I followed the signs…” he addresses the man, “What signs?” The man does not acknowledge his words or movements. He doesn’t move.

Castor stumbles forward. She has the wherewithal to touch the wall and mark it with magic, to distinguish their path as she goes, assuring Ivetta she is alright. She feels drawn to this man. She kneels beside him and lays a hand on his shoulder.

In a flash she sees a man on a river in robes preaching. People dot the river and he dunks a few of their heads under as he speaks. Suddenly she returns with a gasp. “He’s… another chati.” Ivetta gasps aloud. “We… we can’t help him.” She looks down sadly and then gets to her feet and presses on.

The longer they stay here, the more tired they all feel. But the overwhelming feeling that they don’t want to remain here drives them onward. Castor draws a constant line with magic on the wall that seems to make everyone else feel better. Their iron wills start to crack as they press on however. Castor and Mary get more twitchy. Tobias and Ivetta are holding on but know they can’t help their friends until they find a way out of this place.

Another long corridor stretches before them. This hall has a few boxes strewn about and jutting out of the walls and ceiling. About halfway down the hall they see a body. They’re dressed in a brown robe. Tobias leads the pack and holds his firearm at the ready. Ivetta has her spear ready, “we need to keep moving.”

As they approach Tobias addresses the prone person, “are you still with us?”

He moves slightly and coughs, pleading, “Please, help me.” Ivetta and Castor perk up, they recognise the voice.

“James!” Castor cries. She runs up to him.

“...but… you both died…”

Ivetta is fearful, “what do you mean we died?!”

“Ivetta, please help him!”

“Can I help you? I have medicine.” Castor helps try and move him. But he is chained to the floor. When he’s moved something clicks and he manages in a desperate whisper, “I’m sorry… they said they'd feed me…”

A gunshot rings out from down the hall and hits Ivetta in the shoulder sending her crashing to the ground. She drags herself behind one of the boxes and tries to patch herself up. Castor yeets a smoke grenade toward the shot, breaks James’ chains, and slings him onto her back. He continues muttering “I’m sorry,” as she moves closer to the wall. A new protrusion appears behind them.

Machine gun fire sprays, peppering the entire hallway. Castor gets hit and falls to the ground, unconscious, dropping poor James atop her.

Tobias, relying on his sense of where he last saw the gunman, shoots. A cry of pain emanates from the fog and a body hits the ground. “One down!” Tobias cries. He swings his head around to look behind him as he ducks down and sees Mary Barber shove James off and drag Castor into cover, blood smearing across the floor. Tobias makes a running sound to draw fire. He shoots into the smoke again as he actually does move into the fog. He doesn’t get shot, in fact, nothing happens and he’s fine. “Coast is clear!” He calls as the smoke clears and he finds the lone body and nudges it with his toe.

Ivetta rushes over to Castor, her healing kit already out and patches her up. Castor wakes up, the first words out of her mouth are, “Where’s James?!” Mary nods to him still in the middle of the hall. Castor rushes to him and finds him growing cold.

Ivetta stares blankly, the thought this cannot be real circling in her head. Castor sobs.

Ivetta pulls Castor up and away with the help of Mary. Mary assures, “I’m sure this man, this…James? You said? I’m sure this isn’t really him. This place is just messing with our heads.”

They move to Tobias’ side.

Further behind they find the walls close off, coming to an end. A small alcove appears to be a living space for this person. Scraps of inedible food lie about. A wretched swath of cloth serving as a makeshift bed. Here too are shackles on the wall, holding the pearly bones of a skeleton, its arms raised and legs stretched on the ground in front of it. Whoever this poor soul was, they are long-since dead. A closed book rests on the bones of their lap, closed but smattered in ink. Tobias kneels down and flips the man over. He’s fairly tall, black hair, round spectacles and wears disheveled, tattered, black priest robes. They audibly gasp as one at seeing the prone form of Father Tobias.

Ivetta’s knees hit the ground. She grabs her head with her hands and topples over, lying prone in the fetal position and in shock and having a panic attack. It registers in her mind that that book on the skeleton’s lap looked…familiar. Mrs. Barber too isn’t taking this well, her breathing rapid and uneven. Castor screams at seeing another dead companion but holds a hand over her mouth in disbelief, “that–that can’t be you.”

