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Look alive, ACORNA.

Two members of the Order of the Storm have approached your camp; one is massive, and the other is shrouded in some kind of magical darkness. They’ve already attacked one of your comrades (though to be fair the term ‘comrade’ is doing some real heavy lifting there), and they’ve said that they’re after the Princess’ apprentice, aka YOU.

Fortunately for you, none of your so-called comrades know that you are the Princess’ apprentice except for Archangel, who isn’t about to give up her own Muse. Whenever she gets here, that is. You’re not sure what’s taking her so long, but you hope she hurries up and gets here to fix things soon!

“I won’t ask again,” the massive peryton from the Order of the Storm takes an intimidating step forward, and although you are surrounded by trained warriors, all of them take a step back when the peryton approaches. “Where is the Princess’ apprentice?”

“I-I think you have the wrong idea,” Hawthorn, legs shaking as he stands over his wounded Knight, is the first to speak up. “No one here is important enough to be the Princess’ apprentice, we’re all just humble warriors in her majesty’s army.”

“He’s right,” Popstar says sternly, taking a defiant step toward the peryton. “You come into our camp, attack one of our members, and start making demands, and yet you’re barking entirely up the wrong tree.”

Technically, Hawthorn and Popstar are both correct; the Order of the Shield is one of three Orders working directly under the Princess Vritra, and it is far and away the most neglected, with its members given no real autonomy outside of Vritra’s army, and treated as little more than underlings for the Order of the Sun and the Order of Mind.

This is something you generally appreciate about the Order, and supposedly it would make you difficult to detect, as no one would be looking for someone of your station in a group like this, but somehow you’ve been discovered.

“Perhaps you Shield Order failures are used to being wrong and useless about everything,” the peryton woman chuckles, “but the Order of the Storm doesn’t make mistakes like that!”

“Excuse me, ma’am?” you take a hesitant step forward and make your voice heard, though you tremble as the peryton gives you her attention. “Who is this apprentice you’re looking for? What’s their name, what do they look like?”

You’ve been standing here for a while, if they would’ve recognized you on sight, they would’ve just taken you. It seems worthwhile to see if you can prod them for information and figure out what exactly they DO know.

“The details of the Princess’ apprentice are kept a secret by ‘her majesty’,” the peryton puts a notable amount of disgust in her voice at those last two words. “We have no idea what her name is or what she looks like, but we have a method of identifying her.

“I had thought that her comrades would know her identity,” the peryton lets out another chuckle and shakes her head, “but I suppose not. In that case, she’ll simply have to show herself before I start maiming every single one of you Shield scum!”

“If you think the two of you are a match for the thirty-six of us,” Popstar scoffs, “you’re more than welcome to try us.”

The other warriors rally behind Popstar as he makes his defiant statement, though you can’t help but wonder if the thirty-six warriors here really ARE a match for the peryton. The Order of the Shield is historically stocked with weak deer, especially those that are outcast from other Orders, and none of their spells, especially at lower levels, are terribly suited for offensive pressure.

You wonder what the hell is taking Archangel so long and you resolve to try and keep stalling until she arrives.

“Ma’am,” you speak clearly, and the peryton once again gives you her attention, but you can tell from the unenthused look on her face that her patience is wearing thin. “May I ask for you and your partner’s names? At the very least, we could fight with some measure of honor.”

“I am Camellia,” the peryton says proudly, before tilting her head toward her Muse. “My Muse goes by the name Le Doeyon, and you will refer to it as such.”

You suppose you shouldn’t be surprised that the deer shrouded in a dark mystery fog goes by an alias. You wonder what it’s hiding, or if it’s just trying to be cool and aloof.

“And may I ask your name in return, little miss?” Camellia asks, taking another step forward that seems to send a chill up the spines of the collected Shield warriors.

“My name is Acorna,” you answer honestly; if they don’t know the apprentice’s name then there’s no real reason for you to hide it, though immediately after answering you start wondering if maybe you should’ve replied with an alias anyway, just to be safe.

“I see,” Camellia nods thoughtfully. “Acorna, where is your other half?”

“I’m here,” Archangel states as she drops out of the sky, taking a defensive stance in front of you and flaring out her wings. She turns to look at you with a warm smile and whispers, “Sorry I kept you waiting.”

“No worries,” you reply, a sigh of relief resonating through your entire body.

“I take it you are also the leader of this encampment?” Camellia asks, sizing Archangel up. “You seem to have more backbone in you than any of your underlings.”

“I’ve seen a battle or two in my lifetime,” Archangel chuckles. “Now unless you want to be just another joke I tell around the campfire, I’d recommend you pack your Muse back up and go back to where you came from.”

