The scrap was covered in the same unsteady scrawl as the paper inside of the room, though this letter had no scribbled-out parts and appeared complete.

  Forgive me, Nal. I only ever wanted us to be happy, to be able to push back our Horizon and step into the stars together. But now you are gone, and I am left alone, trapped in a prison of my own making. I thought if we could fill the Sunny-shaped wound in your heart with a stronger, less fragile familiar, you could heal and we could continue our grand adventure. And perhaps, if not for my folly, we would have.

  Perhaps I should have anticipated the serpent following me. I underestimated its tenacity, presumed it would value itself more than its young, and we have both paid the price. My only pride is knowing that if our new Sunny ever hatches, I have no doubt she will be even stronger than either of us could have dreamed. But I cannot hatch her without you.

  I am left with knowledge of my success, in the creation of something truly unique, but with no way to see it though. My Horizon may have moved, but without you I have no will left to chase it. Forgive me, Nal. I do not know if my words here could reach you now, but, System willing, I hope they do. I hope you know I did not want this for you, for us. I will join you soon, and I hope that we can meet again before our souls are washed clean.

  Cyn had to reread the letter a few times for the words to fully settle in, and with each read she felt a twisting pressure grow in her chest. Her eyes flicked back towards the book in her opposite hand, to the rough art that filled the pages. Slowly flipping through them told a story without words, the corpse and letter a tragic ending.

  While each page and doodle varied greatly, there were two main subjects the artist drew repeatedly. The most common drawing was of a creature that appeared to be a ball of fur with butterfly wings and six spindly legs. Based on images of the creature interacting with an Orc, the second main subject, it would have been about the size of a large housecat. The further Cyn flipped into the sketchbook, the more detailed the art became, and with those details also came short descriptions for many of the drawings.

  In the early pages, all the descriptions did was label the winged creature as ‘Sunny’, something Cyn had already suspected based on the letter. It wasn’t until a second Orc – labelled as ‘Erilan’ - began to make an appearance around a third of the way through the tome that it became clear that the sketches had been done by Nal. Page after page of poses, scenes, detailed portraits, all done in black charcoal. Many pages later, there was a sudden shift. The drawings became less detailed, only partially complete. In some cases, they were barely sketches with an unclear subject before being abandoned.

  Then, with a sizable number of blank pages left, they stopped. There was a single, half-finished portrait of Erilan, the image almost returning to the level of detail Cyn had seen earlier in the book. But it was never completed, and the rest of the book was empty.

  Tucking the letter back into the book, Cyn gently closed the leather binding and, after a moments hesitation, stored the tome in her ring. It wasn’t anything useful to her, and never would be. But Cyn also felt she could not just leave it behind to be forgotten, just because it wasn’t useful. The corpse she had found, once named Erilan, had been a person. Not some nebulous NPC, an imitation of flesh atop complex programming. He had lived, loved, and died. Had aspirations of his own. Made mistakes. Was there even anyone to remember him and Nal? Cyn might be in a dungeon - meaning they definitely were just soul impressions in this space, perhaps even less since he was not alive – but regardless, the somber realizations her discovery brought to the surface felt heavy.

  Corpses might freak her out, in general, but there was something so much worse about the idea that they were actually real. Real people. There had not been too many thus far, but Cyn hadn’t known the people behind any of the bodies she had seen. Sometimes there was a name, either from her kill notification or given to her by someone who did know the dead. But otherwise they were just... objects. Or rather, it had been very, very easy for Cyn to unconsciously think that way up until this point.

  And while she did not technically know Erilan and Nal either, Cyn felt more of a connection to them. They felt more real, through little more than a letter and sketchbook. A gut-wrenching story assembled with only a few puzzle pieces. She couldn’t even blame the Feathered Brine Serpent for the tragedy. The Orcs had stolen her egg, and the creature had responded by trapping them.

  Unable to shake the weight resting over her heart, but needing to continue on, Cyn quickly washed off a quietly complaining Spam using her waterskin. The Voidling only had so much respect for her downturned mood, but with the promise of being carried again it allowed itself to be rinsed and dried off with some scrap pieces of cloth, before they both made their way further back down the steps to another doorway.

