The rhythmic clatter of Spider-House's legs vibrated up through the wall beneath Trenn’s boots. The entire Ritual Chamber had been tilted onto its side by their descent of the Dam's sheer face. He, Mara, and Zeen stood upon the wall-now-floor, a large window set into the timbers between them.

  Behind them, the chamber's original floor now hung as a vertical wall. Almitad was sitting cross-legged upon it, her body hanging parallel to the ground, defying gravity’s pull. Her beady eyes were closed, a low litany issuing from her lips as she drove the house towards the black mists below.

  Through the window beneath their feet, the colossal logs of the Dam slid past in a dizzying vertical rush. Patches of pallid fungus clung to the damp logs, their wide, plate-like caps releasing a steady, almost invisible powder that drifted upward.

  A cloying, sweet-rot scent began to seep through the walls, a smell that reminded Trenn of overripe fruit and deep, wet earth.

  A side window to Trenn’s right framed three distant waterfalls, their torrents plunging from the top of the Dam. Their combined roar sent a low vibration through the timbers of the wall beneath his boots.

  Dust began to sift through the cracks of the log walls, its silvery particles shimmering in the Mana Bloom's green-black glow. The cloying sweet-rot scent intensified

  "What's this?" Trenn said as he passed his hand through the airborne powder. It swirled around his arm and trailed in his movement’s wake.

  “It’s nothing, silly,” his mother answered.

  Startled, he spun to face his mother. She was sitting on a picnic blanket with his dad and his sister.

  He was in a sun-drenched park on Mount Royal. The warmth of the sun found his face. The air smelled of crisp autumn leaves. Fiery maples framed a night’s sky governed by a single, familiar moon. His father, deceased years ago, was smiling at him.

  “Stop staring at the sky and sit down,” the man said.

  He looked younger and healthier than his memory allowed. His sister, Elora, was sitting next to him.

  Trenn looked around, confused. Spider-House was gone. His heart twinged; Mara was nowhere to be seen. He felt something rise in his throat, but he swallowed it back, leaving an acidic taste in his mouth.

  “This isn’t right?”

  His mom, Annie, smiled. “Trenn. It’s fine. It’s my Wild Mage powers… seems like they’re similar to yours. Now sit. Eat with us. Your friends are fine. Everything is fine.”

  “Mom, you’re a Wild Mage? Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  She shook her head. “Because I didn’t know, silly. Now sit, and don’t make me repeat myself.”

  The air smelled of blood and chimney fire. Tyndral, the black-furred Fox Kin, lay broken on the floor of a Guardian lodge, his breathing a painful rasp. Mara, startled, met his gaze. His amber eyes were filled with a deep, weary disappointment. His ghostly voice sounded.

  "You… let the Wild Mage… corrupt you,” he coughed. “You were… a Guardian… Mara. You had… a home. You had… purpose. Now… you’re… nothing," he said, as blood pooled below him.

  Her vulpine jaw locked.

  “You’re wrong,” she said, between gritted teeth. “The Mana Forest, the Guardians, they don’t need me. Trenn needs me.”

  Tyndral laughed and choked as blood spilled from his mouth onto his dark fur. “You think… he cares? All he wants… is to save his family… and that’s not you… Is it? You… think of him as family… but to him… you’re… a tool.”

  Mara’s fur stood on end. Her eyes widened in disbelief. “Why would you say this? We avenged you! You’re dead!”

  As the words left her lips, a dying rattle shook Tyndral’s body.

  “No! No wait, Tyndral!” she said, jumping to his side, her sight blurry with tears. “I didn’t mean it! You’re not dead! I have potions!” She went for her satchel, but it wasn’t there. Her tears started to stream down her white-furred face as she watched the life slip out of Tyndral’s body.

  He… will… discard… you,” said Tyndral’s disincarnated voice while Mara cried, kneeling in the growing puddle of his blood.

  “How could you do this to me?” said Kae, furious.

  Ezy tried to take in her surroundings.

  “Look at me when I’m talking to you!” Kae stood with her fists on her hips, gravity-defying ponytails twitching at her words.

  Ezy turned to her mother. “Mom, I—”

  “Don’t you mom me! I lost my rank because of you! You stole the gate key from me, and then you ran away! I lost my daughter, and my job, because what? Because you got mad at the guilds? Do you realize how much you hurt me?”

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  Ezy’s voice died in her throat. Instead, choked sobs rose, and tears began to stream down the dark skin of her cheeks. She went to wipe them, but was startled by the metal claw that now replaced her lost forearm.

  “What good did it do to you?” Kae continued, venom in her tone. “Where’s your precious Stomper now? Where’s your right eye? Where’s your arm?” her mother asked.

  "Was it worth leaving your people, your life? Was it worth leaving me?"

  A furious, desperate need, a bubble of pain and rebellion, rose in Ezy’s chest.

  "It will be worth it! You'll see! I'll make you see! Zeen crafted a musket like none the Hive has ever seen! I… I made a—"

  “A Scrapper,” Kae said with disgust. “A cheap imitation, running on necromancy. Are you a necromancer, Ezy? How will you maintain your new glorified mechanical suit? It’s not your achievement. The Scrapper is just… borrowed power.”

  Ezy gritted her teeth. “It’s not over!” she claimed. “I’ll show you! I’ll show the entire Hive!” she screamed at the ceiling above.

  Zeen was huddled with a younger Gil over a workbench. The air smelled of hot metal. Gil’s face, untouched by cynicism, was alight with a dreamer's fire.

  "You’re hallucinating, Zeen," Gil said. "I’m dead, remember? You bound me to your musket? You have to listen to me."

