The time after encountering the Tauren Creant was not a completely happy one. Brittany poured her very being into proving the existence of her mysterious mentor. She began to alienate her friends and family by placing herself in danger, all in hopes that The Arcane Entity would appear before them. Frustratingly, The Arcane Entity would appear to her often. He sometimes came as a murmur from behind, and other times as a guiding push on her dagger. Despite her frustration, with The Arcane Entity's guidance, Brittany grew. The archer left sniping vultures on the Noam Plains and began to study the insects of Andor. Deochs later, she helped forge the path through the Desert Dunes to discover the Fire Canyon. Still no one believed that she was being driven by an otherworldly force.

The only reprieve Brittany found in her search was her companionship with Nefarus. The two were reunited at Pravat Cave during an uneventful spring morning. He stood outside the mouth of the cave, munching an apple as fiery as his hair, and beamed at her as she approached. She returned the smile and spoke with him casually about the Deochs that had passed. Brittany was still as attracted to him as she had been when they met the first time; he was soft-spoken for a man, easy on the eyes, and charmingly boyish. The archer continued to visit the cave for any chance to see the mage. After several Deochs of chance meetings, he finally wound his fingers with hers and escorted her away from the cave.

Brittany explained numerous times that she would not abandon her search for The Arcane Entity. Each time the mage would simply nod his head, replying that he believed every portion of her story. The Deochs seemed to fly by as the two of them searched every dungeon and performed every ritual to make The Arcane Entity appear. Brittany's mentor remained real only to her, and yet somehow she found happiness. She supposed being in love had that type of effect.

When it seemed they had exhausted every possible place to search, Brittany found herself sitting alone upon a knoll overlooking the Grass Fields. She sighed and wilted into the grass, not minding how the blades had become brittle from the ever approaching winter. She thought of Nefarus, who was away selling wares in Rucesion, and of The Arcane Entity. In the recent Deochs, she rapidly began to believe that the latter of the two men would never be seen by any other individual than herself. Perhaps, she reasoned, that fact was not all bad; though sales had recently ebbed, she was now a modest merchant and made a decent living for herself. So what if she was considered a tiny bit insane? The archer grimaced. Somehow the question had sounded much better in her head.

Pssst. Brittany shaded her eyes with her hand and peered down the slope. The stretch before her eyes was congested only with the necessities of battle: swords and shields, all utilized in the Goblin War. She saw no other beings at first. However, her eyes bored themselves into the motionless equipment; she would not believe that the sound was her imagination. Sure enough, the slightest of movements eventually nabbed her attention. The movement was a single wisp of hair that wafted gently over the tip of a shield. The archer rushed through the grass to the screen, hastily rolling the propped object to the side. She stared blankly at the ludicrous crouched man, who promptly stood but said nothing. Brittany cocked her head to the side and inquired if she could possibly help the man with something.

They stood staring at one another for several lengthy seconds. Brittany was somehow bothered by this man; she knew him, and yet could not place from where. His deep-hued hair fell into his eyes and he opened his mouth as if to speak, but did not. She jabbed her finger into the chest of his bardocle and demanded an explanation for his interruption. Abruptly, another man silently slipped from behind and placed himself between Brittany's finger and its target. A tangerine scarf entwined itself around his head and neck, revealing only the blacks of his eyes. The archer rested her hand at her side.

Easy, kid, he said. He then introduced himself as Nikolad and explained that they were there to offer Brittany a job. The words sparked her attention; her market sales waned during this time of the Deoch and she was not opposed to earning extra gold. She prodded the man for more information, but he was not taken in by her cleverness. Nikolad shook his bound head and said that she would have to travel to their hideout to learn more. The wily man whispered a password—lightning—and ordered her not to let it escape her memory. She needed it if she was to enter the hideout behind the Mileth Church.

As the men went on their way, Brittany stood stunned. As long as she had lived in Mileth, she had not been aware of any guild of such strange people. The men walked quickly and were nearly out of sight before she turned her attention to the path they traveled. She called out to the familiar man, asking for his name, but both of them turned to her before rounding the bend. Nikolad shouted for him: the man was named Nicotis, but she should not make a habit of asking him questions. After all, he was a mute. Then they were gone. Brittany's chin dropped to her chest, dejected. She would find out why Nicotis's vert eyes cried out with such sadness. She went to Mileth.

The archer arrived under the cover of darkness. The lanterns twinkled on the town's path as she found her way to the rear of the church. She glanced left and right, but luckily, the entire town was asleep. Not a single Aisling saw her creep up to the building and place her hands upon the bricks nor mutter into the cracks around them. The bricks growled as they ground past one another, sliding aside to reveal a secret passage. Nikolad was pleased that she had arrived. He explained the origins of his guild and assigned her a mission. The mission seemed straightforward; since they did not yet trust her, the guild decided that she would carry out a simple delivery. Nikolad handed her a black box and pointed her to a beggar that made Pravat Cave his home. He sent her away with a grin and a warning not to shake the parcel too rigorously.