“I won’t leave without the apprentice,” Camellia says sternly, and you start to feel sick. You were hoping that somehow once Archangel got here, she’d be able to talk Camellia down and you could all avoid a fight, but that is looking less and less likely by the second.

“The only thing you’re taking away from this battle,” Archangel chuckles, before snarling at Camellia and activating her magic, “is the shame of defeat!”

Archangel charges at Camellia, who reacts with a sinister smirk and flares out her wings, the feathers at the tip glowing with blue energy before exploding in a crackling ring of electricity that shocks Archangel and stops her in her tracks, your Knight falling to the ground with a pained scream.

You try to shout her name, but anxiety chokes the word in your throat. You should’ve been there for her, you should’ve protected her from that attack! What are you DOING?!

Archangel gets up in a second, jumping back a safe distance away from Camellia before sizing her opponent up again. She shouts a command for the other warriors to attack, and the camp breaks out in battle cries and screams as the thirty-six deer—or at least the eighteen Knights—charge Camellia and Le Doeyon.

“Like shooting fish in a barrel,” Camellia mutters ominously, and you can see the faint glow of Le Doeyon’s hooves as it plants them into the ground, the earth itself trembling from Le Doeyon’s magic.

Eight spheres of light blue magic rise slowly from the ground, each of them crackling inside and outside with electrical magic.

“This spell, it’s—“ Archangel reacts in alarm. “FALL BA—“

Before she can finish her command, the spheres EXPLODE, sending shockwaves and bolts of lightning through the camp, tearing through deer and tree and magic alike. You managed to cast your shield before they erupted, but it barely dulls the blow as it shatters around you, the lightning tearing through your body like boiling water poured on your unprotected skin.

In the chaos, you manage to hide underneath a table. The spell might have put you in searing pain, but the little bit of buffer allowed you by your shield meant you were at least left on your hooves, even while the rest of the camp lied broken, battered, and unconscious around you, pillars of smoke rising from the limp bodies of your allies.

They’re all still breathing; deer magic isn’t capable of KILLING, but you wonder how many of them are still conscious after that.

“That spell…” Archangel groans, barely managing to get back to her hooves, “what ring was—“

“Fifth,” Camellia says with a cocky smirk on her face, and while you can’t see Archangel’s expression from under the table, you can hear her gasp.

“Fifth?!” she says in awe and rising panic.

“Le Doeyon has seen more than just a battle or two in its lifetime,” Camellia’s words drip with pride for her Muse.

The magic of Naravalon is divided into nine rings, with higher number rings containing more complicated and powerful spells. Most deer won’t ever get past the third ring in their lifetimes. Archangel has reached the fourth.

This isn’t good. You’re about ready to have a mental breakdown hiding underneath this table. You can barely stand the hazing from your supposed allies, if your ENEMIES catch you… you don’t want to think about what might happen. You need to get out of here!

You crawl out from under the table and run as fast as you can away from the camp.

“Where do you think you’re going, little miss?!” Camellia calls out, and you try to run even faster, but the massive and threatening peryton is hot on your trail, and is much, MUCH faster than you.

Thankfully you have a Knight to protect you, and she quickly stands guard between you and Camellia.

Unfortunately, just as Archangel is getting her second wind and preparing to do battle with Camellia, you see an orb of lightning rising from the ground between you and Archangel.

“ACORNA, RU—“

There is no running from this. You turn to keep running from the camp, but you are surrounded by those spheres of lightning on all sides. Archangel grabs you and casts a protective shield over you both, and while it is just as easily shattered as yours when the spheres explode, you can feel Archangel and her barrier protecting you, and you remain conscious even through the pain.

You lie on the ground, your body singed and smoking all over. Archangel lies on top of you, barely conscious. She looks at you with her single eye glazed over.

“Run,” she mutters weakly.

“Where will she run TO?” Camellia laughs as she shoves Archangel aside. The massive peryton puts her hoof on your neck and pushes down, choking the breath out of you. “I’ll teach you to defy the Order of—OOF!”

Camellia is thrown aside by Archangel’s magic, your Knight having summoned a magic glyph that repels the target, and with that move she’s given you an opportunity to escape. You intend to make good on it.

You stumble to your hooves and run; your direction doesn’t matter, any direction that’s AWAY from Camellia and Le Doeyon is good enough. Camellia screams and you can see her in your peripherals trying to charge at you again, but she’s stopped short by Archangel’s magic.

You run and you run and you keep running, long after your legs have become numb in the icy cold. Long after the sounds of battle have stopped echoing in your ears. Long after you realize you’re completely lost and the world starts to blur around you.

