Brittany became accustomed to the senses of the sea, for after departing Piet her path trickled south. While generally traveling alone, she made some of her way by accompanying merchants. The merchants proved themselves to be a slippery, untrustable bunch, but her reputation was far from pristine so far. The skills Brittany developed from these people included marketplace knowledge, eyes for the right items, and the art of haggling, but perhaps the greatest skill she learned was how to feed herself when far from town. The rogue became quite adept at trapping, polishing gems for gold, and tailoring when the time came.

The merchant trails had finally ended at the coast. She hopped upon a dinghy and set off across the complacent channel, chopping the water unacquaintedly until she had reached the island in the distance. She had arrived on Oren Island, which was said to be overrun with pirates. She dragged her very lucky little boat well onto the beach and squinted toward the town. The town stood proudly—albeit aged—upon its sandy plateau, complete with a grown-up hedge of sunflowers and ashy cobblestone. She made her way from the beach to the town's entrance archway. The archway, also an ash-colored structure, was flecked with lichens. Beyond that, she noticed grasses peeking through the cracks in the walkways at nearly every step. The very air was uninviting, so she was quick to find the inn. The rogue gained much experience from this town. The pirates, as sea-worn and nimble as they were, were also quite stupid; she would simply lay a trap, when the bounty called for it, and the buffoons would impale themselves upon the deadly blades.

Bounties were not the only source of income on the island, but they proved to be much more stimulating than gathering flowers for the jeweler. A particularly exciting bounty lured the rogue to the local wizard's shoppe. The job was not like the bounties she had fulfilled before, however, because she would not be required to kill the target. As they discussed the details of her new mission, she found that the large-capped man in robes would be sending her across the northernmost channel to Karlopos Island. She grimaced more firmly as the details were made clear: the wizard's young assistant had gone missing while scouting the area for his fauna research. The rogue set off that day, alone as was usual.

Again Brittany plunged her bare feet into the sloshing surf, dragging herself to the most distant reaches of the island. The flora had converted from the shady, fluffy greenery found more inland to thin, unforgiving prickles of plants. She treaded across the darkened sand, her boots dangling carelessly from her fingers, in order to avoid the occasional sharp jutting of new palms and shrubs. She could not, however, avoid the boiling ball in the sky, and soon she found her skin irritated. She was distracted from this because she did not expect to find other Aislings as far from town as she was. She blinked a few times, squeezing her eyelids tight. They were not illusions caused by the dismal heat, after all! They stood with their backs to her, stretching, after what must have been an unpleasantly lengthy trip on the nearby raft. She trotted to them, making her presence known with several accidental stumbles in the surf. They turned to her, and the two parties greeted each other.

There were three of them: two men, and one woman. The taller of the men, a man in his prime, appeared to be a warrior. His armor did not glitter, but Brittany could tell from the dents and slashes that he must have been experienced. He stood nearly two hands higher than her, was built like a column, and had longer, more luxurious hair than she did. She blinked at him curiously as he explained their presence on the island. Their presence was not the curious detail of the situation, however; they had simply paused on this beach to camp on their way to Oren. What was curious was the fact that from the moment she had laid eyes upon the man, he held a bottle of rum in his hand. He nursed from it as he greeted her, spoke to her, and called to the others. The drunken warrior, Lareth, also called to his critter: a shaggy, gray wolf that had been biting at the incoming waves nearby. Scar scurried to his master hastily and dropped his furry rump to the sand when instructed.

The second of the men was younger, perhaps her age. He was taller than her, slightly, but was much more lanky. His horribly loose robes suggested that he was some kind of mage. The sight and sound of him was simply laughable, she thought amusedly, as he squeaked his greeting to her. At least his complexion was an attractive olive-tan, unlike her now enraged epidermis. He seemed unfazed by the midday sun. Squee soon called to their womanly counterpart.

