At White Valley / The Hand, The Eye

	“This place sucks. Why’d we have to come all the way out here just to watch an old man stand in a valley?”

	“Hey! There’s important stuff we can learn here! People have been living and worshipping in this valley for thousands of years before us. It’s not just a ‘valley’.”

	“I guess. Is that why you’re up here picking at trees instead of studying the runes on those buildings like you were supposed to?”

	“…”

	You sit on the ledge, feet dangling precariously over the depths of the White Valley, gazing long into the haphazard smattering of buildings that occupy the meadows and dot the riverbanks. As the Architect’s countenance sets, it casts thin shadows across the meadows where it catches on architecture otherwise designed to allow as much light to grace the valley as possible. Slivers of carefully placed marble gleam in the sunlight, a necessary evil to structure the glass. Whether rising or setting, the Architect can see almost all of the valley—the only place to hide is in the shadow of the Pedestal itself, tall as it is.

	The Pedestal is a single structure in the heart of the valley, concentric runic rings set into marble forming a stage on which to bare oneself to the Architect. When the sun sets and the Architect’s gaze is at its most intense, at the moment of its harshest judgment, one would step forward to seek the Sun Itself in the hopes that it might bless them with even the briefest glimpse of its infinity.

	You’re not on the Pedestal today, despite your journey out here—just visitors. Students, on a field trip. Though the sight of the Pedestal is striking, you’re, admittedly, more drawn to the beautiful willows that line the mouth of the valley. From below, the way they shift in the warm breeze makes them not unlike a clamoring audience standing on the cliffs, come to watch judgment be passed. Left to your own devices with Khara, you’ve dragged her all the way up here just to admire them as the sunlight finally, thankfully burns off.

	“What’s with you and these trees, huh?” she asks, a hand perched on her hip as she watches you brush your fingers through one of the soft fronds of the willow you both sit under.

	You don’t answer right away. Instead, as your palm brushes across the leaves, you manage to coax a little katydid from the tangle into your hand. You present it to her, and her smile softens a bit. “There’s a lot of stuff up here. Mushrooms, bugs, birds. Sometimes even rabbits,” you say.

	“Guess even the animals need to hide from the sun once in a while?” she shrugs. The two of you share a quiet laugh, as you let the katydid hop into her hand.

	“Think so, yeah… the sun’s so harsh down there, isn’t it? It’s like standing right by a fire. It’s nice for a minute, but man… no wonder we didn’t see any animals down there.” You drum your fingers on your lap, peering again over the edge at the valley. As the stars begin to show, the breeze cools, wafting through the tall grasses below like ripples across a calm sea. It's as if the tension begins to lift, and the valley can breathe again.

	“Ever eaten a mushroom up here?” is a silly question that knocks you out of your moment of thought. You sit back, looking over at her and thinking for a beat.

	“So… twice. The first time, I was really young and I brought a couple mushrooms back to my mom. She cut ‘em up and put ‘em in a stew, I was so proud! So proud that the second time I just pulled a mushroom out of the ground and stuck it in my mouth, and I got SO sick.”

	“Ha! Genius.”

	“My parents were worried about me and all, but y’know, there’s a big difference between just being sick and being sick because of your own dumb mistake. I could hear it in their voices every time they’d check on me. Ugh, this poor, dumb kid.” You kick your feet over the ledge idly as you tell your story. A bit of gentle laughter comes from the both of you as your story ends, but even now, without the Architect to judge you, you’re both careful not to be too loud in what seems to you like a holy place.

	When the opportunity comes, as the conversation lulls, you take a deep breath of the dusk air and sigh wistfully. “Isn’t it nice out here?” Carried on the wind is the scent of life in bloom, evoking uncountable memories of summers past here.

	“Yeah, I guess… it’s pretty cool at night. Beats the endless pines back home. At least the trees out here like, change color and do stuff.”

	You snort-laugh, and nod. "Yeah. I just try to be grateful for the change of scenery, even if the way out here’s… rough.” Your gaze drifts behind you, to the cascade of tangled willow canopies that lead back towards the road… and, just your luck: as it happens to catch the moonlight just right, you notice a mallard!

