The darkness wasn't just an absence of light; it was an entity. It pressed in on Kael from all sides, a suffocating, sentient pressure that seeped into his bones, his blood, his very thoughts. He floated, unmoored, in an infinite sea of pure void. There was no cave, no Vejis, no Godclimb. Only Kha'rothan.
"Your fragility is... amusing."
The voice wasn't heard. It was implanted, a screeching vibration that bypassed his ears and resonated directly within the marrow of his consciousness. It carried the weight of dead stars, the indifference of eternity.
"You cling to sparks in an ocean of night. Meaningless."
Images exploded behind Kael's eyes, not seen, but lived. The cellar's damp terror, magnified a thousandfold. Aria's flickering form dissolving into ash, her final breath a silent plea lost in the void. The Fleshspawn's many mouths, not gurgling hunger, but whispering Kha'rothan's name in perfect, chilling unison. But worse, far worse, was the memory dredged from the deepest, most sacred vault of his pain.
His father. Not the warm, loving vision from the dream, but the broken, plague-ravaged body in the burning village square. The stench of charred flesh and sickness, the hollow rattle of his final breath, the utter desolation in his eyes as life fled. Kael felt it again – the helplessness, the crushing grief, the world ending in fire and despair. Kha'rothan didn't just show it; he forced Kael to relive it, to taste the ash, to feel the heat sear his skin, to hear the screams anew, amplified to cosmic proportions.
"See? All ends. All returns to me. Even her."
Aria's face, superimposed over his father's corpse, crumbling into dust. The certainty of it, the inevitability, was a spike driven into Kael's soul. The void wasn't threatening; it was stating fact. His struggles, his sacrifices, his desperate love – all futile gestures against the crushing tide of entropy.
The pressure intensified, becoming physical agony within his disembodied awareness. He felt himself unraveling, threads of his being pulled taut, threatening to snap. He tried to scream, but the void stole the sound, leaving only a silent, agonized rictus.
"Resistance is the flutter of a moth before the flame. Pointless. Painful."
The visions intensified – cities crumbling to dust, stars winking out, galaxies collapsing into singularities of absolute nothingness. The grand, horrifying tapestry of the End, woven by Kha'rothan and laid bare before him. The sheer scale of it dwarfed his existence, rendered his fears for Aria insignificant motes in an uncaring cosmos. The despair was a physical weight, crushing him, promising oblivion as the only release.
"MAKE IT STOP!!" The mental scream tore from him, raw and ragged, echoing uselessly in the infinite dark. "PLEASE! MAKE IT STOP!!"
He clawed at his head, or the phantom sensation of it. He felt skin tear, flesh rip under non-existent nails. Dark droplets, not blood, but fragments of his very essence, peeled away and vanished into the hungry void, consumed without a trace. The pain was beyond physical; it was the dissolution of self, the erosion of hope, the absolute victory of the dark.
"Cease your flailing, little spark." The voice held a terrifying patience. "All I require... is your acquiescence. When the time is ripe... you will join me. Become a vessel. A herald of the inevitable silence."
The torment escalated. The visions cycled faster – his father's death, Aria's dissolution, the end of all things – a kaleidoscope of absolute loss projected onto the canvas of his soul. The pressure became unbearable, the despair a bottomless pit sucking him down. He couldn't think. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't endure another moment of the cosmic horror violating his mind.
"I WILL!" The mental shriek was born of utter, broken desperation. "JUST MAKE IT STOP!"
Abruptly, the pressure vanished. The visions ceased. The screeching voice fell silent.
Only the void remained. Infinite, cold, and utterly still. Kael hung within it, a mangled wreck of consciousness. Phantom tears streamed down phantom cheeks. He felt hollowed out, scraped raw, every memory of warmth and love tainted by the chilling touch of the End. He curled into a non-existent ball, a silent, shuddering thing adrift in the endless night. Freakish panic, the terror of absolute isolation and insignificance, threatened to shatter what little coherence remained.
Then, light. Not warm sunlight, but the cool, blue-green glow of Vejis's fungus lamps. Hard stone beneath his knees. The scent of ozone and old blood. The void didn't fade; it snapped shut, like a colossal eye blinking.
Kael collapsed forward onto the rough floor of Vejis's cave, gasping like a drowning man breaking the surface. He retched, but nothing came up. His whole body trembled violently, wracked by phantom pains and the aftershock of psychic violation. He pressed his forehead against the cold stone, the physical sensation a desperate anchor to reality. Real. The stone is real.