You can’t stop running.

Until you do.

You collapse from exhaustion in the middle of a grassy meadow, the edges of the blades of grass frosted over. It’s cold to the touch, but after your harrowing experience with getting fried alive, it feels like putting an ice pack on a hot wound.

It’s relaxing enough for you to almost fall asleep, but you force yourself to stay awake and to rise to your hooves. You’re still in danger, and you—

A shock runs through your entire body. Blood pools in your mouth. Your legs give out from underneath you, and your eyelids become too heavy to stay open.

Wake up, ACORNA.

After the experience at the tower, you were thoroughly exhausted. You hardly talked to anyone, and went straight to bed, nestling in a thick group of bushes on the outskirts of the camp. Sleeping with others watching you makes you nervous.

But the sudden feeling of being shoved out of your bed wakes you up instantly. You try to raise your voice to ask what’s going on, but as soon as you open your mouth, a deer shoves a wad of cloth inside; only then do you realize that there’s a group of deer surrounding you, and they’re tying your legs down.

You try to struggle and protest, but by the time you understand what’s going on, you’re already thoroughly tied up, with the only measure left to be taken is one of the deer untying the bandana around your neck and tying it around your mouth instead, keeping your voice muffled with the wad of cloth inside.

Your attackers drag you off, slinging insults at you and mocking you for being such an easy target, before they bring you to a tree with a long rope hanging from it, which they tie your bindings to and leave you suspended helplessly from the tree.

You squirm to try and get free, and when that doesn’t work you let out some muffled pleas to be let go, but shockingly that doesn’t seem to convince your captors to free you. they laugh at your pathetic misfortune before leaving you hanging helplessly, likely until you’re discovered by Archangel in the morning.

Notably, you are not the only deer to have been subject to this fate today.

“Mmmph,” Hawthorn, one of the other Muses in your camp, offers a sympathetic moan.

“Hrmph,” Wolfberry, Hawthorn’s Knight, does nothing but grunt irritably. Wolfberry’s a proud deer, so this kind of routine humiliation must be hitting him right where he lives.

For you, it’s frustrating and humiliating, but not altogether unsurprising. This is the kind of hazing the Order of the Shield subjects its weaker members to on a regular basis, especially the Muses.

If a Muse can’t pull her weight, she gets strung up from the trees and subjected to public ridicule, both as a method for the other members of the Order to feel superior, and to make a point to the Muse’s Knight. A Knight that can’t protect their Muse is equally subject to ridicule as a Muse who can’t support their Knight, as Wolfberry seems to have found out the hard way.

Welp. Nothing to be done for it but wait for Archangel. She’ll come to your rescue eventually, always does. It’s just a question of how long you’ll be stuck up here and how stiff your limbs will be by the time you get down.

It isn’t until the first light of sunrise though that Archangel finally wakes up and finds you hanging from the trees. She stares wide-eyed up at the three of you for a moment, before groaning in frustration and slapping a hoof against her forehead.

You feel awful, and your face turns a bright, hot red as you grumble shamefully to yourself.

Archangel frees the three of you momentarily, and Wolfberry lets out a frustrated scream.

“Archangel!” he balks. “You can’t let the soldiers under your command keep getting away with this!”

“I don’t want to hear anything from a Knight who couldn’t even protect himself OR his own Muse, Wolfberry,” Archangel snaps with a fierce snarl, Wolfberry immediately relenting with a frustrated scoff. It’s rare to see Archangel get so worked up, and you don’t like it.

“Whatever,” Wolfberry mutters, “if this happens again, I’m leaving this Order.”

“Good, spare us the dead weight,” Archangel growls. “Why don’t you do us all a favor and join the Order of the Storm? Our expeditions would be a lot easier if all their soldiers were as weak as you are.”

Wolfberry doesn’t muster up another response, he just glare in impotent frustration at Archangel, before hanging his head and walking away with his tail between his legs.

“Thank you for getting us down, Archangel,” Hawthorn bashfully mutters.

“It’s fine,” Archangel sighs. She doesn’t say anything else, and Hawthorn takes off sheepishly, limping along as one of his forelegs is paralyzed and his captors didn’t leave him with his mobility aid.

“That was a side of you I hadn’t seen before,” you say.

“Hopefully you won’t have to see it again,” Archangel says coldly, and then sighs and hangs her head in frustration. “I’m just sick of all this hazing bullshit. And I want to apologize to you, I should’ve been there to protect you. That was my failure and no one else’s.”

“I understand being sick of the hazing,” you hum, “believe me, I’m sick of it too. But why take it out on THEM?”