  The next room was surprisingly empty. It was just a large, unfinished space roughly carved out of rock with no indication of what its purpose might have been. The next door Cyn tried, she couldn’t open. It just refused to budge even an inch. As she struggled with the door, Cyn noticed that the orange color of her skin was rapidly fading. Relived at the change but also getting more nervous by the minute, she continued downward. There was only one more door on this half of the tower, and it was the one at the bottom.

  Before she made it that far, however, she had the knowledge of someone else’s health re-enter her subconscious. Bringing it into focus, she was able to quickly identify who it was. Mountain. Oh fuck, please don’t be falling. The thought barely flitted through her mind before she was able to dismiss the idea. He wasn’t approaching Cyn’s location nearly fast enough to be falling. It was definitely a slow, controlled decent.

  Carefully making her way to the edge, she peered up to confirm what she was feeling. A good distance above her, the boy was being lowered down by a rope. He clearly had one foot in a loop at the end of the rope like it was some kind of stirrup, but that was not the only thing keeping Mountain attached to his lifeline. It was hard to see, but she was pretty sure he had more rope wrapped around him like a harness. Not surprising, since she was positive Sam would not have allowed anyone to be lowered down like that without some kind of safety measures.

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  Feeling fairly positive he wouldn’t fall, and that even if he did, she would be able to make it back down to the pool to heal the warrior, Cyn felt safe calling upward. “Hey!”

  Mountain was clearly startled, jerking violently at her voice, followed by peering downward towards her. After a few seconds he called back, sounding unsure “Cyn?” His eyesight must be worse than mine.

  “Yup!” In response to her affirmation, the boy let out a whoop of joy. Energized by her impending rescue, Cyn turned and started running back up the steps so she could be more in line with Mountain as he descended. Once they were actually close enough to speak comfortably, he swung himself towards the stairs to clumsily climb out of the center hole. Once the warrior was steady, he jerked a few times on the now-slack rope. It must have been some kind of signal, since a few moments later the rope stopped being lowered.

  “Dang, I’m almost disappointed. This rescue is going to be easier than I thought it would be.” As Cyn laughed at his words, Mountain gave her a hug and went on to explain that there were multiple collapses on the upper portion of the stairs. Sam guessed that it was due to parts of the collapsed roof falling in at an angle when it was first destroyed. But the collapses forced the party above to find a different route down the tower after Cirrus disabled the defenses. Luckily, there was actually quite a bit of rope stored between all of them, mostly from Geoff and Juls, that allowed the party to work together and create a way for one person to descend and check out the situation.

  “So is there enough rope for a second harness? I found the egg, but I had to leave it up there.” Cyn jerked her thumb towards the ascending staircase. “I have to hold it, so I won’t be able to hold the rope.”

  “Uhh...” Mountain shrugged, then began fiddling with the ropes wrapped around him. “We can figure something out. Go grab it, and I think I will have a workable solution by the time you get back.”

  It actually ended up taking a good deal longer for Mountain to devise a solution than it took for Cyn to fetch the Feathered Solar Serpent Egg, so long that she almost told him to go back up without her to see if Sam could help. But ultimately the boy figured it out, conceding some of the safety of his harness to instead tie Cyn to him and create a second loop in the rope for her to stand on. Cyn would be entirely dependent on Mountain to keep her from falling, but as long as the party above did not take an eternity to pull them up, he would be able to handle it.

  A few tugs of the main line later, and the pair slowly began to rise. Once they were pulled into the air, they swung back into the center hole for a straight shot up to the surface. It was slow, and as Cyn and Mountain came closer to the ground floor Cyn could make out that some kind of primitive-looking pulley system had been assembled. She wasn’t mechanically inclined, and the whole thing was kind of terrifying to look at. Cyn had no idea how it had not broken under their combined weight, but she just had to trust that at least one of them probably knew what they were doing.

  As soon as they reached the ground floor, Fish and Juls helped Mountain and Cyn dismount from their makeshift elevator. Sam had been the one doing the majority of the rope pulling, assisted by Geoff and Cirrus, but now that the pair were safely at the top of the lift the Berserker was free to let go of the rope and sweep Cyn into a soul-crushing hug. She barely moved her cargo in time to save the Feathered Solar Serpent Egg from the same fate as her torso. The hug only lasted a few seconds, as Sam’s unfettered strength caused one of her ribs to break with an audible pop.