"Fascinating," Vejis's voice cut through the ringing silence in Kael's ears, devoid of its usual sardonic lilt, replaced by a chilling intensity.
Kael flinched, scrambling back on his elbows, eyes wide with raw terror, searching the cave for the god's presence. He found only Vejis, still seated at the stone table, but leaning forward, his ashen face etched with a look Kael had never seen before: profound shock bordering on disbelief. Vejis's gaze wasn't on Kael's trembling form, but fixed intently on his eyes.
Kael blinked, disoriented. His vision felt different, sharper yet tinged with an unnatural depth. He raised a shaking hand, touching the skin beneath his eye. It felt normal. But Vejis's expression…
Vejis slowly rose from his chair. He approached Kael not with his usual predatory grace, but with the caution one might show a live grenade. He crouched before him, his galaxy-pool eyes boring into Kael's own.
"The void gazes back," Vejis breathed, his voice barely a whisper. He reached out, not to touch, but to gesture towards Kael's eyes. "Galactic swirls… yes… but deeper. Infinitely deeper. Not stars… absence. A direct conduit." He leaned closer, his voice dropping to a horrified murmur. "Kha'rothan."
The name, spoken aloud in the cave's confines, sent a fresh wave of terror-induced chills through Kael. He whimpered, pulling his knees to his chest, trying to make himself small, insignificant, hoping the god's gaze would pass over him.
Vejis didn't offer platitudes. His shock was rapidly being subsumed by a terrifying calculation. He gripped Kael's arm, not gently, but firmly, hauling the trembling young man to his feet and guiding him roughly back onto the stool opposite the table. Kael slumped forward, elbows on knees, head in hands, trying to suppress the violent tremors, the echoes of his father's death rattle and Aria's dissolving scream still reverberating in his skull.
"Look at me, Kael," Vejis commanded, his voice regaining some of its steel, though an undercurrent of urgency remained.
Kael forced his head up, meeting Vejis's unnerving gaze. He saw no comfort there, only intense scrutiny and a dawning, dangerous understanding.
Vejis studied him for a long, silent moment. The implications were crashing down – a mortal touched directly by a Primordial Pillar, and not just touched, but marked. It changed everything. The risks were astronomical. The potential… equally so. His earlier assessment – Kael's willingness to become nothing – had just been horrifyingly validated on a cosmic scale.
"How would you like," Vejis asked, his voice deceptively calm, "for me to be your mentor? Truly. Not just lessons in manipulation, but guidance through the abyss you've just glimpsed. A lifeline, however frayed, against the tide that seeks to erase you."
Kael stared back, his mind still reeling, fragmented by trauma. The offer wasn't kindness; it was necessity. Vejis saw a tool, perhaps, or a fascinating specimen hurtling towards destruction, but he also saw the only possible shield against the entity that had just violated Kael's soul. The desire to protect Aria, momentarily crushed by the void's revelation, flared back – weak, desperate, but there. It was the only ember left in the ashes of his psyche. Stronger. He needed to be stronger. To build walls against the dark. To fight back.
He couldn't form words. His throat was raw, locked tight. He simply nodded, a sharp, jerky motion, his eyes wide and haunted, reflecting the cold cave light and the deeper, infinite dark swirling within them.
"Good," Vejis stated, the word final. He pushed the modified Godclimb across the table towards Kael. The air in the cave felt heavier, charged with unspoken terrors and a new, desperate pact. "I know what you endured was… beyond traumatizing," Vejis continued, his tone brisk, clinical, a deliberate counterpoint to the cosmic horror they both acknowledged. "But dwelling on it is a luxury you cannot afford. That entity tasted your fear. Your grief. Your love. It will use them as levers. The only countermeasure, the only possible armor, is strength. Control. Mastery over the power within you."
He tapped the Godclimb. "Your body, Kael, is the cauldron. You are painfully aware of its weakness. It cracked under the strain of a Bloodprice surge. It shattered under the gaze of a god. A weak cauldron doesn't just fail; it explodes, taking everything you wish to protect with it." His gaze was relentless. "We must forge it anew. Now. Before the darkness decides to test its new conduit again."