The female of the group was barely visible from behind the raft. Occasionally during the introductions, her blazing crown peeked over the craft's sail. When Squee called to her, she revealed herself with equipment in hand. She was certainly more dainty a woman than Brittany had predicted from afar; in each hand she clutched mending tool, and connected to those hands were two thin—but graceful—arms. The remainder of her was equally as conservative. While not as modest as Squee's, her attire was befitting of the environment. Her shoulders and legs were lightly plated in midnight blue armor, and her perspiring midriff bared itself shamelessly. Upon her feet were not heavy boots, but rather wrappings that left her heels and toes free. The rogue greeted her kindly, since she had received an equally as kind a greeting, and assumed the loving monk to be the responsible leader of this group. Her name was Synah.

The rogue told the trio of the Oren wizard's predicament. Baffled by the story, the band agreed to accompany her in a brief scouring of the area. The four prepared their packs, hid Scar away under the raft's tent, and ventured far onto the beach beyond the vessel. Their search had barely begun when they followed the beach up an awkward slope. At the peak, two onyx walls of rock rose to either side and the sandy trail snaked between them. The beach was so compact, in fact, that the group had only enough space to walk aligned with one another. They squeezed into a line formation and continued, but something was amiss. Several paces into the rift, the sand began to shift. Synah turned and shouted, sensing the movement in her toes, but her effort had arrived too late. The sand fell from beneath Squee's very feet! Suddenly, there was a storm of sand as Brittany and Lareth leapt to his aid. Each of them grabbed the dangling spellcaster's arms as he faced death at the pit's lip. The treacherous edge threatened to swallow them, too, and their heads bumped as they struggled to fight sliding to their doom. Luckily, the monk speedily hooked her fingers into their belts and reeled them all to safety. The four of them panted as they piled upon the assumingly solid sand and peered back at the trap. The chasm was deep and filled a quarter deep with jagged palm shoots. Their future steps were more cautious.

Soon after the trapped rift, the beached opened once again. They followed the slope down and were delighted at the ability to touch the surf again, despite the occasional grumpy crab. Around the bend they sauntered, pausing at every thicket and large clearing to call for the wizard's assistant. The local fauna, which also included chubby slugs, curious spores, and washed-up octopi, gave the four little trouble. But finally the sun began to set, and the tired travelers were as wilted as the ancient palms that heaved with coconuts. They had reached what appeared to be the end of the beach.

The group turned to retrace their steps, disappointedly, before all light was lost. Before they could venture too far, however, the beach was heard shifting again. This time, all four individuals could place the foreboding noise, accompanied with the thunderous tsssh of falling water. Loving, drunken, wily, roguely eyes darted to the nearby coast, and what was seen immediately thereafter struck fear into each unsuspecting body. A gigantic creature was approaching them from amidst the rocks at the end of the beach! The creature was monstrous; it was five-fold any of their sizes. Upon its slick, porous hide lay two enormous eyes. The eyes were as glassy and terrifying as its gourd of a head, but paled in comparison to its massively coiled tentacles. Eight such appendages sprung from its horrible body. It was a giant octopus!

As the creature scooted itself closer and closer, Brittany spied a fleeting splash of color among the onyx rock formations, now many paces to the octopus's rear. Squinting, the form became clear: it was the wizard's assistant, waving raggedly from the rock. They would have no choice but to fight, if they wished to recover him, she shouted. Synah and Lareth rushed the great beast, leaving Brittany and Squee gaping at the feat. With an astonishing but wobbly slash, the warrior felled two of the creature's thrashing tentacles. The monk backed close to him, fending off stray appendages and delivering mighty kicks. The mage finally snapped his mouth closed, but did not stray from the rogue's side; he simply raised his hands to the sky. Upon doing so, a darkened cloud was yanked from the ever-darkening expanse. The cloud surrounded the octopus, choking it, and therefore weakening it to their attacks. Finally, Brittany jarred herself from her amazement and threw herself at the beast. She grappled skyward, clawing at the viscous jelly, and buried her dagger into one of the creature's horrendous orbs.