“Acorna,” Archangel looks down at you with a frustrated glower, and you can tell that she’s trying hard to keep it together, “maybe someday you’ll be in a leadership position and understand how it feels to have weak deer under your command, dragging you down like an iron weight around your neck.

“Pray that you don’t. Pray that you never have to be the one responsible for the weak links in a formation.”

“Do you think I’m a weak link?” your words come out with a spiteful venom, more accusation than question.

“Of course not, sweetheart,” Archangel says with a warm smile, her demeanor switching so thoroughly on a dime that it strikes you as insincere. “You’re my Muse, and I’ll always stand by you no matter what.

“I’m invested in your growth, so I would never treat you the way I treat someone like Wolfberry. I don’t give a shit what happens to Wolfberry, I just want him to get off my back.”

“I don’t… think that makes it better,” you mutter in frustration, more to yourself than to Archangel, who you know isn’t listening.

“Well then,” Archangel shrugs, “pray you never have to lead a team. God knows I didn’t ask for this hell.”

As you wander into the camp during the morning breakfast rush, you hear the cackling and joking of your fellow members of the Order of the Shield. Many of them got a look at you hanging from the trees before Archangel got you down, a decent chunk of them were probably in on it in the first place.

You trek through the camp alone; Archangel is in charge of operations for the whole group, so she can’t accompany you all of the time like a normal Knight would for their Muse, and you can’t stand to be cooped up in her office tent all day any more than she can, so you weather the storm of insults and hazing if it means getting to stretch your legs a bit.

Besides, you’re relatively safe during the daylight hours, it’s only with the darkness of night and the anonymity it provides that anyone would dare hassle you. Anyone caught giving you a hard time would be cast out of the camp by Archangel, forced to wander the desolate wasteland of Stagliostro the Sunless Realm on their own.

Starving or freezing in the wilderness would be a mercy, compared to what might happen to an exiled deer if they’re caught by the Order of the Storm, the notoriously violent band of marauders that call Stagliostro their home.

There’s a massive frozen lake to the south, you can just barely see it from the camp, along with the mountain that rises from the center of it. To the east, a thin canopy of forest is all that separates your Order from the Sea of Salt, a sentient wasteland that actively thirsts for the blood of deer.

And to the north is… nothing. You’re not actually sure what’s up north, but you’re pretty sure it’s nothing. And of course all that lies east is the tower, lying in the midst of a massive river that stretches from one end of Naravalon to the other.

None of this matters to you though. It’s not like you have any freedom to go where you want to, you barely have the freedom to traverse your own campsite, the way various members of the Order form little cliques and antagonize each other.

“Acorna,” you’re disrupted from your thoughts as Popstar, another one of the Knights from your Order, accosts you. “I heard about what happened to you last night.”

“Is that right?” you say drolly. “Dang, and here I was hoping that at least one single deer managed to avoid hearing about my humiliating ordeal.”

“Nope!” Mosaic, Popstar’s Muse, chimes in. “It’s pretty much all anyone’s been able to talk about all morning! I heard about it like fifty times while mixing drinks!”

“Cool thanks,” you say flatly.

“Ahem,” Popstar, ever the serious one, clears his throat to try and get back on topic, regardless of how much you would rather not discuss this particular topic. “I just wanted to say, if you’re worried about the other deer giving you a hard time, you can always come to me. I’ll protect you.”

“Aww, what a gentleman,” Mosaic coos sarcastically, and Popstar shoots her an irritated glare.

“I’m simply offering a basic courtesy,” Popstar harrumphs. “All this petty infighting is such a waste of time, if I can do my part to put a stop to it and consolidate our forces, then—“

“Big talk coming from you,” Wolfberry growls as he and Hawthorn approach the table you’re sitting at with Popstar. You groan under your breath, immediately seeing that this is about to become a whole thing. “Considering how much work YOUR Muse does to inflame all this ‘petty infighting’.”

“Such sass, Wolfberry,” Mosaic hums innocently. “I just go along with the crowd. If the other troops wanna talk about humiliating the weaker Muses, I laugh alongside them. If they wanna talk about gutting members of the Order of the Storm, I go along with that too. It’s pretty much just those two things anyone wants to talk about these days.”

“Goodness knows no one wants to talk about the tower,” Hawthorn adds, his voice a tepid whimper.

“And how exactly does your approach NOT encourage them, Mosaic?” Wolfberry growls.

“Well, Wolfberry,” Mosaic shrugs, “I advise you to suck my fat dick about it. I dunno if you noticed this, but to the bullies of this camp these wheels of mine might as well be a big ‘kick me’ sign. So

you’ll have to excuse me if I do what I can to not be a target.

