New lumen

Ghost

The old woman looked at Thyme and grinned. “She visits,” she quivered. “She visits!”

No, the woman wasn’t looking at Thyme. She was looking behind her, just over her shoulder. Thyme turned.

The face was only inches away, eyeless, mouth agape, its neck stretching from the wall, impossibly long, impossibly long. Its tongue grew, twisting from the black chasm, and the wood groaned. Its voice, a feeling more than a sound, resounded, subterranean, barbed.

The old woman responded in the same alien tongue.

star

Thyme had gotten to forty-two when the stars shifted and she lost count. “Huh?” She knuckled her eyes and squinted back up at the black sky. “Yep, still moving. Could they be spotlights?”

She turned to look out over the lake, at the city. Pink and blue neon tinged the fog surrounding the pointed buildings and silver streets, but nary a ray of white pierced up through the clouds. “Nope.” Her gaze returned to the sky.

There were three of them, swaying, darting, swaying again. They spread out among the inky sea of static stars and for the briefest moment looked like a tremendous face staring down at her. Staring down at the city, rather—why would something way up there care about something as insignificant as she?

owl

Antigony leaned forward, peeking around corner.

“I wouldn’t.” the Stranger’s mask looked bemused in the dim blue light. She ignored him and the blue light blossomed on her face.

Manon stepped forward to pull Antigony back but was halted by the Stranger’s stern hand.

There was only a moment before a thin blue line arced across Antigony’s exposed features. Her body slumped to the ground without ceremony, and her severed face rolled across the ground with cauterizing smoke. The girl’s lifeless eyes gazed up at them. Manon was too shocked even to gasp, and still the Stranger did not move his hand.

A distorted deep voice echoed from down the hall where the blue light blossomed.

“Overwatch Link, online.”

They ran, the air whipping about from the breadth of its horrible wings.

goblin

“Rooms and rocks.”

Accella had already seen rooms and rocks. In fact, that’s all she had seen for weeks. “It’s all I’ve seen for weeks!” she yelled over her shoulder.

Bast was not listening to her. He was preoccupied with the shapes in front of him. What looked like great metallic tombs protruded from the wall. The group had seen many like them in their travels Underneath, but none that pulsed with light, like this one.

Bast leaned closer and touched the pulse. The silhouette of something large and humanoid stretched out of the tomb and across the room. Bast stepped back, his hands trembling. The others scrambled to join him.

Letters began scrolling across the surface.

Releasing… Releasing…

Royal Guard 412; Call Sign ‘Goblin.’

Journey beyond the city to Outer Lumen.