After a lengthy relentless assault upon the creature, its form slumped. It let out a gurgling groan, tremored, and finally fell back upon itself, resulting in a melting pile of stagnant flesh. The four gathered themselves. The rogue silently scooted from the pile without turning her back, burying her fists into the cooling sand to dry them. Squee joined her, murmuring words under his breath to relieve their injuries. The monk was at the warrior's side throughout it all. She looked to the now overhung man and babied him accordingly, seemingly unwilling to leave his side. There was no need to go to the boy stranded upon the rocks because after the monster was felled he quickly descended and came himself. After tiptoeing around the stinking corpse untrustingly, he fell to his knees and praised them. He explained that the giant octopus had kept him trapped upon the rocks for several suns, and that the only way he had survived was by roasting the crabs that dared to scurry near. Irritatedly, Squee and Lareth grabbed him by the necklace and proceeded to drag him down the beach from which they had come. Synah and Brittany stood until the men were a few paces away, then followed. The rogue looked to the other female, somehow gathering her attention by only glancing at her. The loving monk's eyebrows raised, curious, until the rogue asked the question she had been wanting to ask much of the day. Was there something the older woman had kept inside, something that she wanted to tell to someone special? The loving monk stared straight ahead. The setting sun shone past her, illuminating her face and causing her eyes to glow.

Sometimes there would be things your heart would burst to tell another, but for their sake you would not.

Brittany did not realize she had traveled so far until the fleeing sun took shelter behind the trees. She quickly noticed that the trees in this region were not the same as those she had seen farther north; instead of the tall, tubby-trunked giants she witnessed on the outskirts of Abel, Piet, or Oren, she now laid her eyes upon the malnourished flora typical of swampland. The black-barked trees' appendages swept across the sky, blocking out much of the little sunlight that remained from the day with their mossy tresses. A rouge bud lay blooming upon the remains of a trunk, blessed to have found a patch of sunlight beaming through the dense blanket overhead. As if the surroundings were not strange enough already, it felt as though the farther she paced, the more and more the earth beneath her boots liquified as well.

Soon she was ankle-deep in the stagnant muck. Utilizing the dexterity so conveniently bestowed to her class, she vaulted onto a nearby trunk and sunk slightly as the corpse's flesh gave way to her weight. There she sat, shaking the mud-like gunk from her soles, and viewed her surroundings. A plump amphibian, frightened at her cleansing display, plopped into the sludge and disappeared. A couple of mating dragonflies drew her attention forward and she instantly propelled herself in that direction; the sudden increase of light ahead signified a clearing. She sloshed excitedly to the edge of the swamp but was not prepared for the sight presented to her next.

The area beyond the swamp was, comparably, magical; through it flowed a shimmering river so silent that she was unable to hear it from the sludge only steps to her rear. While the earth remained mossy, it no longer allowed her feet to penetrate, and in place of the terrifying trees, shrubs of the most pristine green grew. She followed the mossy path along the riverbank until she found an impeccable bathing location. Her hands, already so callused for someone so young, were first. She dipped them into the frigid water, turning her palms upward, and watched the brown hashes of dirt drift away. With a sigh, she sat so still that she could gaze upon her reflection on the water's surface. However, it was not not her reflection she was interested in; she was too preoccupied with formulating a plan of evening refuge to notice that she was gazing at herself. At least for the first few moments, anyhow.

An angled, shrub-colored mass appeared first at her reflection's shoulder, and then noiselessly rose toward the crest of her head. The rogue's eyes followed the mass's movement as she peered down at it in the water, and when a pair of eyes peeked over her shoulder, she dove away from the figure. The water was not deep enough to submerge her, so she was forced to turn and deal with the foe. With her heart racing and her hands still numb from the icy water, she poised to defend herself, but the attack never came. What met her was not a pair of eyes, but three pairs. Standing before her presently were not men: while twice her width, the creatures stood only half her size at best, and possessed greener complexions than the illest of men. Similar to their ears, their heads resembled pulled raindrops, and at the base of their angular heads were two yellowed eyes. The eyes, all of which lacked pupils and irises, were sunken beneath what resembled scaly eyebrows. But they were not cruel eyes...