“Maybe if you weren’t such a little bitch boy, YOU wouldn’t be one of their favorite targets, hm? How’s it feel to know everyone in this camp thinks of you as a Muse instead of as a Knight?”

Wolfberry snarls at Mosaic, but Popstar loudly clears his throat and stands directly in between their lines of sight toward each other. You, sitting in the middle of all this, just feel extremely awkward. You would love to just walk away, if doing so didn’t nearly guarantee them dragging you directly into their argument somehow.

“Wolfberry,” Popstar says sternly, “I think you should pay more attention to your own Muse than mine. You’re not—“

“Another banger, coming from YOU, Popstar!” Wolfberry lets out a single irritated cackle. “Why don’t you follow your own advice, and stop making constant doe eyes at MY Muse?!”

“If you want to fight,” Popstar growls, “I’ll be happy to accommodate you. Let’s step into the ring, Wolfberry. Or do you want to find a REAL Knight to protect you first?”

“JEGUS CHRISTMAS, ENOUGH ALREADY!” you shout at the top of your lungs, stomping your hooves on the table. “Wolfberry, stop trying to displace your self-loathing onto Popstar and Mosaic! Popstar, stop complaining about ‘petty infighting’ and then immediately getting into a pissing contest with Wolfberry! Mosaic, you’re annoying but I see you’re point, you get a pass.”

“Thank you, dearie,” Mosaic chuckles to herself.

“What about me?” Hawthorn asks concernedly.

“Hawthorn, I’m sorry you have to put up with all this,” you groan into your hooves.

“I can accept that,” Hawthorn giggles softly into his own hoof.

“Admittedly,” Popstar awkwardly clears his throat, his cheeks turning a bright read, “I might’ve gotten a little carried away. I apologize.”

“Yeah, okay,” you sigh irritably. “I appreciate your original offer though, Popstar. But I’ve got Archangel, so I don’t—“

“Archangel sure did a fat lot of good last night,” Wolfberry grumbles.

“Shut up, Wolfberry,” you, Mosaic, and Popstar all say in near perfect unison.

Wolfberry, having been so massively owned that he might as well shrink inside himself and die, decides to leave the table without another word. Hawthorn stays behind for a moment, but Wolfberry clears his throat sternly, and Hawthorn reacts with a wince, before waving goodbye and following his Knight.

“I swear,” Popstar harrumphs and shakes his head, “Hawthorn deserves to be with a Knight that appreciates him.”

“If I was as obvious about anything as you are about your crush on Hawthorn,” Mosaic says, “I think I would have to live in a cave to escape from my shame. It would be the only way to live without being a constant embarrassment.”

“I don’t have a ‘CRUSH’,” Popstar argues, putting such severe emphasis on the word ‘crush’ that it just makes his crush even more obvious. “I’m just saying, they’re a mismatched duo.”

“And let me guess,” Mosaic smirks devilishly, “YOU would be a much better Knight for Hawthorn, am I right?”

“I’m not, um, I’m not saying that,” Popstar’s face turns bright red again and he frets with his cape.

“You aren’t NOT saying that though, are you?” you decide to join in on the teasing, just a little bit. You so rarely get to have one up on anyone, you figure you might as well enjoy this fleeting moment while it lasts.

“All I’m saying is that those two are mismatched,” Popstar awkwardly tries to keep up a serious and stern posture, even though his legs are obviously shaking and there’s practically steam pouring off his face in this cold weather. “That’s ALL I’m saying.”

“Are you accusing the Princess of a rare lapse in judgment?” Mosaic chuckles.

“I’m certain if the Princess herself were assigning Knights and Muses personally,” Popstar’s tone becomes genuinely severe as soon as the Princess is mentioned, “she never would have put those two together.”

“Do you think she would’ve put US together, Popstar?” Mosaic asks with a sickeningly palpable layer of faux-innocence, blinking her eyes at Popstar in a mock attempt at cuteness.

“No comment,” Popstar grumbles.

You can’t help but chuckle, not only at the awkward dynamic between Mosaic and Popstar, but also at Popstar’s complete lack of understanding of the Princess Vritra.

You have spent many expeditions by daylight and long conversations by moonlight with the Princess, and you can say for absolute certain that she would find the jarring juxtaposition between Wolfberry and Hawthorn’s personalities extremely funny. So too would she be amused by Mosaic and Popstar’s arguments.

