Defeated and lost.

  Betrayed and rendered obsolete.

  Everything ever done

  Everything ever lost

  Rendered meaningless.

  Yet, nevertheless, you all persist

  You all continue on.

  Residuals unabsorbed.

  Leftovers unassimilated.

  Shadows without reflections,

  Screaming to the endless aether,

  Whose hands beg for relief,

  To which none is offered.

  A cold and frigid silence permeated throughout the chamber, as if time had ceased through heat death… Nothing changing; nothing happening… Even though things continued to move forward. Wisp and dust, flakes and glimmer, slightly more cyanic than pinkish, radiated away as if dissolving, melting, and evaporating…

  With the colossus dead, its essence was slowly but surely decaying—a process that could take thousands of years at the least; millions of years for the most girthy. Decay rates varied, of course, especially when essence had transmuted itself or synthesized into derivative composites which tended to last longer, given the different material states and physical properties.

  The crystalline chamber being a product of its essence, much of the crystalline composites, rock, compounds, and everything else once connected, imbued with, its essence were thus slowly decomposing into associated residuals and free-floating quintessence. The structural integrity seemed stable for now, even if this whole area was destined to eventually collapse on itself.

  The foreigner was in no rush, however… Her hands tightly gripped her sides, fractured ribs and squeezed insides; she simply…strolled forth, enduring the piercing pain… Even though she had automatic repair functions encoded within her essence, such were no true substitutes for proper medical attention…

  Her mind was not really capable of…reflecting or contemplating anything this moment; not that…anomalous entity; not those words that she could somewhat understand; nor even what had even happened to the priestess… Such raised so many questions indeed, none of which she cared to ask, let alone answer.

  Instead, she limped her way to the causalities of this failed so-called ‘rescue’; the causalities of her own utter failure and negligence.

  That shield adventurer was the closest…relatively. Thus, she started with him…or his scattered dismembered pieces at least… The kinetic impact of that lancing rod and the subsequent detonation had…

  Well, there was not much really left to be found as a single whole.

  She tried to find his head, but…was unable to; she only found fragments of skull, brain-matter, jaw-bone, and surprisingly intact eyeballs. Since the chance factor of…essence’s weird quirk of self-deletion was low…with this sort of total and holistic head-brain destruction, his essence…had likely ‘survived’.

  Much like this chamber, his essence—the essence of everyone here—was also now in a state of slow and gradual ‘decomposition’—one that occurred in stages, much like the body; throughout most of which, however, information could still be theoretically retrieved… Imprints and memories…

  Yet another echo to add to that endless list of those failed, abandoned, and forsaken.

  Suddenly, a crack followed by a loud impacting pop. That mage’s body had finally come tumbling down, having slipped off that impaling rod which had thinned and weakened from the decay…as if eroding ice.

  She sighed…and limped her way past the colossus’s snow-dusty dissolving figure; she headed for the body, kneeling down once arriving… She stared it, inspecting…

  Even when discounting the height down from which it had just fallen, the body was not a pleasant sight to behold.

  The mage had been impaled from…bottom-in and top-out, fast and swiftly. The insides had likely been pierced and perforated… Gruesome and painful, but…death had likely come equally as swift. Hopefully, at least… Lest the echo left behind be…one that screamed without peace to be found…

  Yet another to add to her list.

  Her exposed ignited eyes then shifted their cyanic gaze, turning and looking up…at a specific entry crevice.

  The wagoneer’s position had collapsed; there was no entrance hole anymore, just crumbled rock and crystalline debris. His body was either charred to ash from the heat of that…‘beam’ or was thoroughly crushed underneath. Either way, there was…nothing to inspect.

  Yet, even so, she remained paused and static, just…staring at that collapsed opening, her own point of arrival, silent… There was an ever-slight and ever-vague chatter to her teeth, as if much was moving within…as if much was leaking out, even though far too much remained obfuscated by that shadow within, detached and dissociated; numbed and empty… Yet still there, turning and…burning.