	“Hey—hey, hey…” You lower your voice to a hush as you start to stand up; Khara, looking bemused, gets up with you. “I think I see a duck.”

	“A duck?” she looks at you quizzically. “What about it?”

	“What, you don’t like ducks?”

	“No, ducks are great! I mean… okay, okay. Let’s go see this duck.”

	You keep yourself low to the ground in some exaggerated attempt at stealth, as you sneak up on this duck that's resting on the surface of a pond. Khara entertains your attempt at stealth, even if you can practically feel her rolling her eyes.

	You drop down to a squat by the edge of the pond, gently clicking your tongue to try and draw the awareness of the duck. It turns its head to regard you with disinterest, remaining where it is. You can’t help but admire the way the moonlight glances off its brilliant green head-feathers, and the way its beak almost looks like a slight, knowing smile.

	Judgment or not, you peek over your shoulder to catch Khara admiring it, too. A little smikr plays on her face, and yours at the sight. You dig around into your pack, and withdraw a little pouch of corn you brought for this very purpose, casting some of it into the water.

	Then, watching as this duck gobbles it all up, you just… sit. You sit with her and watch, delighted to have made this duck’s day even a little bit better. Though… you can’t help but keep glancing at Khara, too, amazed that she’s even tolerating this nonsense, let alone that the duck fervently slapping its bill about the water in pursuit of the treat seems to make her laugh, too.

	You dig out some more and offer it to Kara, and she merrily tosses them into the water, giggling at the ensuing splish-splashing as it gathers up all that tasty corn.

	This time, though, you can’t take your eyes off of her. Her smile…

	You sit there with her for a while, just the two of you, away from the judgment of the Architect or from the judgment of your superiors. Bothering a duck.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

	The two of you stand together, in still snow, eyes fixed on the broken obelisk.

	A wrought spire, like twin roots winding about each other to hold aloft a thick stone ring, a foot or so above you, bound in magical runes that seem especially worn now. That stone ring is shattered across the top, a missing chunk lending the silhouette of baleful horns, a stark contrast to what was once a symbol of the Architect’s geometric perfection. Baleful horns or, maybe… a closed eye. Where once the obelisk was messily though lovingly adorned with offerings and charms, there’s now a blast radius; scattered through the snow are pieces of sun-bleached jewelry, partially melted coins, and black ash staining it with the remains of written prayer.

	Prayer that this very thing would never come to pass.

	An intense and sickening energy pervades this place. The fallout of something unfathomable. Among the snowflakes that seem to dangle in the air, little wisps of deep blue energy spark across the surface of an invisible aura, making your hair stand on end. Time itself seems hesitant to move, weighed by the cosmic awe of what occurred here; the air is grimly still and the rattling of the pines has quelled into choking silence.

	The sky hangs utterly empty, bled even of its stars and absent the Architect’s light to warm it. You have never in your life seen it so empty, a yawning dark-grey void fit to swallow your world in endless and unnatural night. Likewise, you have never seen the treeline so dark—with not a sliver of moonlight to give it depth, it's little more than a silhouette, visible only for being just a bit darker than that dim sky. Most of all, though...

	It feels like you are out of place.

	You reach out to brush a trembling, gloved hand across the jagged ‘roots’ of the obelisk, only to be greeted by a spark of arcane energy that makes you jerk back, shaking off your hand!

	“Hey!” calls your partner. “Don’t touch it, we have no idea how unstable it is!”

	“I know what I’m doing, Khara,” you gruffly retort, even as you nurse your still-jittering hand. She comes up behind you, looking past you at the very same thing you can’t help but stare at: the obelisk’s broken crown. There’s something morbidly mesmerizing about it… the idea that someone could challenge the Creator, and win. She probably doesn’t feel the same way, though.