Kael stared at the book, then back at Vejis, a fresh wave of terror warring with the dregs of his resolve. Manipulating Ulos now, after that? It felt like poking a sleeping dragon with his mind already scorched.
"Extract the Godclimb's power," Vejis instructed, his voice cutting through Kael's hesitation. "Not to spend, but to irritate. To provoke the Ulos within you. Force it to react. To strengthen itself against the intrusion. Like a muscle flexing against resistance."
Swallowing hard, Kael placed his hands flat on the cool leather cover of the Godclimb. He closed his eyes, trying to push aside the lingering images of cosmic dissolution and his father's corpse. He focused on the familiar weight of the book, the subtle thrum of power it now emitted thanks to Vejis's bloody sigils. He reached inward, past the trembling fear, towards the sluggish, tar-like presence of his own Ulos.
He pulled. Not to channel it outward, but to draw a thread of the Godclimb's contained energy in, letting it brush against the dormant power in his veins.
It was like jabbing a raw nerve with a white-hot needle.
The Ulos flared, not with the molten rush of the Bloodprice, but with a violent, defensive surge. And instantly, the whispers returned. Not the all-consuming voice of Kha'rothan, but faint, insidious echoes, like cold fingers tracing his spine: Futility… End… She fades… Join the silence…
Kael gasped, flinching violently, nearly breaking contact with the book. Sweat beaded instantly on his forehead. The urge to recoil, to shut down, was overwhelming.
"Push through!" Vejis snapped, his voice a whip-crack in the tense silence. "The pain is the resistance. The fear is the weapon they use. Dominate it."
Teeth gritted, a low groan escaping his lips, Kael forced himself to maintain the connection. He drew another thread of the Godclimb's energy, letting it sting the Ulos. The power within him roiled, the whispers hissing louder, accompanied by flashes of chilling void and his sister's face crumbling. He felt nauseous, dizzy. But beneath the terror, beneath the echoes of Kha'rothan, he felt the Ulos thicken. Coalesce. Become denser, more reactive under the provocation.
"Now," Vejis commanded, his eyes narrowed, watching Kael's every tremor. "Merge it. Not outward. Inward. Take that agitated Ulos and force it into your bones. Your skin. Your organs. Not to destroy, but to rebuild. To reinforce. Cell by cell. Make them contain the power, not just channel it."
The concept was monstrous. Forcing that chaotic, tar-like energy, now laced with the echoes of void-whispers, into the very fabric of his being? It felt like injecting poison into his marrow. But Vejis's words echoed: A weak cauldron explodes.
With a sound that was half-groan, half-snarl, Kael obeyed. He focused the agitated Ulos, a sluggish, burning sludge, and directed it inward. Not as a wave, but as a focused, agonizing pressure. He started with the bones of his hands, resting on the Godclimb.
The sensation was indescribable. It wasn't breaking; it was melting and reforging. He felt the dense material of his metacarpals groan under the pressure, then… change. Infused. Reinforced. It was excruciating, a deep, grinding ache that vibrated through his entire arm, accompanied by the relentless, chilling whispers promising oblivion. Sweat poured down his face, his neck, soaking his tunic. Where droplets hit the stone floor, they sizzled and evaporated instantly, leaving tiny, acrid-smelling scorch marks – a byproduct of the intense, internal energies and the void-touched residue.
He moved inward, to his forearms. The Ulos flowed thicker now, responding to his agonized will, but the resistance was immense. His bones felt like they were being compressed in a vice lined with ice. The whispers intensified, threatening to drown his focus in despair. He saw flashes – Aria's blue-iced fissure spreading, Vejis's cave dissolving into void, his own reflection with Kha'rothan's eyes. He pushed through, teeth grinding, tears of pain and terror mixing with the corrosive sweat.
Hour bled into hour. Vejis watched in silence, his expression unreadable, a sentinel observing a dangerous alchemical reaction. The cave filled with the sounds of Kael's ragged breathing, the sizzle of sweat on stone, and the low, pained hum vibrating in his chest as he wrestled the Ulos deeper – into his ribs, his spine. The process was glacial, agonizingly meticulous. He felt like he was sculpting his own skeleton from molten lead while being whispered to by the grave.
He reached for his sternum, aiming to reinforce the cage protecting his heart. The Ulos surged, thicker and more resistant than before. The whispers became a cacophony: Stop… Futile… Embrace the end… She is already lost… The image of Aria dissolving into cosmic dust slammed into his mind with paralyzing force. He faltered. The Ulos recoiled, threatening to backlash.