  The wagoneer was only within this cavern system because of her own insistence; she had dragged him here. And although it was by his own volition that he had followed her to this area, it was her who had nevertheless placed him in that position where…he had to make such a decision. He was essentially her subordinate throughout these…‘quests’, these fake ‘mission’… Yet she had done nothing to ensure even his basic survivability and safety… In every sense across every definition, his death was…completely her fault—her responsibility.

  Though, indeed… She looked away.

  Such was the case for all of them. All of their deaths were her responsibility; she had failed them all.

  This entire time, she had both the means and the power to potentially contest that colossus guardian; this chamber was composed of essence-derived composites and compounds—fuel and material to assimilate and synthesize…

  Her rapier, her arcane conduit… It was on her this entire time… Right there, latched and locked onto her hip. Even without the conduit, she could have used her base capabilities to…weaken the hardened crystalline armoring of it or…anything—something… Yet she did not even do that… She did nothing but spin around, hop and fly…

  She had no comprehension whatsoever as to how and why she had…made such an oversight—such a slip… To not even consider, at any point, to use her arcanity—to draw her rapier conduit—despite this entire chamber being the most ideal environment for its usage.

  Had time once again…rotted her so? Obviously, it had… But was time’s decay eating at her faculties again? Obviously, it was, but…

  To this extend…?

  Or perhaps… Had she spent…too long pretending to be a denizen that she had forgotten what she was? Forgotten what she could do… As if she truly believed that she was just…a ‘Copper-rank adventurer’ who could only shoot and buzz?

  Or maybe… Right…

  Tactically, there was a logic. She did not want to use her arcanity because…it could have compromised her; if the denizens saw it to its fullest extent, and if they then…went around and squealed to their others, spreading and spreading before: suddenly, thus she was met with yet another lance to the face… Or abducted and thrown into some…denizen authority dissection or research center—she had heard of such allegedly documented in other places.

  Her rapier conduit was something reserved strictly as…a last resort—specifically when engaging something clearly beyond the local’s domain… Though, what even was local domain, anyway? Considering…that this colossus…had practically won; she herself only barely survived, and there were clearly…anomalies active in this…place—to none her surprise, yet also…strangely to her surprise, for these anomalies were not…the expected anomalous presences.

  Regardless, not that any of such truly mattered in this situation… For, ultimately, these were real lives she could have saved; she could have actually won this fight; had she just…used what she would always use—operating how she always tended to operate… Not worrying or being concerned about…

  Though, she did not really feel worried or concerned. She did not know what she was feeling, frankly. Things were present, but always so shrouded; she was an enigma even to herself.

  Nevertheless, her ignited eyes drifted back down to that mage’s corpse, starting at it…as if she were contemplating it, things turning and moving within…

  Truly… Was... Was this the outcome…she truly wanted? Had she become so accustomed to the endless failures and pointlessness that had defined the last…far too many ceaseless centuries that bled into one singular nothing…that she had forgotten that she could actually win? That victory was…actually possible…

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Or… Maybe…

  She was not actually trying at all… Indeed, maybe…

  Maybe…

  Was she…trying to get herself killed? Was her…coming to their rescue not even about…actually saving them?

  The foreigner froze from this thought entering her mind, her breaths sinking from the implications…

  That had to be…false…

  She would never…forsake the lives of those whom she was supposed to defend just to…

  Thoughts and realizations abruptly flooded her mind as if such an onslaught of feelings engulfed within, none of which she could properly comprehend despite still experiencing. Her breathing began to escalate, her jaw slightly trembling with each progressively worsening breath…

  Before, in a snap, her ignited eyes brightened ever-so slightly with a gentle and vague ‘blink’; everything so immediately hollowed within.

  Hm. Well, in the end, she was not a denizen or a habitant of this place. She had her engagement protocols, operation regulations, and overriding rules which all stipulated, outlined, and dictated her allowed actions, capabilities, and intervention prerogatives; she followed them, and that was all there was…to it. Although, even for such standards and expectations, this was still an utter failure…

  But ultimately, there was little room to afford to regret and lament; the past was permanent, and there were no promises to be made, only actions to be done.