The rogue felt the river's icy water creep between her toes and flinched slightly. The largest of the three creatures, who still stood within her striking distance, raised its arms and backed itself and the others away. It was at that time that The rogue noticed a staff in each of the creatures' hands. Perhaps they were the sages of this swamp, or maybe there was a village of unknown peoples nearby. Either way, they did not seem to be of any threat. Brittany flinched again when the largest of the creatures suddenly began to speak in her tongue. It suggested kindly that she exit the chilling water for her own well-being; the sun had not yet set completely, but the drop in temperature was more than apparent. Like a cat with bags tied to its feet, she clomped over the smooth pebbles and clambered onto a large boulder wedged into the bank. It was then that the creatures introduced themselves as Mukuls, explaining that visitors were few in their swamp, which they called Mehadi. The name of the largest Mukul was the leader.

The leader told her of the Mukul, their social system, their beliefs, and their ultimate goal of appeasing their goddess of the sun. While all very sudden and new to her, Brittany recognized that this society was as simple as the loosely-knit clothes upon their backs. This society was not ready for Aislings, and she would move on quickly. She spoke to another of the Mukul: the artisan. The artisan pointed its gnarled staff toward a span of swamp opposite from that which she had arrived, insisting that if she pushed on she would eventually find those of her kind. She thanked the Mukuls, and turned to make her leave.

Before her escape was complete, the third of the trio of Mukul lowered its staff into her path. He was the keeper of time. Unlike the other Mukuls, it was the only of the three capable of striking fear into her heart. Its speech was broken, and it appeared glassy-eyed as it began its tale. The sun was quickly departing, but she would certainly not be rude. It recalled a tale of the Wastelands; the old frozen north, before they were forced south... The days when the shores of the Sarnath had not yet been theirs. In those days they lived close to the frozen north. There, at night, a thief of dreams appeared...in the hills and crevices. Her brows came to life. A thief? What significance did such a thief from the ancient wastelands have to this Mukul presently? She inquired politely, urging him to continue.

There is one plant that survived the journey, it said: The Nila. Mukul planted it in the soft earth there...before it was swamp. Some of the older Mukul went to the heart...of Mehadi swamp. There, a brave Mukul would eat...the fresh picked Nila blossom. He would dream of the old frozen north. The keeper of time's brow furrowed. A nightmare from their history. He would dream of the Marauder. A furred thief of the frozen north who attacked...the Mukul and lived off our crops, magic, and more. The wastelander wore the skull of their great work...animal. The wastelander gloated. They were helpless.

Brittany grew impatient. She lifted the keeper of time's great staff out of her path and scurried to the edge of the swamp to continue her journey before the sun was completely dissipated. The keeper of time called after her that the foolish Mukul wanted the wastelander to infuse power into him, and that he did not understand what that meant. She must beware. Dreams came true. And nightmares too. She paused at the edge of the darkening swamp and gripped a low-growing limb with both of her hands. Glancing over her shoulder, she watched the keeper of time recede to its position of watching over the river. Before parting the curtain of moss and sliding beneath the limb, she silently recited a prayer for these people; if they were to survive, it would take the effort of both Matrika and the Aisling dieties.

The segment of swamp beyond the Mukul threatened to swallow the rogue alive; the wicked trees were even more tangled amidst one another allthewhile sloped into her path. However, she used them to her advantage as she raced the burning orb in the sky. She hopped and swung between them, sometimes upright and at other times on all fours, until she leapt upon what resembled a grand wall. Steadying herself, for the wall spanned just short of the length of her feet, she noted that she had once again departed the mangroves. Behind her, streams bubbled from the twisted vines and flowed toward and around the great wall. Ahead, a series of walltops similar to that she perched upon spanned the distance. Her head flickered as she surveyed. A maze?

