There, in the depths, she found them. Atop a vast, bed spire, something that her mind interpreted as a volinel, surrounded by fathomless astral depths, she found a gree of coral, and a pool filled with a swirling, writhing mass of formless serpents, indistinguishably blending into one ahe Wound-like Grin gaped wide uporee, and the affirmation that these were eidolons made itself known to her. Specifically, Grade Three Lesser Eidolons; eidolons parable to those which had empowered Shiva’s Red Reapers and Yelloals. The deeper into the well she delved, the greater and more powerful the eidolons would grow. That was the knowledge which made itself known to her before the Wound-like Grin vanished.

  Through the mass she pushed, further and further still, feeling these kenomaic spirits rubbing against her, yet also passing through her as if she weren’t there. The mass of astral bodies gave way to a bottomless well, eidolons of increasingly greater magnitude hidden within recesses in its walls like eels. There, she went down, and what felt like ay passed before one of them shot out of the wall aered into her ribcage, vanishing within. A sed one followed, and what yawniiness she had felt upon awakening was suddenly filled, though only most of the way. Curious still she pushed a bit deeper, only to find ead every eidolon drawing back from her, no longer ied. The way above, too, had cleared, and as she exited this strange un-pce, she found the writhing mass of astral eels splitting in her wake.

  At the shore of the brine pool, upon a branch of the coral-tree, a raven made of smoke awaited, with eyes like burning coals.

  It opes beak, and said: “Gwah. Gwah. Gwah… a.”

  Then, it closed it, and ope again. This time, out came a horrible, distorted woman’s voio, not just a voice, but an atrociously pressed rec of I love Beijing, Tiahat song had a somewhat macabre otation, as Goujian II had erased Beijing from the map in his reguista of the mainnd, with the first of his fusion bombs having beeonated in the middle of a parade in Tiananmen Square by a CCP official who had been brainjacked and had the bomb impnted in his chest cavity. How that official actually met his unfortue was still a topic of heated discussion in Krahe’s time.

  Again, it closed its beak. Were the situation any different, she would have dismissed it, but she felt that it would be exceedingly foolish to dismiss something so explicitly foretold to her in a dream. So, she approached the bird, and, turning its head to stare at her with a single burning eye, it onade a his time, it was the tig of a geiger ter, followed by the ctter of something to the ground, and the smming of two heavy metal objects together. The tig instantly turned into a scream, and the noise was drowned out by buzzing.

  The Raven fell silent, and just as Krahe realized what that sequence of sounds meant, it flew off its perd dove headfirst into her chest, and no more did she feel an iota of that strange, intangible emptiness. She still felt a strange pull, a call to another pce deeper in the Gulf, but she knew better. Barzai had warned of this time and again, and so, she focused her will and carried out the Sign of Return. In an instant, the Astral Gulf fell away and she found herself in the ter of the Angle-web, disoriented and gasping for breath.

  Casus had been watg for hours now, cautiously looking out fns of the angle-web’s failure. Then, when he least expected it, the web colpsed. Unnatural darkness engulfed the room, and as light flooded ba, there came a high-pitch screech. If he didn’t know aer, he would have pahinking that Krahe had just triggered a full-blown Ar Fsh. pared to the tsunami of su event, this was a ping at the shore, and with it, Krahe washed up. In the middle of the floor, her astral form collected itself, and into it, three shapes of bckest bess ehen, she snapped into physicality, drawing in a desperate breath and gng about for a few moments.

  Before he could express his relief, however, something else began to take pce. A distortion made itself known under her bodysuit, right in the ter of her chest, like something trying to pull it apart. The visaterial tore, ah, a fanged maw into iothingness made itself known, running the whole length of her chest from the sternum to her waist. Out from the bck flew a bck bird, made of smoke and with coals for eyes, and the maed shut, vanishing in an instant. The only evide had been there - the ragged tear in Krahe’s suit. She stood, seemingly unaware of Casus’ presehe smokey raven nding on her shoulder.

  It was at this point that Krahe fully regained her bearings and realized Casus was sitting there.

  “Thank Zavesh,” he said. “When the clock struck the third hour, I began to sider whether to colpse the angle-web myself. I hope that you’ve succeeded in… Whatever was your reason to dive into the Gulf?”

  “Three hours?” she asked, gng at the clock. It had been over six hours. “...I’ve been down there for six. Christ.”

  “Christ?”

  “Don’t… Don’t worry about it,” she sighed, struggling to her feet. The Raven hopped off of her shoulder, tilting its head side to side. It moved as if to crow, and the sound of a geiger ter spiking came out, mimig the sound pattern of a raven’s caw.

  “Yeah, I did succeed. Got myself eidolons to work with.”

  “You… Carried out a Full Dive ritual and spent several hours iral Gulf in order to capture eidolons? Five me for casting doubt on your choices, but I must admit that even I, ckluster as my knowledge of occultism is, must wonder what led you to such a choi favour of a simpler spirit-calling rite.”

  She would’ve thought anyone else was mog her with such a question, but nothing in Casus’ tone or demeangested that his question was anything other than wholly genuine.

  Akaso