"Focus, Debtor!" Vejis's voice cut through the mental onslaught, sharp as a dagger. "The fear is a lie! The void seeks your inaction! Force it!"
Aria's face, not dissolving, but alive, flickering, needing him. It was the only talisman he had. With a raw, wordless cry that scraped his throat, Kael slammed his focus back down, driving the Ulos into his breastbone. The pain was blinding, white-hot and icy cold simultaneously. He felt something crack, not break, but settle, denser, harder. A wave of exhaustion, deeper than any Bloodprice expenditure, crashed over him. The Ulos within him didn't vanish, but it became inert, unresponsive, a depleted well.
He slumped forward over the Godclimb, his forehead resting on its cool surface. He couldn't move. Could barely breathe. Every muscle screamed. Every bone ached with a profound, unfamiliar heaviness. His mind was a battlefield, scarred by void-whispers and the brutal exertion of will. Sweat still dripped, but slower now, no longer sizzling with the same intensity.
Silence stretched, broken only by Kael's shuddering gasps. Vejis let it hang for a long moment before speaking, his voice devoid of praise, stating simple fact.
"Well done. By the standards of those who haven't been personally molested by a Primordial Pillar within the hour, that was… adequate. Better than most would manage under the circumstances."
Kael couldn't even lift his head. A weak grunt was his only response.
"You've drained your reserves profoundly," Vejis continued, standing up. "The Ulos you used for reconstruction is spent. Your body is in shock from the internal restructuring. You will be weak. Vulnerable. I estimate three days before you regain basic function and your Ulos replenishes to a usable level." He gestured dismissively towards the cave entrance. "Rest. Sleep if you can manage it without the void swallowing your dreams whole. When you can walk, seek out the Third Elder. Her dwelling is near the western fungus grove. Tell her I sent you. She will begin your instruction in Thalassian. Fluency is not optional; it is your next shield. You will stay here and learn it."
Kael managed to nod weakly against the book's cover. The thought of moving was inconceivable. He sat hunched over for several more minutes, gathering the shattered pieces of his will. Slowly, agonizingly, he pushed himself upright. His body felt alien – heavier, denser, yet utterly drained. He looked at his hands. They looked the same, but he felt the difference in the bones beneath the skin. Stronger. But at what cost?
"Th-thank you," he rasped, the words scraping out. It wasn't gratitude for the pain, but for the lifeline, however terrifying.
Vejis merely waved a hand, already turning his attention back to his stone book, his expression closed. "Go. Rest. The void doesn't grant respites for long."
Stumbling like a man twice his age, Kael made his way out of the cave. The cool air of the tunnel felt like a balm, yet the refuge's familiar hum now seemed distant, muted. He navigated the paths on autopilot, his mind a numb fog punctuated by sharp stabs of remembered agony and the chilling echo of Kha'rothan's voice. He barely registered the branded faces he passed, the faint glows of power, the murmur of conversation. He was a ghost walking, haunted by gods and his own reforged bones.
He pushed aside the heavy fabric curtain of their alcove. Aria was sitting on her pallet, mending a tear in her tunic. She looked up, a question about his lesson forming on her lips, but it died instantly as she saw him.
He looked… hollow. Drained of color, his skin pale and waxy beneath a sheen of dried sweat. Dark circles bruised the skin beneath his eyes – eyes that now held a depth that hadn't been there before, a swirling darkness beneath the surface that made her breath catch. But more than that, he radiated exhaustion so profound it was a physical aura, and a tremor ran through him that spoke of trauma barely contained.
"Kael?" Her voice was small, laced with alarm. "What happened? Are you alright?"
He managed a weak, unconvincing smile that didn't touch his haunted eyes. "Yeah," he mumbled, his voice rough and distant. "It was… good. Tough. But good." He shuffled past her and collapsed onto his own pallet, face turned towards the stone wall, curling in on himself. "Just tired. Need to sleep."
Aria stared at his rigid back. Good? He looked like he'd stared into the abyss and the abyss had taken a bite. Every instinct screamed that he was lying, that something catastrophic had occurred in Vejis's cave. The unnatural stillness in him, the depth in his eyes, the sheer, radiating aura of shock and depletion – it screamed of something far beyond a "tough" lesson.