The weapons he holds are the same as the Tobias with whom they have traveled, strewn now on the floor but identical all the same. Tobias himself simply raises an eyebrow and rifles in the coat of his doppleganger to find an inside pocket containing a bible. He flips to the first page and finds the inscription he was looking for: It is often the people who strive for piety that are only driven by a selfish desire for forgiveness.

It is written in his own hand, he finds and pulls out an exact duplicate from his own coat. He whispers to himself, “This place grows ever more curious…”

Tobais remains observing his own dead body, likely more unnerved than he lets on. But Castor stumbles up and away from them and further into the niche behind them, trying to look away.

She turns and comes to an abrupt stop in front of the wall where a huge mirror shimmers, extending upward and above them, infinitely high. It reflects nothing. Not the room behind her, nor her friends around her. The surface reflects no one.

No one but Castor.

She gasps, startling. But the reflection doesn’t flinch. The reflection… it's not Castor as she knows herself. Instead, her clothes are dark and stained with blood. Thigh-high lace up boots accented with red and gleaming with silver buckles and eyelets cover the tights that disappear under her short skirt. A short cut top that reveals her navel makes the real Castor squirm in embarrassment. A tattered short cape drapes over her shoulders as well as ringlets of long curly brown hair, pulled back in a ponytail. Her warhammer is jet black, seemingly forged of obsidian and rests at her feet. This Castor stands with a cocky smirk on her lips, a very un-Castor-like expression as she stares herself down. “You’ve finally made it. I thought you never would honestly. Find the ‘edge of the world’ yet?”

Momentarily speechless, Castor hesitates, “i-if this isn’t it…Can you explain this place…?”

Her shadow self laughs, “You think you’ll be able to save your friends? You sure helped Viridis and Marco didn’t you? You should be able to figure this out.” Castor tightens her grip on her own hammer, her thoughts urging her to shatter the mirror before her but she holds fast.

Castor stutters, “I-I-I have to try. Who– you’re not me, who are you?”

Her smirk grows wider, “I’m what you could have been, perhaps who you should have been. All those dead, perhaps wouldn’t be if you listened to me.”

“You’re- I’m nothing like you and I never will be. Now t-tell me how to get out of here. He’s waiting.”

The Dark Castor laughs, “You still think God brought you here?! I can tell! Ha! Brought through hell and she still believes that it isn’t the devil she consorts with. You’re a fool, always have been, and always will be. Too weak to see what is right in front of her! Blinded by her own disgusting beliefs! Do tell how that belief has served you?”

“M-my faith makes me strong. I have a goal. I have a mission. I help people.”

Dark Castor’s smile grows even wider, “help? What a joke. How many lives wouldn't have been destroyed without your meddling, your trudging in and ‘fixing’ things. And what about your mother? You left her to go on your grand quest, left her to die, more like. Do you really think the church, or Manuel, or whoever remained would actually care for the mother of a witch?! How deluded are you, they killed her the second they could, burned at the stake like good ol’ Hollenzoller.” She pauses and cocks her head to the side, a sick smile on her lips, “Or was that really his name? You never bothered to learn.”

Castor flushes red, “I-I-” She shakes her head, “don’t talk about my mother.”

Dark Castor’s smile grows sly, “She’s my mother too and you let her *die*. I wonder how you can live with yourself. All the awful things you caused. What if you simply never existed? How many would still be alive without you? You have the power Castor, time in this place is all folded up, strange. If you kill yourself here, you could end this. Maybe even never have existed.”

Castor’s grip tightens on her hammer, the leather creaks. She shakes her head, her face set, “You’re just another part of this horrible place. Trying to trick and beguile me into sin. Maybe I am consorting with the devil: *you*.”

Dark Castor’s smile disappears, clearly irritated and continues to taunt,“So much failure. Letting the quartermaster escape to kill James. Damning Marco to a destiny of pain and sorrow. Cursing Viridis to *centuries* of horror, trapped in her own mind. Too slow to save Hollenzoller from torture, too weak save Nathanael in Paris, too timid to save your relationship with Gerrard, too afraid to let Tobias return to his people. You’ve let entire realms *burn* on your crusade to find the ‘edge.’ When will you learn Castor? Failure follows you because you are a failure.”

Castor draws herself up, despite this false self’s poisonous words, her face resolute and her voice rid of its quavering, “I am no more a failure than you, it seems. Where are your friends? Or did you kill them yourself? Did you think they made you weak? No, my friends make me strong. I’ve made mistakes, I know. But I won’t stop until I’ve tried to fix them. And even then, I know I’m not perfect. But I am fulfilling my purpose and helping others as much as I can. Which is more than I can say for you. God called me to serve, and serve I will.”