  The foreigner stood up and began to limp away, her ability to move now better than it was moments prior, the pain numbing… Her battered mind, fatigued and exhausted, yet nevertheless its nerves still flared and flashed; she was thinking…

  She needed to be in a position where she should not need to decisively end an engagement with her rapier-conduit—it was still the weapon of last resort… Indeed, there were principles of escalation she needed to adhere to. However, she had obviously become far too reliant on her primitive revoling pistol as her primary and exclusive weapon of choice. She needed more firepower, and it seemed the local denizens did have that firepower…

  Those arcane-augmented explosive shots used by the wagoneer had demonstrated adequate effectiveness against that colossus… And her former associated did have quite the…inventory; there should potentially be…equivalent boom-capable firepower in there, perhaps. She made note in her head to check.

  The foreigner finally limped her way to the gunner’s corpse… It certainly looked like the corpse of someone who had been pierced through by shattering lances before exploding from a chain-detonation… Indeed, it was impossible to tell how much of the…charring damage came from the crystalline poofs or the explosion of enchanted ammunition. Either way, there was no ammunition or anything to salvage.

  Hmm… His strange repeater, on the other hand… The foreigner quickly spotted it and approached, the firearm having been flung slightly further from the body. Interesting thing… She had never seen this sort of pump-action firing mechanism in any of her former associate’s firearms. This weapon was surprisingly intact too, suggesting quite the durability… And the materials seemed shinier and… Hmm…

  Potentially repairable and retrofittable, she garnered. She could either see if a local could it or… She had the technical…practical know-how to…maybe figure it out on her own, even without the proper tools.

  Either way, there was no point in leaving such thing here. This firearm’s potential utility could be extended by being repurposed for her own operational needs. Thus, the foreigner picked it up, removing the hand and…half-an-arm that still clung to it, tossing it aside…respectfully.

  With this done, she began to evaluate around… Hmm…

  Oh, wait… Her masquerade half-mask was no longer on her face; it had fallen off completely at some point, the foreigner finally realized. Sighing, she thus turned herself around and left the gunner’s death scene, venturing back to where that colossus had placed her.

  She looked around and about and eventually found it…simply plopped onto the ground. She placed the…confiscated firearm down upon arriving to it, taking the mask into both hands so that she could…inspect it.

  Hmm… No damages or cuts or…anything, besides a few minor blemishes. The lenses were intact, and… Hm… But the strap that allowed her to wear it… It had been severed from the middle… Hm…

  Not necessarily surprising that such had happened, considering…everything that had befallen… However, still… How? Was it a shard or something that had cut it or…weakened it to the point of snapping from the stress? Yet surely her neck would have been cut in the process if so, yet it had not been… And, in fact, the severing point seemed awfully clean and precise…

  Weird. Very weird. Something stunk, and it was a familiar stink.

  Regardless, she would have to get the strap fixed or replaced maybe… But, for now, she simply opted to tie the severed ends into a hard knot…before redonning her mask. The fitting felt tighter, but it worked. Mask redonned, she picked up that damaged firearm again, and she thus…

  Hm… Actually, she looked at the colossus’s remains, being now much closer to them. Already, all that condensed and hardened crystalline armoring was already quite…glossy and dissolved…as if melting. Much of the metallic internal skeleton was becoming exposed, sticking out more. Structurally, it seemed to be falling apart, and not even because of the gaping hole in its chest… No, the rate of the decomposition was seemingly faster than she had thought.

  Curiosity was making her want to approach it and inspect…what that thing even was, for she never knew if she might encounter something similar again. However, the sounds of cracking crystalline rock and material, chunks and pieces, even if so slim and minor, breaking and falling… Indeed, it was not just that colossus’s corpse that was decaying faster than anticipated, but rather this entire chamber.

  Whatever. Knowing the nature of this playground of a place, that thing was certainly just another absurd and nonsensical toy…even if that conclusion did not necessarily make convincing sense to her. Regardless, an immediate exodus was advisable.

  The foreigner quickly scanned around, eyeing the crumbling and decaying walls… Hmm… She could not climb them more many reasons, however if she had her grappler on her, she could so easily grapple out…

  Truly, how useless she felt without her proper equipment.