You hear a loud crash coming from the south, and it immediately grabs the attention of you and the other two at your table. Popstar, ever one to stick his nose in things, is off like a shot. Mosaic, bound to his side by her contract as his Muse, groans in frustration and follows him. You have a bad feeling (but when do you not) but decide to follow the two and see what’s up.

The three of you head to the southbound border of your Order’s camp, where nearly all of the thirty-six deer stationed at the camp have collected. Wolfberry lies on the ground, electricity sparking all over his body, with Hawthorn standing over him tending to his wounds.

Standing tall a little ways from him is a peryton whose wings are crackling with electricity. She is MASSIVE, not necessarily in height, but definitely in build, and behind her stands a deer shrouded by a mask that seems to be enchanted, given the way it obfuscates their entire body in a bizarre haze.

Watch your step, ACORNA.

You stand before a massive tower, an alien construction of pure magic, formed by the gnarled roots of a withering tree. A curse has been placed upon the roots, forcing them to twist into the hideous shape of this tower that rises high enough to touch the clouds in the sky.

The tower sits atop a small islet, the soft dirt giving way underneath your hooves and making you painfully aware of the ice cold sea far below. If you were alone, you would be absolutely terrified. Comforted by the presence of your Knight, you are only MILDLY terrified.

“How are you feeling, Acorna?” your Knight, an elderly woman by the name of Archangel, takes your hoof and guides you gently to the tower’s front gate.

“I’ll be alright,” you nod your head confidently. You are nervous as hell, but you promised that you would rise to the occasion and be the Muse that your Knight needs you to be.

The purpose of a Knight is to protect their Muse, and the purpose of a Muse is to support their Knight! Archangel does a great job of protecting you, she’s been a powerful warrior and a legendary war hero since probably before you were born.

Meanwhile you are… less storied. You were assigned such a legendary and storied Knight due to being the personal apprentice of Princess Vritra, the sole ruler of the nation of Naravalon, but you didn’t really do anything to EARN that apprenticeship or the Knight you were given, so the pressure to make Archangel proud of you rests heavy on your shoulders.

Not helped by you being stuck in the shadow of the Princess’ previous apprentice, who was famous for her magical ability and her charisma.

It’s a lot, and you often find yourself getting drowned in the mire of pressure and anxiety and all that stuff. But right now, you need to focus! There is a task at hoof, and you need to present!

The giant gnarled tower was created by Naravalon’s own magic, and the Princess has determined that the tower’s creation was a reaction to the activation of a powerful magic artifact that now lies at the heart of the tower.

You and Archangel head into the tower now in search of that artifact. You are not the first to enter, and many deer who approach the tower are driven out by its magic. You can’t afford to let the same thing happen to you.

You expect some massive, harrowing threat as you and Archangel stride through the front gate and enter the tower, but the inside is pretty normal. Structures built into the insides of great trees is nothing new to you, and the tower matches what you would expect from a normal treehouse, albeit with a faint olive green sheen of magical energy.

The most notable feature of the entryway is a series of statues, twisted into the vague shape of monstrous deer, whose eyes glow with magic power and glare intimidatingly down at you.

Looking up at them, you feel yourself shaking, a frightened scowl painting itself on your face. But you feel a soft wing covering your back, and Archangel gives you a warm smile, which helps you to feel at ease, at least a little bit.

You follow Archangel further into the tower, the peryton walking with the confident stride expected of someone who has seen countless battles and lived to tell the tale. Your stride is more meek and pathetic, but you make sure to stick as close to Archangel as possible without getting in her way or bumping into her.

As you walk by the statues, their gnarled heads twist around to face you, their eyes penetrating your mind with their soulless stares no matter where you go, until Archangel shuts the door to the entryway behind the two of you, and you swallow your fear and try to relax a little now that those creepy eyes aren’t looking directly at you.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Archangel chuckles and gives you a light tap on the shoulder. “One room down.”

“Y-yeah,” you nod anxiously. “How many rooms are there, do we know?”

“No clue,” Archangel shrugs and looks around at the room in front of you both.

The terrain is flat, with four pillars of twisting wood occupying the center. There are doors in every direction, and massive foliage juts out from the corners of the room both in front and behind you.

“All we’ve gathered from our scouts thus far,” Archangel says as she trots forward, taking a curious glance around the room, “is these first five rooms. This one, the one we just passed, and these three that connect from this one.”

You follow along behind her, even though you feel safer in a secluded corner where there’s less space for a surprise attack, though you suppose you shouldn’t write off the possibility that there could be enemies coming out of the walls.

“Well, I suppose I should say ‘four’ rooms,” Archangel hums and taps a hoof against the northernmost door, which has no knob or lever or any visual indication of how to open it. “None of our scouts have been able to figure out how to open this door, but you can tell by tapping against it that there’s a room behind.