The sun scarcely survived being buried in the distance now. She stood and curled her feet parallel to the maze wall—how easy it was to outsmart a trap!—and swiftly catwalked the expanse. Her good fortune lasted well until she lowered herself with a grunt from the final blockade, when the exhausted sun had at last disappeared. She had dropped into a fertile area of rainbowed blossoms, lush sprigs spiraling from the earth, and grassy underbrush. She had reached the Heart. The stretch of swamp ahead would prove too difficult to navigate with her diurnal vision at any rate, she reasoned, suddenly realizing that she had grown weary from her journey. She paced into the center of the Heart and flattened herself a leafy mattress. Sprawling onto her back, her consciousness soon began to fade...and then a whisper pricked her ear, drawing open her weary drapes. Boosting herself upon the heel of her left hand, she raised herself slightly and peered over the surrounding patches of unopened buds. Despite the cloudless, star-speckled sky and flecks of light created by forming drops of dew, the Heart was now shrouded in silent shadow. Had she been dreaming?

The rogue reassumed a basking position, neatly folding her hands beneath her head. Moments later, however, her dreaming was interrupted again. This interruption came not as a whisper upon the wind, but rather as a crescendo of light upon her lids. Alarmed, she rocked her head in the direction of the beam and snapped back to consciousness. An arm's length away sprawled a dampened, pink-petaled plant. She scowled, for it was not this plant that plagued her so, and stretched to part the wiry underbrush at the plant's base. The underbrush mildly irritated her unarmored forearm, but the Heart was quickly returned to shadows as she acted. Retracting her arm, she snapped a bud from the scratchy underbrush and brought it to her face, only inches from her nose. Unlike the others in the Heart, this flower stood fully open between her fingers. She rotated the tar-colored blossom between her thumb and index finger, musing skyward at the midnight beauty, and suddenly remembered what the crazed old Mukul had said. There was one plant that survived the journey. The Nila.

Her lips pulled back, slowly revealing two rows of pearly teeth. Was this the Nila spoken of in Mukul legend? Surely such an innocent bloom, with its delicate layers of velvetine petals, could not harm a creature as defined in tales. She drew the blossom closer to her face, turning the mangled stem so that the delicate petals slid over her bottom lip. Finally, closing her teeth carefully over a stray petal, the blossom was destroyed. Brittany did not fully ingest the bitter blossom; the Heart began to warp much sooner than doing so would allow. The remainder of the petals fell with her hand, now too heavy to lift from the grassy earth. Mist drifted into the Heart, penetrating every crevice, cooling the earth. Frightening daggers of ice plunged through the surrounding walls and caged her immovable body. A layer of frost crept over every blossom, each shrub, and all walls she once considered protection. Finally, the metamorphosis was complete and she was able to pry her youthful eyes open once more.

Above her, where the blossom once hung, the mist pulled and twitched until it was finally in a form she could recognize. A man? No, this figure was much more unsettling; a furred giant of what could have been a man filled her vision. Its heavy, cloth-covered boots loomed directly overhead. Her vision followed the figure's coiled legs to a strikingly alien torso. The barrel was covered in what appeared to be a sheet of blushing animal skin, the edges of which tufted into fine hairs. Further, the crested collar was carved from the finest of ivory. Finally, her eyes followed a naked neck and settled upon the great head. Two gaping holes peered down at her, surrounded in a storm of horns and tusks. A skull.Visions of the Marauder's exploits played out before her eyes: ambushing caravans, discovering ancient sites with artifacts from old days, and piles of coins. The rogue laid like the fallen trunks she had stepped over in the swamp, terrified at the exhibition. The entity shot its steely finger down at her. Gather a horde of five million coins by any means possible and return before eight Temuairan hours pass, it said. And then she awakened.

