The two were forced to jump as a colossal granite fist swung down at them, punching a great crater in the ground. Riley raised his staff, only to pause. This creature, this ‘lesser avatar’, didn’t have any flesh in the conventional sense. Would any plague magic even work?

  Kim thrust a hand out, her wave of Impact slamming into its knee. Chunks of scree fell loose, but it only barely wobbled. It swung toward her, a spray of smoking black matter spraying from an arm. She rolled away from it, and the falling slop proceeded to melt deep into the rocky ground.

  Riley inched back, sparing a glance to his shotel. That wouldn’t do him much good against solid rock either. He focused on the tar-like sinews that held the creature together.

  That was the organism, he told himself. A creature that had managed to cobble together a makeshift body of fallen rock. That was what had to be struck... if he could get close without being turned into a smear.

  He watched as Kim dodged around another swing, avoiding a spray of rocky shrapnel. “What’s a lesser avatar?!” he called. Riley aimed with his staff, focusing on a ‘knee’ of the beast and firing off Spikes. A chunk of the creature exploded, shards of stone slicing into the oily tendrils that surrounded the creature’s stony mass. It wobbled, again, but kept upright.

  “Piles of pure, raw, Rot that have grown large enough to be sentient without a human host.” Kim ran and skidded between the avatar’s legs, her claymore stroking a gooey tendril and cleaving it open in passing. She halted by the mouth of the cave, grabbed Riley’s shoulder, and took to sprinting with him. “They grow further outward, forging bodies for themselves out of whatever they have to hand.”

  Already he could hear the creature thundering after them, pounding and scraping, the savagery of his movements shaking the tunnel and widening it further.

  “It’s... it’s scary, I’ll admit that much!” Riley said, struggling to keep pace with the taller woman. “But why are you so freaked out? If it kills us, we can just respawn!”

  She looked at him, and he could see the wild panic in her eyes. “It’s not that easy. Not against things that have this much Chaos presence inside their body!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I.... I’ll explain later!”

  Mesquard popped his head from the pocket of Riley’s flowing coat and glanced backward. The rat twitched nervously, watching the hulking mass gradually draw toward them. What an abomination!

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  They wound past the corridors and caverns Kim had previously come through. She had cut down a modest horde or mutated miners, leaving them severed and discarded across the rocky ground. In the chaos, Riley could even see one room where Kim had singlehandedly bested three of the particularly giant miners.

  Moonlight and swirling snow winds greeted them as they burst back into the open. Kim spun, aimed her free hand at the top of the cavern entrance, and held her palm aloft until her whole body adopted a haze of ruby light. This time when she fired Impact, it seemed to come out with tenfold force. It cleaved a great chunk from the roof of the cavern and sent it tumbling down, a cascade of debris crashing onto the lesser avatar. It shrieked, a horrible and piercing noise, but soon the clog of scree made it vanish from sight.

  Kim sagged, balancing her weight on her sword. “Hits like a mule’s kick,” she huffed, clouds of steam flowing from the faceplate of her helm.

  The two Oracles, in their usual way, reappeared from thin air. “Are you well?” Iosef asked.

  “Just need to catch my breath,” Kim replied, slowly rising upright. Already the makeshift blockade was stirring, smaller pieces of debris tumbling down to the ground. “That won’t hold for long. Come on, we’re pulling back.”

  She turned and started marching back to the remnants of the mining town. Riley hesitated but ultimately fell in behind her. “I thought cutting out Chaos was our whole... job?”

  “Gotta know when to fold ‘em. You and me? We’re not at a level to take down something like that. Needs a stronger, better equipped kind of Warden.”

  Riley drowned under his mask. A soft thudding sound, gradually increasing in volume, echoed up their way. “Dying sucks, I’ll admit, but what’s so different about getting killed by a lesser avatar as opposed to a random miner?”

  Kim sighed and shook her head. “Wardens can respawn almost indefinitely. Almost. But when you die, there’s a moment where your soul is naked and exposed. If you get killed by a random monster, or by a steep fall, it’s no big deal. But if you die in the presence of Chaos.” She shuddered, her blade trembling in her grasp. “There’s this... moment. An instant where Chaos can reach out to your soul. And it seizes on that opportunity.”

  “Kimberly-” Iosef said, worry rising in his voice.

  “He needs to know, Iosef. Deserves to know the shit the Arbiter keeps to himself.” They crunched across the snow. Rudolph whickered from his makeshift shelter. “Chaos can beat a Warden in two ways. The first is... when he goes for your soul, and scours it with this crushing sense of fear and futility. Breaks your will bit by bit, until your soul dissolves. Unwilling to respawn.”

  A shudder raced down Riley’s body. He froze in place, gazing at Kim in wide-eyed horror. “And... the second way?”

  Kim hesitated. Somewhere behind them, great chunks of rock were flung loose, clattering noisily from their moorings. “There are those... who end up taking the power of Chaos into their bosom. They become champions of it.”

  She hoisted herself into Rudolph’s saddle. Riley, once the shock wore off, was pulled up behind her. The Oracles vanished again, well aware there was no room for them.

  “Brainwashing?” he asked.

  “Worse than that. On some level, you come willingly.”

  A horrible howl echoed their way from the mines, more chunk of rock being chucked about. Kim spurred her horse into motion, and the white steed set off at a speedy gallop. Committing celestial suicide, or being corrupted into working for Chaos... that was what he had to look forward to? Riley felt his heart seize in his chest. What had he done to deserve being put into this situation?

  “Keep close to me,” Kim said. “We’re gonna haul ass and leave that thing eating our dust!”

  “Don’t have to tell me twice,” Riley murmured. He dared to glance over his shoulder, watching as the remains of the mining colony became increasingly shrouded in a cloud of frozen mist. Yet the creature was out there. He could almost sense it.

  The Auspex pulsed on his belt. Slowly, gently. A continuous warning of what was out there.