The woman in gold finally moved, raising a hand. The Netherquill heard a voice in her mind, the voice of her contracted spirits warning her of danger. She dove aside as the air where she’d been standing simply... ceased. A sphere of absolute destruction in the place where she had just been.

  “You’re not a Quill user at all,” she said, genuine interest creeping into her cold voice. “You’re possessed.”

  The golden-robed figure smiled. Ethereal fangs overlaid its human teeth—extensions that seemed to exist in two states at once, both solid and ghostly. When it spoke, its voice carried harmonics no human throat could produce. The sound conveyed something impossible to name, an emotion that felt both ethereal and physical. Those who heard it experienced a strange duality: primal fear mixed with the irrational relief of a child who checks under their bed and finds nothing—except in this case, the monster was real, clawing desperately at the barrier between worlds to fully manifest.

  “Clever little quill,” it said, too many teeth showing. “Yes, this vessel serves my purposes.”

  The battle had shifted. No longer a skirmish between rogue quills and a trained Netherquill of the Wraithbone Tribe—the danger had escalated entirely. The woman in gold was possessed by a great spirit, a being that common folk and even most quills outside the Stormy Isles would fearfully call a demon.

  These entities resembled twisted blends of human and animal, or something else entirely. They possessed inhuman speed, strength, and durability. Like other spirits used by Netherquill, they remained ethereal—but with one crucial difference: they could possess the living and reshape the vessel. Over time, if left unchecked, the possessed body would transform completely into the great spirit’s true form, granting it full access to its vast physical power. At that stage, they were known as abyssal-walkers.

  But whether possessed or abyssal-walker, what made them truly frightening was their unique power. It rivaled quill itself. The Netherquill weren’t certain if it was quill or something else entirely, but they’d given it a name: Abyssalquill. Whatever its true nature, it came from the deepest abyss of the spiritual realm.

  Abyssalquill’s nature is as mysterious as its origins. Some believe that it has the power to affect reality itself. Great spirits have used it to heal, destroy, grant riches and fortune, and a multitude of other things. In fact, the truth is that the first Netherquill was granted power from a great spirit who used Abyssalquill to open the void between dimensions. When the human walked into that realm, they came out with the quill known as Nether. This was the first Netherking, and the words left by the king were: “I reached the depths of the void—it is unexplainable, yet by simply being there I gained the power to speak with spirits and borrow their strength. When human and spirit work together, we can even rival a great spirit. I no longer am human; I am now of the quill. I am now Netherquill, child of the abyss.”

  With those words, it is popular opinion that Netherquill is the child of Abyssalquill, yet only the Netherking might have the answer to that question. For only the Netherkings and Queens have ever reached the depths of the abyss and had the opportunity to contract a great spirit.

  Luckily for this young Netherquill, however, this great spirit had not fully escaped the abyss. Possession was akin to being halfway through the door, or just staring through its window, depending on the strength and connection. From the appearance of the golden-robed person, it was the latter.

  After calmly analyzing the situation, the Netherquill breathed a sigh of relief. If the great spirit could only look through the window, then its power would only be a fraction she could handle it in that case.

  Though she did not dare let her guard down, she faced a great spirit after all.

  The spirit flower’s vines moved to defend, but the demon’s disintegration power was indiscriminate. Vines withered and dissolved wherever that terrible energy touched. The Terraquill, seeing an opening, tried to attack again. The woman didn’t even look at him—a vine wrapped around his throat and squeezed until he went limp. She no longer had time to waste on insignificant threats, she tossed his body away, and as the head hit stone, a sickening crack sounded from the neck.

  She needed a different approach. The snake spirit was fast, but reaching the possessed would be difficult.

  The Bladequill sent four phantom swords on the Netherquill’s position, forcing her to dodge. In that moment of distraction, the possessed struck again, destructive energy racing toward her.

  The Netherquill released her partial fusion with the serpent spirit and summoned it fully instead. “Fight alongside me,” she whispered, and the massive snake materialized beside her. The ethereal serpent stretched twenty feet long, its obsidian-dark scales shimmering with spiritual energy.

  Simultaneously, she began a partial fusion with the flower spirit. Her beauty sharpened, skin paling to a smooth, moonlit sheen, violet streaks threading through her dark hair like veins in a petal. Her lips deepened to a shade just shy of black, a rich, velvety hue. When she blinked, her lashes had lengthened into dark, feathery curves, framing eyes shadowed in the faintest purple—like bruised flower petals.

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  Vine-like tracings bloomed faintly along her arms and collarbone, their dark hue pulsing with quiet life. A faint perfume drifted from her—floral at first breath, but with a hidden edge beneath.

