The newly absorbed essence was still left burning sensation inside Aesa’s veins, heavy and intoxicating, and instead of settling it stirred sothing else.
The exhilaration did not fade. It grew.
Her breath slowed, not from calm, but from control tightening around a rising storm.
The desert heat suddenly stopped.
Cold spread outward from her body in a widening pulse. The hot air shimred, then thinned, then turned hazy as pale mist crept low across the dunes.
Frost crawled fast over hot sand, swallowing glassed surfaces and cracking them apart with soft sounds.
Aesa’s mind slipped backward to a kingdom that she had killed.
She rembered the streets filled with people she once swore to protect with her husband. She rembered corrupted eyes glowing with Zerathul’s power and mouths chanting his na as they charged her.
She rembered the mont she understood there was no saving them. Only killing them.
She rembered killing every last one of them with her ice.
The mory did not weaken her. It fed her anger.
Her ice changed into force that was colder than before. The frost no longer rely froze. It erased the heat. Wherever it touched, the heat fled completely, leaving brittle silence behind.
Her eyes glinted with blue unnaturally bright, sharp enough to cut.
She charged forward.
Another group of monsters crawled from the sand ahead, but she did not wait. Ice surged violently, spears and waves forming at once, tearing through bodies before they could fully rise.
The sand froze solid beneath them, locking their movent then shattered as she walked through the wreckage without slowing.
She did not care about formations. She did not look back.
She wanted to keep feeding this feeling. She wanted this power.
And beyond this level or Dungeon World or whatever they do right now, she wanted Zerathul.
Aesa beca ruthless.
Her attacks chained endlessly. Her ice was cold and rciless.
Her feeling was feeding on the essence pouring into her body. The frost spread farther with each step she took, pushing the desert back by sheer will.
Even the illusionary sun dimd behind drifting white haze.
Erend felt it first.
The temperature drop slamd into him. He faltered for a mont and his lightning flickering unevenly around his body.
Eccar felt it next, the ground beneath his feet stiffening unnaturally as ice threaded through sand and stone. He turned sharply, eyes narrowing.
Cold air surged past them in waves.
"What—" Eccar started, then stopped.
They both saw her.
Aesa stood ahead of them, surrounded by frost and mist. She was killing enemies with terrifying efficiency. There was no hesitation in her movents.
Erend’s jaw tightened. This wasn’t just exertion. This was like sothing breaking loose inside Aesa. What happened to her?
Worry crept in his chest. He knew that look. He had worn it himself before.
Eccar clenched his fists.
"What’s going on with her..." he muttered.
They could only feel the cold spreading faster.
Eccar lifted off the ground in a burst of compressed earth, then shifted midair and moved toward Erend.
He landed beside him. His eyes never leave Aesa as she moves through another cluster of monsters in the distance.
"This doesn’t feel right," Eccar said. "Her Magic’s unstable. It’s spreading too fast and too chaotic. This is different from the Aesa that we know."
Erend’s gaze stayed fixed ahead.
"I feel it too," he replied. "Sothing’s amplifying her output, or... amplifying her feeling to give a stronger attack."
"Corruption?" Eccar asked. "Here?"
Erend frowned. "I don’t know. But if Zerathul’s influence left scars on her Magic, it could be bad. We don’t know the exact implications but it surely is not sothing good," He sighed. "I didn’t think it could reach this far."
"That’s bad," Eccar said.
Another wave of frost detonated in the distance. Monsters froze solid and shattered instantly.
Eccar clenched his jaw. "If we let this keep going, she might not stop on her own."
Erend nodded, decision settling heavily. "We stop her now. We don’t know what letting her Magic run wild here will do to her, or to this place."
They moved at the sa ti.
Erend surged forward in a streak of lightning, forcing his power through the cold that was starting to feel biting.
Eccar followed close behind. Neither announced themselves.
Aesa didn’t notice.
Her focus tunneled forward, locked on the monsters still crawling from the sand ahead. Ice ford instinctively around her hands, ready to be unleashed again.
And then the two figures landed directly in her path.
The sudden obstruction shattered her montum. Aesa skidded to a halt, frost exploding outward as she nearly struck them on instinct.
Erend stood in front of her, lightning flaring defensively. Eccar planted himself beside him, earth rising beneath his feet like a shield.
"Aesa," Erend said sharply. "Stop. Sothing is wrong."
The word cut through the haze.
Her tunnel vision snapped apart. The frost storm hesitated and the mist thinned.
Aesa saw the two of them have the feeling of concern, tension, and worry painted on their faces.
She blinked. Realizing that sothing must have happened to her. The sharp blue light in her eyes dimming as confusion replaced the bloodlust.
She looked down at her hands that were still coated in frost, then back at them.
"What... what just happened to ?" she asked.
Erend lowered his guard but did not relax.
"Your Magic was running wild," he said honestly. "It wasn’t just stronger but also uncontrolled. You were pushing without restraint."
Aesa gasp. She raised both hands to her head, fingers pressing hard against her temples as her expression twisted in pain.
"I saw it again," she said through clenched teeth. "That kingdom. The streets. Their faces." Her voice dropped. "I saw the mont I killed them all. Every single one of them."
The frost around her feet pulsed then receded.
Erend and Eccar exchanged a sharp look.
"How can that even happen?" Eccar asked quietly. "Those mories shouldn’t just surface and make her act like that."
Erend’s jaw tightened. "This Dungeon World is amplifying sothing now," he said, frustration bleeding into his voice. "I thought Zerathul’s influence wouldn’t reach us here. I was sure of it. But it did."
His hand curled slowly into a fist. He looked away for a mont, teeth grinding. "Can we really never get away from him?"
The question hung heavily between them.
Aesa straightened, forcing her breathing to steady. She lowered her hands and t their eyes.
"I’m alright now," she said firmly. "I won’t let that influence touch again."
Erend studied her for a long second, then finally sighed.
"Good," he said, though the worry didn’t leave his face.
He turned to Eccar.
"We need to prepare ourselves too. This place attacks the mind now."
Eccar nodded.
They prepared to move again.
—
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