“Here,” Archangel smiles at you and nods her head toward the door, “take a listen.”

You don’t want to, you would prefer to just put your head down and make linear progress as much as possible, maybe just come in and get the artifact and then bounce. But you suppose that’s not realistic, and you don’t want Archangel to think you’re a big scaredy cat, so you wander over and put your ear against the door.

Archangel taps against it, and you can hear a faint echo from the other side. She wasn’t lying, there’s definitely a room back there, it isn’t just more tree and the door isn’t just for decoration.

“Sh-should we, um, try to figure out how to open it?” you ask, dreading the answer.

“No,” Archangel shakes her head. “Our mission here is to investigate the rooms that our scouts have already charted for us, and try to figure out what caused our scouts to turn tail from those rooms.”

“Great,” you sigh dismally, clinging to Archangel like a security blanket.

“Worry not, my Muse,” Archangel puts a comforting wing around you and dons a confident grin, “your Knight will protect you.”

You smile back at her, feeling very protected. She really has a way of making you feel safe, though you suppose her reputation goes a long way for that. Any Muse would kill for a Knight with such an impressive battle history.

It almost makes you wonder… no way you’re Archangel’s first Muse. You briefly wonder what might’ve happened to the ones that came before you, but you decide to put that very eerie thought out of your mind.

“Let’s go this way,” Archangel nods toward the western door and trots toward it, with you following close behind of course. You dread what might be behind that door, but Archangel opens it up with no fear.

The room behind the door is completely empty. There is a single door, aside from the one you just entered through, lying on the northern wall. A road of glittering blue magic traces an L shape from one door to the other, but distressingly that path is also marked with the blood of deer.

“Hm, if that isn’t a sure sign to brace yourself, I don’t know what is,” Archangel chuckles and walks further into the room with you in tow.

The ground is covered in thick branches and roots and stuff, you’re not really sure you know the proper vernacular. But you can’t see your hooves beneath you buried under what looks and almost feels like dusty straw hay. Underneath your hooves, you can feel dirt and mud, and you hope that’s all it is.

Archangel inspects the northern door, and just like the northern door in the last room, there’s no indication that this door can open, but a knock on its surface reveals the presence of a room behind it.

“Hmm, do you see anything, Acorna?” Archangel asks, and you snap to attention, but have nothing to report.

“N-no,” you mutter. “Should I?”

“I don’t know,” Archangel hums. “Clearly there’s something in this room we should be worried about,” Archangel points toward the trail of blood, “but it has yet to reveal itself, even after I went through all the trouble of intentionally tracing the clearly dangerous path.”

You ought to ask if perhaps you should just turn back now. Or at least that’s what you WANT to ask, but you know the answer would be no, and you don’t want to reveal yourself for the frightened puppy that you are, so you hold your tongue.

“M-maybe whatever it is,” you say fretfully, hiding behind Archangel, “it got its fill from whatever scrape left that blood trail?”

“Hmm, perhaps,” Archangel ponders. She looks back at you and gives you a comforting smile, and you try to nervously smile back at her. “I would like you to figure it out, Acorna.”

“Wh-what?! Why me?” you gulp down your anxiety as the color drains from your face.

“Because, I want to see you apply yourself,” Archangel says sternly. “You’re a smart, creative young lady, I KNOW you have the brains to figure out this puzzle, but instead you’re hiding behind me like a frightened puppy.”

“I, um,” your face turns bright red and you awkwardly sidestep out from behind Archangel’s body.

“Being afraid is nothing to be ashamed of, sweetheart,” Archangel says softly, tilting up your chin with a gentle touch of her hoof. “But to become the deer I KNOW you can be, you can’t hide from it forever. I need you to confront your fear, so that you can become a Muse that is as worthy of praise as me. Can you do that for me?”

You’re overwhelmed. Not just by your anxiety, but by the pure faith that Archangel places in you. Wow do you not feel worthy of it, and yet she gives it freely to you regardless. You would feel like a real shithead if you took that for granted, so you take in a deep breath and, as the words get caught in your throat, offer a semi-confident nod.

Archangel returns the gesture, then gently prods you closer toward the center of the room.

Your fear makes the potential threats seem endless, but if you apply a little bit of critical thinking, there are only a few realistic conclusions to draw from. Granted, how much ‘realism’ can be applied when talking about magic and curses is up for debate, but it still makes sense to go over the realistic options first and cross them off if nothing else.