Approximately the same time the next day, she opened the passage again. She sprinted into the hideout and jerked Nikolad from his chair, wrinkling his tunic in her fists. The mission had revealed the guild's true identity: a band of assassins. She slammed him to the ground and cursed his trickery. The black box she delivered exploded when the beggar opened it—the mundane fell to the ground, dead as a stone! Nikolad rose to his feet and simply chuckled as he rubbed his new bruises. He said that her work had been good for a novice, and wondered if she had recovered the beggar's journal after his death. He reeled indignantly when Brittany denied the knowledge of a journal. The archer clenched her jaws and seethed.

Brittany loathed Nikolad's apathy. Still, the worst of the deeds had been done. She squeezed her eyes shut and wrung her hands, as if she could feel hapless beggar's blood dripping from her fingers. Her heart sank with regret and realization of her stupidity; she should have known better than to relinquish her trust so willingly. At the very least, she would retrieve the beggar's journal as Nikolad demanded. Perhaps inside its pages she could find evidence of the beggar's surviving family...or anyone who may have cared about the man.

The archer returned to the beggar's post in Pravat Cave and was slightly relieved when she found that someone had been kind enough to bury the poor soul. Her mouth was a grim line as she scoured the dirt surrounding the burial site. Finally, she spotted the remains of a once-proud journal nestled among the bushes. Anxiously, she scooped up the haggard pages and flipped through them. Indeed, the beggar had loved ones. Brittany could not be sure if they were still alive or already passed, but decided she would not be returning the journal to Nikolad; she would not be the catalyst of additional innocent bloodshed. The archer placed the journal deep into her pack and removed her blade. She would be delivering Nikolad a gift of her own.

She was still lost in her thoughts when she felt a hand placed upon her shoulder. She whipped around and lashed out all at once, expecting an assassination attempt. She gasped when she found she had run her blade through Nefarus, who had apparently returned from Rucesion early. The man leapt away from her instinctively with his hands clapped across his stomach. The moment afterwards, he stood regarding her questioningly. Brittany threw down her blade and dove to Nefarus desperately, horrified that she had stripped him of his life as well. She fell to her knees before him and wrenched his hands away from his stomach. However, when she inspected the area, she saw nothing out of the ordinary; even his robes were undamaged. The man cocked an eyebrow and gazed down at her. He quipped that she was getting slow in her old age.

When Brittany returned to her feet, she became sullen. She knew what she had seen—that there should have been two bodies buried in mounds of earth instead of just one. Nefarus stepped toward the archer and told her that he had stumbled upon a lead to possibly making The Arcane Entity appear once and for all. He motioned toward the cave, saying that the truth may have been right under their noses the entire time. Brittany's mind reeled with many things: memories; emotions; confusion. Her very soul pleaded for emotional release, yet she followed him deep into the cave. They found Chaos and stepped inside.

The archer instantly knew she had made a grave mistake by entering the cursed cavern. From what little she could see of the surroundings, the only passage forward was through narrow walkways guided by towering rock walls. Glowing eyes of every shade leered at her from the darkness and whispers of a foreign language drifted around her. Suddenly, vines of ice sprang up from beneath the pebbly earth, devouring her legs and waist. A crimson cloud of dust spun around her incapacitated form. She choked and coughed, twisting her body to reach back toward the entrance where Nefarus stood. She pleaded with him to help her escape the icy prison and stretched her fingers to touch him, but his smiling visage did not budge. Finally, she summoned the strength of the Tauren and broke though. She dove at Nefarus as she had outside the cave and was fully intent on carrying them both through the exit of the terrible place. But she bolted through the magical barrier alone, falling into the path beyond. She gazed into her outstretched arms and searched for Nefarus desperately.

She soon realized the dust settling into the cracks of her hands was the last she would ever see of the blazed hair man.

A short time later, Brittany returned to Tagor. She slumped at the very outskirts of the town, overlooking the churning sea below. Her legs dangled carelessly over the edge of the cliff and swayed as the ocean breeze nudged them. The archer was clearly ill. Her body was ragged, yet she could not eat. The gray rings peeking through the skin once fair around her eyes signaled her exhaustion, but she was plagued by nightmares.

She was familiar with countless Aislings, Mundanes, and books, and yet she had never learned of an illness such as her own. She saw Aislings—living, breathing beings, whose touch she could feel and scent she could smell—when others could not. She had spent several suns simply contemplating why she had the cruel affliction. Was she crazy? Cursed? Damned by higher powers? A distant memory eventually came to her. Her fingers held a delicate Nila blossom before her eyes, just as they had so many Deochs ago. The blossom's sooty petals only slightly stood out from the backdrop that was the darkening sky. Brittany barely remembered eating the Nila, but she clearly remembered the Mukul's warning. Dreams come true. And nightmares too.