Her body jarred from the immense fear of sighting the marauder. She thrashed, lunging out with her fists and legs to protect herself even before her eyes had opened. Amidst her thrashing, her knuckles connected with a solid something and she cried out. While her throat stung with the pain, not a sound could be heard; she finally opened her eyes, tremoring still from both pain and terror.The room was not the Heart she so vividly recalled in her dreams. Instead, she found a place all too familiar to her: a bedroom, a spansive bed from which she had fallen, and an oaken dresser that had bruised her now-throbbing hand. She unwound herself from the quilt and leapt to her feet, immediately shuffling over to the bedside window. She heaved the dusty window upward with her good hand and peered into the night. Compelled by some imaginary force, Brittany slipped her legs onto and over the sill and dropped to the ground outside.

She was lightheaded, but remained somewhat aware of her surroundings. The town was basked in twilight, lit only by dim lanterns that dotted the main path. The lanterns were not, however, enough to shake the familiar white mist from lingering.The compelling force inside hurried her down the path. Soon she felt as if she were not walking at all, but instead floating past all of the town's landmarks that she knew so well. Soon she found herself in the crypt, staring into the bleak darkness that so many never returned from. Down, down, she drifted, deep into the belly of the accursed place, until she happened upon a chamber filled with chests. The treasure of the fallen lay before her.

One by one she visited the chests, somehow forcing their age-encrusted mouths wide, and one by one she plundered their valuable contents. Her head twirled increasingly as she moved from chest to chest, and when it appeared she had looted the last of them, the dizziness had become too much to bear. She wobbled back, planting herself upon her rump, and finally laid flat against the dank crypt floor. Again she rested her eyes, for how long she was not aware.Some time later, she had returned to the icy cavern. She was not sure if she had risen and carried herself or been carried by another being. The image of the marauder filled her eyes again, and when she offered her horde with hands held above her laying body, a wave of icy air fell over her. The horde was lifted; the coins glittered around her like confused rain. In exchange, the marauder's image disintegrated before her, leaving only the vision of the precarious armor it once wore. She reached for it, threading her fingers through its fine fur and tentatively testing the crescent bone collar. The great beast's skull descended to her second, beckoning to be taken between her palms, and she did not resist.

The skull's rounded condyles plopped comfortably between her palms as its hollow cavern turned to face her. She lifted it toward her face and stared into the darkness. Did the marauder want to infuse her with its power? The darkness drew closer. Would she be be rude to refuse it? The darkness... Would she be evil to accept it? Closer...

Her face fit like a key into the receptacle. In a flash of ice-white light, energy saturated her every pore. The energy, which flowed from her crown to the very distal tips of her toes, chilled her so deeply that her skin felt as if it were instead on fire. She crashed onto her back, writhing, tearing, and struggling to rid herself of the Marauder's helm. In a final, frustrated scream, she lurched up into a sit, slamming her clenched fists upon the ground at her sides.

She opened her eyes. The bony case that had imprisoned her skull had vanished. The light had diminished from the Heart, as well as any traces of ice that had once locked out the sky. There was no marauder, no mystical armor, and strangest of all, no evidence of a gnawed Nila Blossom alongside her shredded bed. Sweating, she felt herself all over frantically. She wrung her hands over her head, her ears, her chest, and her abdomen, as if to ensure that she was still solid upon Temuairan soil.

Dawn had arrived. As quickly as she had risen to her feet, The rogue sprinted into the swamp ahead of her and distanced herself from the Heart. She tore through the loosening trees and the evaporating muck, not daring to look back. At last, she flew from the last of grasping limbs and rolled into a stretching field. There was a grand, familiar castle in the distance, poised pristinely upon a bumpy hillside, but she found herself too weary to press onward.The vibrations of the earth signified Loures Guards and their steeds nearby. She felt herself lifted and slung over a muscular rump. Had any of the events of the former evening really occurred?

Despite her fear and exhaustion, she hoped they had. If such terrible power could be bestowed to her in a nightmare, then so too could the wildest of desires from her fantasies.