  The sound made Sam let go quickly, setting a wheezing Cyn back down on her feet while muttering an apology for hurting her. As she was using Restoration to heal herself, he spoke darkly, “Twice in one day. We are going to leave now, right? Or do you want to convince me you are dead or dying a third time?”

  She winced at Sam’s words. She had already felt a little guilty for her actions before entering the tower, but Cyn’s encounter with Erilan’s letter and Nal’s sketchbook had shed the situation in a new light. One that made her feel a ton worse about the kind of stress she had unintentionally been putting on the Berserker. “Yah. I just have to return this egg to the serpent, and we should be able to go.”

  Sam looked surprised for a moment, before heaving out a sigh of relief and rubbing one hand down his face. “Great. Wonderful. Let’s not do this again.” Cyn didn’t respond to that, since she probably would do something like this again. She would just be more careful about who she was with when doing it. Instead, she just stepped around him to accept another set of hugs from Fish and Juls. The latter looked harried, more than ready to be done with this adventure. Fish at least did not appear too bothered, giving her a big grin after letting Cyn go.

  Cirrus then stepped forward, once again wearing his shirt, looking like he was also going to try and hug her. Cyn was willing to accept it, and since she had nearly killed the guy, or at the very least almost forced him to drop down the tower with her, she also felt the need to apologize. “Look, Cirrus, I am so, so…” Before Cyn could finish, with the rogue practically within touching distance, they were all shocked by the sound that erupted from Spam, who was still perched on her shoulder.

  Cyn could only compare it to a snarl, a sound that should not be able to be produced by a frog, or frankly anything of Spam’s size. Deep and reverberating, it ripped through the air like a threat. While the sound left everyone frozen momentarily, unsure how to react, Cyn was reeling for a second reason.

  No.

  It wasn’t telepathy. There was no voice, Cyn didn’t hear the word like she did when the Feathered Brine Serpent spoke. But it was the single most clear communication she had ever experienced with her familiar through their bond. Not an emotion, or a vague, fragmented impression of a thought. It was an absolute rejection.

  “Umm… I guess Spam’s a bit on edge?” Cirrus slowly lowered his arms and stepped back as Cyn spoke, the rogue’s expression frozen in a forced-looking smile. Spam only went quiet once Cirrus had retreated a few steps. While Cyn wasn’t going to complain about not hugging Cirrus, Spam’s behavior was beyond confusing to her as it was drastically out of character for the creature. And as clear as the rejection of them touching had been, she did not get even an inkling as to why. Reaching up to Pet the Voidling, Cyn returned to apologizing. ”Anyway, as I was saying, I am really sorry. I nearly made you fall with me on accident, Cirrus. I wasn’t trying to drag you down with me, I promise.”

  The rogue kept his gaze locked with the familiar on her shoulder, but allowed his expression to relax. “It’s… fine. We are both alive, so no harm done. I’m just relieved you didn’t get hurt, or worse. It looks like quite the drop.”

  Cyn couldn’t help but burst into nervous laughter. “Oh, I am pretty sure I brushed death when I hit the bottom. But since I am able to heal myself really efficiently, I could recover. I don’t think anyone else would have the same experience.” She saw Sam pale at her words out of the corner of her eye, but the information was important. Cyn didn’t want to inadvertently make anyone think they could fall down the tower safely. Now, the fact she had turned herself into a fireball-burping, orange sheep was kind of embarrassing, so Cyn decided to leave those details out. She wasn’t sure if polymorphing herself had been helpful anyway. With everyone anxious to return to camp, Sam and Mountain took down their lift and redistributed its materials. It wasn’t really safe in the first place, and no one was confident they would be able to get it to work without multiple people remaining at the surface. If – when – a group returned to finish exploring the tower, they would need to figure out another way down.

  Finally, before leaving the tower, Cyn had everyone touch the egg. The completed objective might be little more than a consolation prize, but at least the people she made suffer her mishap and subsequent misadventure were not leaving the situation totally bereft of rewards.