	“Why would someone do this?” she asks, her voice a low hush as if she’s scared to disturb the restless silence. You get it; the coiled energy here feels fit to burst. “So many people are going to die…”

	Whatever your feelings for the Architect… she’s right. You turn, glancing away. Facing the obelisk is a small pile of boulders, each carved flat. A thought flits through your mind, and you head on over to them, inspecting the largest among them—the top is seared white, as if burned by the Architect. “Hey, hold on. I’ve got an idea,” you say to Khara, who looks at you incredulously as you start to ascend the boulders.

	“Whoa, whoa!” She hurries over, waving her hands to try and halt you. “Looking at this thing was a rough prospect BEFORE somebody broke it in half. Are you sure about this? It's so unstable…”

	“If there’s any way we’re going to figure out who did this, we have to. Maybe there’s still something… in there, I don’t know. It’s worth a shot.”

	“Willoh, these rocks look torched…” she says, worriedly drifting a finger across the stone to gather bleached powder.

	“I’ll be fine!”

	With this, she sighs, turning to look at the obelisk with you. You suck a deep breath in through your teeth, muttering a prayer low enough that even she can’t hear it in this dead silence:

	“Please. I’m here to be your Servant. I beg you, accept me, and let me seek vengeance for us both.”

	With that, you tilt your head up, fixing your gaze on the center of the obelisk’s broken ring. At first, a few moments pass, dilating into what feels like an eternity, where nothing at all happens. Just as you start to feel disappointed, streaks of white light begin to spread like a halo across the inner edge of the band, straining to collect themselves once more! The light builds, beginning to drive off the shadows of the forest around you.

	Khara stares on, starry-eyed and rapt, as her God touches down. The Architect’s flickering and disordered light washes over specters of negative space: the faint imprint of humans dancing around the obelisk, weak echoes of those you hunt. A particular silhouette passes through you, stepping to the edge of the stone just beyond and drawing a blade from his hip. He turns to look upon you, from behind the eyes of… a familiar mask.

	But as it fully comes to, the Architect’s ordering shine rips through the shadow, suddenly scattering it as smoke. You're left bare to its sight. The obelisk disgorges a geometric tendril of sunlight, and then another, each spearing into the snow and straining against the frozen dirt as if something is trying to pull itself through! In horror, you stumble back, nearly tumbling off the rock as a strange, hollow ringing pierces your ears, making you clutch your aching skull.

	Khara, though, merely stares in awe. She doesn’t see it. Only the warmth of the Architect’s presence, fighting to birth itself again from the darkness.

	Hanging above the burning half-ring, the Architect’s eye comes into view, a bright white shape with a pin of black in its center, staring a hole into you. That wild, shaking eyeball bleeds with imperfect sunlight, shades of pale yellow and orange that contrast the flawless white that the Architect is supposed to be. Jittering, uneven concentric rings containing between them smeared alien runes spread out like ripples from the obelisk, turning in staccato like the gears of a damaged machine. The maddening, grinding clicks of broken clockwork sicken you to your core.

	To Khara, the sunlight builds; for a moment, the sky flushes with welcome dawn, and everything almost looks normal. She feels hope. You feel terror. Its presence swallows everything! All that you can see burns away, leaving only its unremitting gaze… and you, standing in its glare. There is no beauty for you, no majestic dawn, only the searing white hellfire of the Architect as seen by a mistake in its artifice. As the Sun Itself appraises you, as its radiance reaches through your clothes and graces your blighted skin, your body begins to boil with the insistence that you exist in error. You try to move yourself, to scramble away and hide from the light like the vermin you are, but you merely stand there, unable to do anything but accept your judgment.

	Suddenly, Khara is startled as a blast of white fire spills from behind your mask, blowing it across the clearing and into the snow. Before its judgment can set in, though, its light begins to shake and waver, the eye straining to stay open as it starts sinking back into the obelisk. Its trembling tendrils fight to bind it to this world again, but are steadily reeled into the obelisk despite their efforts, leaving long tracks of melted snow. It is too wounded, too insubstantial, to remain.