She waited a few moments, watching the tense line of his shoulders. He didn't move. Didn't relax. Just lay there, breathing shallowly.
"I... I need to use the bathroom," she said quietly, the excuse flimsy but necessary. He didn't respond.
She slipped out of the alcove, the curtain falling shut behind her. Instead of heading towards the refuge's designated facilities, she turned with purpose, her own exhaustion momentarily overridden by fierce concern. She navigated the familiar paths back towards the deeper tunnels, towards Vejis's cave. Her form flickered slightly at the edges, a sign of agitation and the constant pull of the Veil-Less path.
She didn't bother with stealth. She pushed through the cold, rippling stone entrance of Vejis's cave. He was still at his table, but not writing. He was staring at the blood-filled pen, turning it slowly in his fingers, his expression unreadable but deeply preoccupied. He didn't look up as she entered.
"What did you do to him?" Aria demanded, her voice tight with suppressed fear and anger. She stood just inside the entrance, fists clenched at her sides. "He looks like death barely warmed over. He looks… haunted."
Vejis finally lifted his gaze. His galaxy-pool eyes met hers, holding none of their usual detached amusement. "I was teaching him how to manipulate Ulos for internal reconstruction," he stated flatly. "How to strengthen his vessel. A necessary step. But during the process…" He paused, choosing his words with uncharacteristic care. "...he experienced an interruption. A profound one."
Aria's heart hammered against her ribs. "An interruption? What kind of interruption?"
"He was pulled into a… state," Vejis said, avoiding the word 'dream' or 'vision'. "A communion, of sorts. Unplanned. Unwanted. He encountered one of the Seven Pillars. Kha'rothan."
The name hung in the cold air like a physical blow. Aria felt the blood drain from her face. A god? The Primordial Void itself? Her mind recoiled from the implications. The chilling depth she'd seen in Kael's eyes…
"What… what happened?" she whispered, dread coiling in her stomach.
Vejis's expression remained impassive, but a flicker of something akin to grim understanding passed through his eyes. "I cannot say precisely what transpired within that communion. The details belong to him. But when he returned… the touch of the Void was upon him. Palpably. And he was… traumatized. Profoundly so. He endured the lesson that followed through sheer, desperate will, but the cost is evident."
Aria absorbed this, horror warring with a fierce, protective fury. Kael had faced a god alone, endured its touch, and then been forced through grueling physical and mystical torment. Alone. While she sat mending a tunic. The image of his broken form on the pallet fueled a desperate resolve.
"Teach me," she said, her voice suddenly strong, cutting through the cave's chill. She stepped closer to the table, meeting Vejis's gaze without flinching. "Teach me the Veil-Less path. Properly. Not just basics. I need to be stronger. I can't let him walk this path alone. Not against… that." She gestured back towards the refuge, towards Kael.
Vejis studied her, his gaze assessing the fire in her eyes, the determined set of her jaw. He saw the flickering form, the blue ice holding back the rot, the raw need to protect mirroring Kael's own, yet expressed differently. He slowly capped his blood-pen.
"I cannot teach you personally," he stated, not unkindly, but with finality. "My focus must remain on containing the cosmic catastrophe brewing within your brother. But…" He leaned back slightly. "Lira. The one who led you here. She walks the Veil-Less path deeply, though differently than you. She understands the practicalities, the foundations, the dangers of burning too much, too soon. She can teach you the essentials. The control you desperately need before you burn yourself out or attract something… undesirable." His gaze held hers meaningfully. "Learn from her. Master the fundamentals. Prove you can walk without stumbling into the abyss. Then… return to me. We will discuss further education."
Aria held his gaze for a long moment, weighing his words. It wasn't the direct mentorship she craved, but it was a path. A way to fight, to stand beside Kael, not just watch him shatter. She gave a sharp nod. "I will. Thank you." No pleasantries. Just resolve.
She turned and left the cave, the cold stone swallowing the ripple of her passage. Vejis watched her go, then looked down at his stone book, his fingers tracing a jagged Thalassian glyph. The game had escalated beyond mere defiance of Church or Veil. They were dancing on the edge of a Primordial nightmare. He needed Kael functional. He needed Aria controlled. And he needed to understand the true extent of Kha'rothan's interest before the fragile sanctuary of the Veil-Touched Underground became the epicenter of a divine cataclysm. The whispers of the void, he knew, were only just beginning.