She was no longer sure which portions of her life were real and which were visions. The archer flung the blossom into the sea and cursed herself for being so foolish when she was young. Did The Arcane Entity truly exist? What about the sea that now folded its arms over the lost blossom? Her reddened orbs narrowed to slits. She released herself from the need to know and the need to care. She was so tired...as her eyes finally closed, her body tipped forward and fell to the sea.

Brittany was a bough as she crashed into the waves. She buoyed for a few brief moments, much too weak to keep herself afloat, then slowly drifted under. A surge of water pressed the remaining air from her chest and her consciousness began to slip away. She peered upwards and watched as the surface quickly became more distant. The bubbles from her mouth suddenly became part of a glowing nimbus of bubbles at the surface. In a ripple, the nimbus parted and a scaled creature drifted through. Its mighty tail flailed and a clawed appendage reached to her. Another ripple split the water and the form was again engulfed in globules of air. A hand emerged from the fizz, then an arm, then finally a face. His black locks streamed around him as he clenched her arm in his fist and heaved her upwards. Brittany's consciousness did not reach the surface.

Warmth. Comfort. Life. Brittany opened her eyes. She found herself in an unfamiliar room filled with the most basal of necessities. A large cooking pot hung over a crackling fire and released an aroma so tantalizing she wondered how she managed to remain asleep. She laid upon a cot, cocooned in its woolen blankets. Several cooking utensils sat in proximity of the fire and casted their narrow shadows across her legs. The room lacked an exit save for the single door closed several feet across from the fire. She quickly noticed how her energy had returned and shoved the blankets off of her. How long had she been asleep?

The archer speedily shielded herself with the blankets again when the door swung open and clapped against the wall. In stumbled her rescuer, his back packed with an oddly-shaped bundle. He dropped the bundle to the floor and unintentionally spilled some of its contents across the floor: fruits and vegetables. A golden apple escaped across the floor and settled itself at the edge of the cot. He grimaced and shut the door, afterwards turning to collect the fiendish fruit. Their eyes met as he moved toward the cot and he froze in place; he was not expecting her to be awake.

Lost for any other words, Brittany said hello. She slowly dropped the blankets to her lap and studied the man. It was likely that he was taller than her, but he was unique in that she had never seen a more slender man. His black eyes were neither kind nor harsh and contrasted greatly to the milky white skin of his bare chest. He rubbed a slim hand over his sinash and crouched slowly to the apple, as if eager to keep the archer calm. Hello, he echoed, and rolled the apple onto her blanket. The druid was overcome with confusion when Brittany ignored the apple and darted from the cot. She threw her arms around his chest and squeezed firmly, pleading to him to tell her that he was real. The man grabbed her by the shoulders and wrenched her away, exclaiming that of course he was real, and that she must be delirious from lack of food. Brittany wilted back into the blankets and thanked the man for saving her life. Then they shared the pot of stew and introduced themselves.

The druid's name was Sacravis. He lived alone on the Tagorian countryside and made a living from hunting the nearby Cthonic Remains. He lived a quiet life but did well for himself, despite what the bare walls suggested. He was a fine cook and was skilled with communicating with nature. He explained that he had grown the stewed vegetables himself, as well. When the archer told him of her predicament, he only shrugged. He said he, too, was also sick; though he willingly merged his spirit with that of a reptilian creature he called a Komodas many Deochs prior, the wily lizard often had plans of its own. Sacravis stared into the fire and reminisced how he sometimes awakened on the forest floor, surrounded in half-devoured vegetables and apple cores.

Sacravis invited Brittany to stay in his home until she was ready to leave. The archer was no longer sure of her path and graciously accepted the offer. While he was away, she cleaned furiously, tended his crops, and completed any other task she thought would be helpful to him. While he was home, she attempted to cook for him. Her cooking never quite turned out the way she planned, but he seemed grateful for her effort. In the meantime, her strength and agility returned. She brandished her bow once again and provided meat for their meals. Many doublemoons passed and her happiness slowly began to return. Still, the effects of the Nila blossom gnawed at the back of her mind.

Eventually, Brittany leaned on the doorway of their humble home. She knew what had to be done—she must leave Tagor and gather what information she could on both of their illnesses. If there was no information to be found, then she would conduct the research herself. Sacravis approached from behind and gently sought her attention. She turned to him, and found that words were not necessary. Somehow his eyes reflected that he knew what she was going to say, and perhaps that he had been hoping it would never be said. He mustered his courage, embraced her, and told her that he would miss her company. She smiled and returned his affection. A thoughtful expression crossed her face and she said that he was not required to miss her.

The druid accepted her offer. They left Tagor together at dawn with no particular destination in mind.