  Zeen lifted his head. “What are you talking about, Gil? Stop making jokes. My entire career is riding on this project,” he said, gesturing to the workbench.

  “Zeen,” Gil insisted, touching his friend’s arm. “Ezy, Trenn, Mara, and Almitad are in danger. You need to snap out of it. You’re breathing in some sort of hallucinogenic spores.”

  “Trenn… and Mara?” he looked around. He was in a guild workshop, putting together an explosive device. “This… this was my final… is my final exam? Wait, I remember… the professor failed me… said it was—”

  “Derivative. Yes.” His form slowly lost its tangibility. His body was becoming translucent. “And when it happened, when they failed you, did you know Mara? Did you know Trenn?” Gil’s physical body dissolved into a silvery-white silhouette.

  “You’re right! This isn’t real! This isn’t—”

  “I’m real, Zeen. We’re both real. Everything else is a trick. A poison. You need to snap out of it.” His eyes were tender, his voice steady. “Listen. Can you hear the waterfalls? Can you hear the clattering legs of Spider-House?”

  “Yes!” he said, listening intently. I hear the falls! We’re… in Spider-House. We’re heading towards the dark mists in the valley below!”

  The gnome workshop melted around him, revealing Almitad’s Ritual Chamber. Trenn was sitting on the floor, talking about… back to school? And Mara… Mara was crying, on her knees. Ezy was screaming at Kae… She seemed to be holding something, but nothing was in her hands.

  He jumped towards the screaming gnome, grabbed her collar, and shook her violently.

  “Get Mara!” Zeen screamed as the fog lifted from Ezy’s eyes. “Ezy, snap out of it! Mara needs you!”

  Ezy shook the confusion out of her head and jumped on Mara while Zeen turned to Trenn. She immediately began to pound her hook hand on the Fox Kin’s chest.

  The severe sensory overload shocked Mara from her hallucination. The ghost of Tyndral vanished, but the shame remained. Her warrior instincts took over, filtered through the raw lens of her guilt.

  She registered only chaotic, violent motion—a threat to be neutralized.

  Her claws flashed, and she struck.

  Stunned, Ezy stammered back, looking at her stump. Mara’s necrotic claws had cut clean through her metal hook, which lay on the floor, in four pieces. She tripped and fell on the wall-now-floor’s glass window, causing it to crack under her weight.

  Above her, Almitad was tilting precariously from the wall. Mara, coming out of her daze, realized what she’d done. “Ezy, by the mana, I’m so sorry… I… I was somewhere else?”

  Almitad was home. At the Dam. Her quaint Spider-House had retracted its legs and was in a comfortable spot in the Lower-Dam district, near the lake. She had a beautiful waterfront property, a luxury few Beaver Kin could afford.

  The lake was serene. Workers carried bundles of floating logs from the nearby woodmills. Children broke the surface sporadically, playing underwater tag. One of the kids threw a hand up, and waved hello.

  Almitad smiled and was about to reciprocate when the glittering jaws of a giant crocodile snapped around the child’s waist.

  “NO!” she screamed as the Gem-Croc opened its maw and swallowed the screaming child whole. Its impossible size crept out of the water, as screams of terror filled the air, and swimmers rushed towards the nearest shore.

  “It’s not my fault,” the Gem-Croc said with a clear voice that reminded her of her old runecrafting professor. “The kid’s blood is on Trenn’s hands,” it explained casually. “You know this. Why are you helping the man who killed so many of your people?”

  Ezy was staring upwards. “Almitad, snap out of it!” She screamed, looking for something to throw at the Shepherd of Loss.

  Her litany had ceased. Spider-House had stopped descending and was now immobile, perpendicular to the ground. Zeen, who’d just managed to wake up Trenn, followed Ezy’s gaze just in time to see the Beaver Kin give in to gravity.

  The unseen magical force holding her to the vertical floor had failed. The moment her body left the floor-now-wall’s hanging carpet, the entire world tilted.

  “Brace yourselves!” Screamed Zeen as he rushed to the doorframe.

  With Almitad’s necromantic incantation interrupted, the Spider-House’s undead legs detached. One, two, three… and then all of them at once. Everyone ran to grab onto something; Mara jumped away from the floor and sank her claws into a wall. Zeen, hanging on to the doorframe, tried to reach for Ezy’s hand, while Trenn, Skate vibrating on his head, jumped up to grasp the river stone altar that remained suspended in the middle of the floor-now-wall.

  The house and her owner, in a coordinated plunge, plummeted into the black mists below. The fall was a terrifying, weightless eternity compressed into a few heartbeats, the wind a deafening roar through the splintering frame.

  Everyone held their breath as the floor below them spun back into a wall. The ceiling became the floor.

  The impact was a percussive smash. A loud CRUNCH of splintering wood scattered the team as the house struck the littered waters below. The cottage shifted and broke under the strain. Its walls were torn apart by a field of churning debris that floated on the lake’s surface.

  Its surface was a mess of giant, broken Dam logs and wrecked houses. All the debris that fell from above when the One-Eye destroyed the Beaver Kin metropolis. Frigid liquid flooded the ruined Spider-House. The sinking death trap was filling with a maelstrom of wreckage.

  A red piece of roof knocked the wind out of Trenn’s lungs as it pushed him into the drink. With no air in his lungs, he was about to sink like a stone. His flailing hands turned into frog strokes as his lifeguard motor reflexes took over.

  Thank god I’m not wearing armor...

  But the surface of the water was opaque with a chaos of broken, swirling junk. He tried to break through, but his arm was caught between wooden planks, and he quickly pulled it back to avoid being crushed.

  Thank you so much for reading!

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