The room is empty, so the natural conclusions would be that the hidden enemies are above you, below you, or hidden in the walls. You look up and the twisted roots dangling from the ceiling put into stark reminder that you are inside a tree, but otherwise you don’t see anything notable.

Considering the floor of this room is shrouded in straw and brambles and shit, a feature that is thus far unique to this room, you suspect the answer lies beneath your hooves.

The tips of your hooves glow with a faint blue light as you cast a spell, and a barrier of blue light surrounds you, pushing the obfuscating foliage away and allowing you a clear look at the ground. Pitch black dirt and mud, and unsurprisingly it’s tainted with faint patches of dried blood. It’s gross, but not unusual.

“Find anything?” Archangel asks, trotting up behind you.

“I suspect whatever we’re looking for is hidden under this straw stuff,” you explain, “but I haven’t found it yet. Do you wanna speed things along?”

“Would that I could,” Archangel sighs, “but I don’t have the spells for such a thing. I wouldn’t be any faster than you.

“Oh well,” Archangel says with a shrug. “Let’s go check out the last room, then we can circle back to this one if need be.”

“Sure,” you nod, and Archangel glides over to the eastern door. You take a second look at the exposed ground left in the wake of your spell, before shrugging yourself and following behind Archangel, dispelling your shield.

“Hey, Acorna, do you think—“

You don’t have the luxury of hearing how Archangel’s sentence ends; before you can even tell what’s going on, you feel something rough latching onto your hind leg and you’re quickly dragged underneath the straw and pinned to the ground.

You try to let out a scream, but it comes out as a sputtering, bloodied cough as your chest is pierced by a thin, sharp object. Your hooves glow blue as you try to cast your barrier spell, but a claw wraps itself around your throat and drags your face down into the mud, choking you and breaking your concentration.

You try to lift your body, but your limbs are all shackled by your mysterious hidden attacker, leaving you pinned to the ground, sputtering for breath in the thick black mud.

Suddenly, a brilliant blue light shines through the darkness as Archangel’s magic shoves the hay and muck aside. She stands over you and after a flash of red light, a sigil appears underneath you and you can feel yourself freed from your shackles. Before you can get your bearings, Archangel

pulls you up out of the muck.

“Hey, it’s okay,” she says softly as she wraps her forelegs around you in a comforting hug, as you breathe heavily from shock and fear. “Can you cast your spell?”

You nod your head and light up your hooves, casting a barrier around you and Archangel. You cling tightly to her like a drowning doe clings to a piece of flotsam in the ocean.

“Wh-what was—“

Before you can even finish your question, the answer appears before you. A skeletal deer rises from the muck and bramble, its hollow eyes lit by the tower’s olive green magic. It’s not the first time you’ve seen necromancy at work, but the thought that those rough, sharp objects grabbing you were BONES still makes your stomach turn.

Four skeletal deer surround you and Archangel, but they’re kept at bay by both of your magic.

“Is this all?” Archangel scoffs, but as you start to get your bearings a little bit, you can see Archangel’s forelegs scraped up by the skeletons’ claws, or their jagged hooves or whatever. “Alright, back me up, Acorna!”

You can’t muster up a response; all you can do is whimper and bury yourself in Archangel’s embrace, clinging onto her tightly.

“Alright,” she sighs softly and gently brushes through your hair, “let’s get out of here. I think we’ve gotten to the bottom of what’s been hassling our scouts.”

“Mhm,” is all you can say.

You keep your eyes tightly shut, trying your best to focus on your barrier spell as Archangel carries you out of the room, galloping out of the tower altogether with you tightly clinging to her all the while. It’s only after you leave and you open your eyes that you realize your barrier spell fizzled a while ago from your anxiety disrupting your concentration.

“I’m sorry,” you say dismally as you let go of Archangel, only to grab ahold of her in terror immediately after the soft dirt outside the tower gives too much way to your hoof as you step on it.

“It’s okay, Acorna,” Archangel says with a warm smile and a gentle tone. “You confronted your fears a little bit today. Baby steps are still steps, and they still move you forward. I’m proud of you.”

Aww, don’t be scared, little reader. It’s just your little ol’ rascally rabbit from Pond’s second blog. I’ve just stopped by to give a little present for this “100-follower” milestone, even if it’s a bit… unfinished.

What kind of present? Well, I’m glad you asked!

From what I understand, Pond’s been working on this little thing for months. Something called “The Four Nightmares”, if that rings a bell. A retelling of the events leading up to The Bite of ‘83 with some—

Oh, wait, telling you anything else would be spoiling the surprise! I’ll just leave you to guess and speculate as most of you in this “fandom” always do.

In the meantime, enjoy your gift!

What is wrong with you, James.