Khara

	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. Where once the obelisk was neatly 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 the snow 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, colliding an unnatural chill with equally unnatural total darkness, with only your lamplight to contend, paltry though it now seems.

	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 almost feels fit to burst. “So many people are going to die…”

	Whatever your feelings for the Architect… she’s right.

	You turn. Facing the obelisk is a small pile of boulders, each carved flat. 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 with skepticism as you start to ascend the boulders.

	“Whoa, whoa! Is this such a good idea?” She hurries over to the boulders, 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?”

	“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 running her fingers across the surface of one of the stones you stand on.

	“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 your heart begins to sink, straining to collect itself again, streaks of white light begin to spread like a halo across the inner edge of the band. The light builds, beginning to drive off the shadows of the forest around you.

	Khara stares on, starry-eyed, as if witnessing her—and your—God touch down. The Architect’s flickering light casts over specters; human shadows dancing around the obelisk, weak echoes of those you seek. A particular silhouette passes through you, stepping to the edge of the stone… and drawing a blade. He turns to look upon you, from behind the eyes of a familiar mask…

	But the Architect’s ordering shine rips through the shadow, suddenly scattering it as smoke, and you’re left bare to its sight. The obelisk disgorges a geometric tendril of sunlight, and then another, which sharply slam into the snow, straining against the 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 eye bleeds imperfect sunlight, shades of pale yellow and orange that contrast the perfect 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 like gears in a broken machine. The maddening, grinding clicks of damaged clockwork sicken you to your core.

	To Khara, the sunlight builds; for a moment, the sky lights up a familiar blue, and everything almost looks normal. She feels hope. You feel terror. The Architect’s presence swallows everything; you can’t see beyond it, you’re forced to meet its gaze.  As the Sun Itself looks long into 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, and the eye nearly drifts shut, sinking back into the obelisk. Its trembling tendrils fight to bind it to this world again, but steadily reel back into the obelisk despite their efforts. It is too wounded, too insubstantial to remain.

	With the eye gone, you fall to your knees, coughing and wheezing as the scouring light abates. Though your face is severely burned, and the dull sting of a sunburn begins to claim your arms, you… still live. Though you don’t deserve to. You nearly collapse on the stone, brought to again only by the sound of Khara shouting 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 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?! Why did you burn?! Tell me!”

	You can’t muster a sensible response. Your mind is seared with the Architect’s 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 fury 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 seeks 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 light strikes through her heart, prying her soul clear of her body as well; but unlike yours, it doesn't manage to hold on no matter how much it tries. It claws at the cold air, eyes wide and terrified of what lies beyond as it decays into a spray of gleaming light. Her body drops to its knees, and then lands face-down into the snow, creeping tracks 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 when hurt. 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 magical white-gold flame it contains, so that you can stow it in your own lantern. You turn her over so that you can 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 firmament once again glitters with its uncountable stars, 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, nor the light of the Architect to walk with you.

	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, feeling burning hatred crawl up your throat like bile, and something about the way it glints imparts that very same contempt for you.