Shadow Castor screams in rage and the mirror shatters, revealing a room beyond it. It shatters and keeps shattering. The shards continue to fall. It rains glass from above, pelting and slicing. Castor tries to get Ivetta’s attention to get her to run but Ivetta remains unresponsive, stuck in her panic. In too much of a hurry to wait, Castor grabs Ivetta bodily from the ground and throws her over her shoulder. She calls out to Mary and Tobais to run into the room. “We have to go right now!”

They all make it to relative safety from the glass at least into a much larger room. It, like everywhere in this place, seems well-lit but there are no shadows. There are four columns in the room that stand before a raised section of stairs that lead to what looks like a courthouse made of black, glossy stone. The roof melts into the walls but a triangle pediment remains differentiated.

At the center of the columns is something, finally not part of the monotonous black hue, inlaid into the wall. A pair of huge metallic looking double doors, made from a white material.

All is quiet here and they finally have a moment to catch their breath. The passage they came through dissolves into the darkness of the wall, barring any retreat as well as intrusion from behind.

Castor puts Ivetta down gently. She tries to coax her back into the present. Ivetta stares off into space. “Ivetta, this is not real. It's not going to happen. I’m not going to be her. And Tobias is not going to be dead and– and that skeleton wasn’t you. This isn’t real, this can't be real.”

As she speaks softly to her, Ivetta’s eyes drift over to her and actually meet her gaze. She moans in pain, rubbing her temples, “I…I don’t know what’s happening. It hurts. My head hurts so bad, Castor.”

“I know but we can’t stay here. We have to keep moving.” She sighs in frustration and fear, “I…I just had a conversation with myself. I–I don’t like this place. We have to get out of here and the only way we can do that is by moving forward. Please, Ivetta. We can do this but only together.” She holds out her hand to help up her best friend.

Just as Ivetta regains her feet the white doors at the other end of the hall open. An awe inspiring white light illuminates the room. Bright as the sun and godly in its glow. A moment later, a man comes through. He is tall, handsome, and clad in shining white armor. He stands with confidence, a clear smile on his scarred face. Until he sees the four of them.

He stops dead in his tracks. His face falls. He looks bewildered, angry, even. He brandishes his weapon, a gleaming sword. “Who are you? What are you doing here? I was never told of you. You must be an interloper! It doesn’t matter, you’ll not get past me, I will defend my home!”

Bewildered in their own right, Castor cries, “What?! Wait! We come in peace!”

He turns around and waves his hand. The doorway shimmers with a purple glow before returning to its original white. He turns back to them, clearly ready for a fight.

Tobias calls to him, “If we're interloping, tell us how to leave!” The knight does not respond. Tobias shakes his head and levels his gun at him. He shoots him 12 times. He is riddled with bullets and he crashes to the floor, falling down the steps. The door shimmers once more behind him.

Castor runs closer and shoots a beam of light at his sword, skittering it away. Ivetta shoots him putting a few of her mana drain bullets into his prone body before her gun jams. She fixes it while Mary lights him up with magic. He grits his teeth and grunts in pain. He staggers to a kneel and waves his arm at the door again before standing. He grabs up his sword and charges toward them. He throws a light beam at each of them hitting every one. Tobias gets a graze on the side of his head. Ivetta gets a graze on her thigh. Mary holds her sizzling arm and Castor holds her side.

Tobias reloads his guns and shoots him again. He kneels again with both his attack and Ivetta’s mana drain damage. The knight swings his sword and slices at Castor’s ankles but she hops out of the way. Castor throws a fiery ball at him; the armor-clad man drops to his knees once more. The door stops shimmering. Ivetta shoots him, two bullets piercing his armor. Her bullets sap his mana as well as health. Ellen tosses a flame at him that he redirects at her. With a practiced ease, she reabsorbs the magic harmlessly.

He twirls on the ground before launching himself up and dashes at Tobias, trying to rip the gun out of his hands. But Tobias’ grip remains strong. A shimmer crosses his body again, a darkness begins to color his white armor. In reply, Tobias shoots. The knight holds up his hand, most of the bullets simply stop completely mid-air before dropping, momentumless to the ground. Some still pierce him, but he remains steadfast, though he took a hefty hit. Castor swings her hammer slamming him to his knees again. The door’s shimmer fades. Seeing the door shift again, Castor vaults herself over the fallen knight toward the door.