  Nevertheless, climbing out having been ruled out, she began to make way in haste to the only viable exit point: that stupidly gargantuan corridor that too was…eroding away in decaying wisp and dust.

  However, while doing so, her boots stepped onto something quite dense and hard, which nevertheless cracked as she nearly tripped. Rebalancing herself, she immediately looked down to inspect, seeing…

  Pieces scattered around, many of them.

  Yet these crystalline chunks were…different. Being quite thick, condensed, and highly concentrated, they still had some glow to them and did not appear to be decaying at the same rate as everything else…

  These must be fragments of that colossus’s so-called ‘heart’… So, that striking lance did not destroy that core entirely, then? These chunks must have been propelled outwards by the force and detonation…

  Hm… Whatever.

  She was going to promptly recontinue her limping walk, yet as she did so, she noticed in the periphery of her vision…something that stook out amidst the heart-core’s debris, quite. Indeed, attention caught, she turned and focused… Something strange and quite small—remarkable that she had even noticed it.

  What… What was that?

  The foreigner immediately approached this…whatever thing she had so spotted, kneeling down…

  ? Et quid…síet? ? She picked it up, holding it between two fingers… ? Componentù? Quída pro?essor? ? Hm. It was obviously a component of some kind. It was rather warm, still; square-shaped, white and grey colored, a durable shell attached to a thin blue-ish board underneath…with microscopic circuitry, connectors, and… Hm… There was exotified neurological tissue stuck to it, likewise… So, a neural processing unit…

  Her sight flung back to that guardian golem’s decaying corpse… Had this thing come from that? She knew that colossus was an atrocity of existence with some mechanical components, but…computational?

  Hm… She relooked at the processing unit in her hand… It seemed relatively undamaged despite having been blown straight out from that atrocity’s heart. And this technology and design too, rustic and archaic in many ways yet clearly…far too advanced. Even though she could identify what this thing likely was, it still seemed unlike anything she had seen before…despite the familiarities… It was different—too different, in fact, from what she would expect to be associated with a certain it and its toys… Yet where else…could such a thing like this possibly even come from if not from that certain it?

  Truly, things only seemed to be getting weirder; this entire ordeal continued to leave more and more questions, unasked and without answers…

  Whatever. Not her concern right now. She cleaned off the residual tissue before placing this…apparent neural processing unit into her carry satchel. She quickly recontinued on, making her limping way all the way to that towering rectangular corridor which led into that dark abyss.

  Yet as she reached that the border—that edge—between there and here, she again so paused… For whatever reason, she turned herself around and…just looked at the dimming and crumbling chamber, as if taking it all in one last time…

  Exhausted, her over-encumbered mind burned a thousand burning aches… She was well beyond her expiration date, such was fact… So many memories had eroded and decayed, lost to time, but to form new ones felt so exhausting indeed. Injured, her insides throbbed in such pain… Yet she remained operational and active—functional and capable, repairing with time.

  ? Ita… ? Advena ?…énquitne? ? Ah. Truly, it was as if she had been so thoroughly reminded…of what she was and always would be, no matter what she pretended to otherwise be or so do.

  An alien amongst aliens. A failure in service of failures. A trooper lost in time’s decay… But she was still alive; she had survived this day… And so as long as she remained alive, she would continue to fulfill her obligations and duties… Whatever those even were anymore, purposes having long been.

  A frigid vacuum so filled her being within, numbing; her heart and core, burning so strongly yet freezing still. A switch, indeed, had yet again so flipped within her head. As everything she needed to do, everything needing to be done, became so…foggy and hard to discern, cloudy and pointless, none of this feeling real.

  She turned herself around and thus began to slowly and methodically make her way out of this crystalline tomb… Time, unrelenting, flowed with neither pause nor conclusion to be found.

  Walls crack and crack,

  Piece by piece,

  This chamber of rot and crystal withers to dust…

  Yet as with that falling debris…

  Yours is a mind falling astray

  Crushed by the weight of all at be.

  So pitiful a soul, indeed, without heart or purpose

  Strung a puppet by her own shadow’s weave…

  The foundations within begin to crumble

  Destined to collapse without reprieve.

  In the end, the colossus was the one that had truly won.