  From behind her shoulders, a mantle of black petals unfurled, beauty almost enough to disguise the menace coiled in her presence. Her fingernails lengthened, taking on the deep purple-black of her lips, and when she moved, there was something hypnotic in her grace—the way deadly nightshade might sway in a wind you could not feel.

  Thick vines erupted from the earth around her—some snaking visibly across the ground, others tunneling unseen beneath it.

  She leaped onto the serpent spirit’s broad back as it began to move, its powerful form carrying her in sweeping arcs around the battlefield. The spirit snake moved with deadly grace, its thick body providing a stable platform while maintaining incredible speed and agility. From this mobile platform, she directed the vines with fluid gestures. Surface vines lashed out as distractions while underground roots crept toward the demon’s position, hidden from its sight.

  “Clever,” the possessed acknowledged, sending another wave of abyssal energy with a wave of its hand. It destroyed the visible vines easily, but the underground network remained intact. “But you’re still only delaying the inevitable.”

  The serpent spirit darted left as destructive force seared the air where they’d been. At that moment, vines erupted from the earth directly beneath the possessed feet. The possessed body leaped back, its body enhanced by a dark red ethereal force. But more vines emerged, forcing it to keep moving, disrupting its ability to focus devastating attacks, still the possessed was able to wave its hands, creating smaller pockets of destruction.

  The Bladequill sent four phantom swords racing toward them again, trying to support her ally. But this time, the Netherquill didn’t even acknowledge the attack. The serpent spirit beneath her suddenly changed direction, its massive body coiling.

  The snake moved like a rushing shadow, dodging a sphere of destruction that carved a crater in the earth. It just as quickly whipped around toward the Bladequill, who had positioned herself too close in her eagerness to press the attack.

  The woman’s eyes widened as the ethereal serpent bore down on her. She threw all four phantom blades forward in desperate defense, but they might as well have been toothpicks against the spirit’s mass. The snake’s jaws unhinged, revealing a maw of pure shadow lined with spectral fangs.

  “No—!”

  The Bladequill’s scream cut short as the serpent swallowed her whole.

  The Netherquill stared, her flower-fused features serene despite the violence.

  The possessed being laughed. “One less mortal changes nothing. You’re still—”

  It stopped mid-sentence. Something was wrong.

  The Netherquill gave a small smile, enhanced with the flowers beauty the possessed being felt stun for a moment caught in the enchanting smile. A smile that made the possessed forget their feeling of trouble, the sense that something was wrong.

  Suddenly, the ground erupted.

  Dozens of thick roots burst upward simultaneously, each one as thick as a man’s thigh. The possessed tried to leap away, that red ethereal force flaring, but the enchanting smile had paralyzed it long enough to make such an escape impossible.

  Destructive energy lashed out, disintegrating the first wave of roots. But more came, and more. For every vine destroyed, three more emerged from different angles. The possessed began to gather its power preparing for a devastating attack, suddenly the Netherquill giggled, the sound was as sweet as a room of flowers, as pleasant as a breeze through fields of lavender. It truly made one wish to forget all their worldly troubles.

  The possessed relaxed, then almost immediately widened its eyes, breaking free from the enchanting giggle just in time for a root to punch through its shoulder. Another through its thigh. The possessed shrieked in a way no human throat could produce, but the damage was done. Golden robes turned crimson as more roots found their mark, piercing through the mortal vessel from multiple angles.

  “No! You damn bitch! Using a charm spell while attacking me how dare…” The demon’s true voice echoed from somewhere beyond. “This vessel... I cannot maintain… stop…”

  The possession shattered like glass. Dark crimson energy tore free, writhing upward as the air above folded inward. Space bent as if yielding to an unseen command, as if reality itself had been pried open, creating a gate of nothingness that bent the world around it, soundless, formless, yet absolute. The abyss was calling its child home, and the energy was dragged screaming into that unseen maw until nothing remained.

  The Netherquill slid from the snake spirit’s back, her partial fusion with the flower spirit fading.

  She surveyed the battlefield. Four rogues defeated. One demon banished. The village saved, her task here was completed.

  “Thank you,” she whispered to her spirits. The snake nuzzled her hand once before shrinking and hiding within her clothing. The giant flower shrinking as well and attaching its dark petals onto her hair.

  The Somaquill groaned from where he lay, throat raw and wheezing from the paralytic venom wearing off. Through labored breaths, he managed to rasp, “Who... who are you?”

  She looked down at him, her cold expression once more on her face.

  “I am called Whimpering Willow.”

  She drew a bone knife from her belt and drove it between his ribs into his heart.

  She went back to a house and brewed some tea, now she waited for the villagers to return. They did owe her information about the Eye of Algorto after all.