Ivetta continues to sling bullets, but they go wide. Ellen Barber runs beside Castor. He shouts, “Get back here!” He directs his ire at Castor, trying to yank her backward with magic. She resists, then he unleashes a laser blast, but both the fleeing women dodge the beam. He stoops to pick up the fallen bullets from the ground. Then he hurls them at Ivetta, making a loud crack as he propels them with magic. He hits Ivetta with her own bullet and then tosses a fireball at her as well. Tobias reloads and waits for an opportune shot. Castor and Ellen turn as they run and both release a flash of fire at him. He is unable to block as it comes from behind.

Ivetta misses another shot and Tobias’ gun jams. The knight charges at Ivetta and slashes at her. She’s just able to get up a shield to block most of the damage. He pivots and unleashes three lasers, two at Castor and Barber, one at Tobias. They all manage to dodge the blasts and in his rage, he hurts himself.

As he’s been fighting, each time he’s gotten up, subtle at first but now quite noticeable, a black film covers his body. At first just his hand, then wrist, then whole arm, and now half his body is taken up with darkness. The shadow progresses, amassing and increasing with his rage. Talking at the room he speaks, “I understand now. This is my final test, and I will not fail.” He unleashes another laser right at Castor. He hits her and she retaliates by throwing him, at speed, into a pillar on the far side of the room. Ivetta puts another bullet into him for good measure. He remains at the base of the pillar and the magic over the doors shuts off again.

Castor books it up the stairs, Ellen on her heels. She stops at the top of the stairs and turns her back on the white void, waiting for her friends, and glancing desperately at the downed knight. Ellen cried, “Come on!” Ivetta launches herself up after them. Tobias tosses a grenade at him as he passes.

He gets back up shouting, “No!” Another spray of lasers burst from his hand. It catches Castor in the side, making her cry out in pain. Tobias, still near him, unsheathes his saber and begins to duel the knight with a clash of swords. He jabs him and the knight grunts in pain and shoves Tobias back toward the stairs with a slash. Furious he shouts, “who are you to come to my home and attack me. Me!? I hold power you wouldn’t believe! Let me show you!” His eyes begin to glow orange and he reaches out but the light stutters, fizzles out and nothing happens. “What?! What is this!?”

Castor uses his confusion and again throws him bodily across the room into another pillar, “You attacked us!” Then she and Ellen throw lightning at him just as Tobias and Ivetta shoot. He tries to block all the attacks at once but he can’t manage it and falls to his knees again. The barrier, once more falls, opening their path to the white void.

They coalesce at the top, hurriedly Castor spins again and rushes to the door and through its opening. She runs but she doesn’t hear or feel her friends behind. Turning to see the problem, she finds them still at the threshold. “Guys, come on!” She urges, “what are you waiting for!?” Ellen Barber casts a fire spell but it hits an invisible barrier between them.

Tobias calls, “Castor, keep going. We’ll keep him busy.”

“Wh-what? No!” From the corner of her eye, she sees the knight shift in the rubble.

“You might find a way to stop him in there. Keep going!”

“But—I can’t just leave you!”

Ivetta presses her hands up to it. “It’s alright. Go!”

“If any of us are going to have a chance at getting home then you need to do whatever it is you’re here for.”

“Castor, we can’t get through. You have to go on your own. It’ll be okay. You can do it!”

“I’m… I’m scared.”

“I’m scared too!”

“Go Castor, we believe in you.” Ellen Barber insists fervently.

Terror etched on her face, Castor cries, “I—I can’t do this without you!”

“Castor, you have to. Go. Go!”

Her gaze is pulled beyond her pleading friends as the knight rises. The darkness encasing half of his form, he raises his sword. She screams and points, “look out!”

“GO!” Ivetta screams again.

“I love you guys! I’ll— I’ll find a way to make this right.”

Tears glisten in Ivetta’s eyes, “I love you too!”

“We’ll see you soon.” Tobias assures, raising his gun and giving her a parting smile.

And Castor tears her gaze from the only friends she has in the world, wishing desperately she weren’t leaving them in such dire straits and runs. She hears the sounds of battle. Gunshots, lightning, yelling. But they fade as she runs.

She runs.

And runs.

And runs.

TBC

Episode Thirty-Seven: Greetings, Chosen