	With the eye gone, with the comforting shroud of the cold dark falling over you once again, you fall to your knees coughing and wheezing. Though your face is severely burned, and the dull sting of a sunburn begins to claim your arms, you still live—against the will of your creator. You nearly collapse on the stone, brought to again only by the sound of someone yelling at you. Blearily, you look up, to the horror of Khara whose fingers tremble around the grip of her flintlock, pointed squarely between your eyes. The state of your face clearly shocks her.

	“W-what the hell was that?!” she shouts, a mixture of fear and fury in her trembling voice. She sounds like she doesn’t want to be interrogating you, but… feeling the last embers of sunlight at her back, she realizes that she stands between you and the Hand of God.

	“I… I don’t… know… I…” you heave, trying to regain your footing in reality as you kneel on this bleached stone. You slowly bring yourself to your feet, staggering down the stones cautiously and, in the process, clandestinely drawing your pistol. Raw survival instinct has begun to set in. You’re badly burned, and a gun is trained on you.

	“Come on, you don’t know?!” she snarls. “Why didn’t you tell me what you were?! Come on! If it burns, it doesn't belong, and— and you know it!” Her voice falters a bit, but her aim doesn't.

	You can’t muster a sensible response. Your mind has been scoured by the light. Trying to find something approaching a stable stance, you dig your feet into the snow and whip your pistol out as well, training it on her chest. Your hand shakes like a leaf, and you can barely see, but…

	“Is that how it’s gonna’ be?!” she shouts, furious.

	“W-we both… know you’re going to kill me… so why don’t you just fucking do it?!” you retort, aching rage briefly catching in your raw throat.

	“I— I—” she stammers, for a moment. She realizes you're right.

	...

	She pulls the trigger.

	A streak of glittering white light strikes through your head in an instant, pulling your soul along with it as it seeks to unwind you. The Soulseeker bullet tries to spirit away your very essence in a brilliant display—a flailing, cracked mass of black, white, gold and lilac—yet, in that same instant, your soul sinks its fingers into your back and drags its way back into its mortal shell.

	The moment you come to, you pull the trigger as well.

	That same scintillating spear ghosts through her heart, prying her clear of her own body; unlike yours, her spirit doesn't manage to hold on no matter how much it tries. Instead, she claws at the cold air, eyes wide as she decays into a spray of dying light, trailing the bullet into the Black Path.

	Her body drops to its knees, and then lands face-down into the snow, creeping tracts of red beginning to seep into it beneath her.

	You stand there. Stunned, silent, and motionless as the rest of this wretched forest. Your gun lowers, until it slips free of your fingers and lands among the trash in the snow. Your fingers graze the bullet-hole in your head, finding no blood because you’re a disgusting aberration lacking even the grace to bleed. You trudge over to her with what remains of your strength, staring at her body as you just stand over it. Maybe hoping that, by some miracle, it would start to move again.

	That moment never comes, of course.

	You drop to your knees beside her, and although hesitating to touch her equipment—as if you’re worthy of that—you take the lamp from her back. You open the cage, reaching into it to gingerly withdraw the orb of holy white-gold flame it contains, so that you can stow it in your own lantern. You turn her over as to undo her mask, careful to never look at her face, and affix the mask over your back.

	Then… you turn away from her, and just kneel in the snow. You cradle the now shared lantern in your lap, feeling its warmth. The supernatural tension in the air has subsided into an all-too-real emptiness; the towering pines rattle gently in the biting winter breeze, and the snow begins to build on your shoulders. Tears prick at the corners of your eyes and sorrow binds your heart in knots, as you’re now left to stew in the reality of being completely alone. Neither the Lantern-Bearers nor your best friend to share your path, and not even the light of the Architect to shine upon it.

	You look up at the obelisk one last time, and through blurry eyes catch a spark of that ordering light lingering between its broken prongs. You sneer, burning hatred crawling up your throat like bile, and something in its gleam imparts that very same contempt for you.

	When you look up at the firmament, it once more glitters—brighter than ever before with no sunlight to contend, such that the sky almost looks like static.

	You sit there with her for a while, just the two of you. In silence.