The void waited, and Hush waited with it.

Dust coiled in lazy strands through the dying light of the Church of Whispers. The old bricks, like charcoal and a school house. The windows were streaked with dust. No congregation had yet come. Silence lingered.

Then footsteps.

Boots. Heavy. Intentional. Ragged breath followed them, and the door groaned open to reveal green and gold steel. A knight, young, proud, fraying at the edges, as if righteousness had cost him more than he could afford.

Hush looked up from the book he was reading.

"Welcome to the Chur- . . . ." he fell off as he noticed the Emeraldite. "You're just in time for the sermon."

The knight sneered. His bloodshot eyes narrowed, his posture brittle.

"A sermon? For who?"

"For the ones who listen. Is that what you've come to do?"

The deacon locked eyes with the knight and time stretched across the church, like a hallway moving further away.

The knight tried to move, but felt himself impatient with his own pace. He grit his teeth and fumed. Beads of sweat were visible on his forehead. The air around him trembled faintly with suppressed magic.

"Please, take a pew."

Richard's face hardened into a glare. He was trembling with fury. 

"I will stand."

Hush said nothing, watching the Knight display his unwavering resolve. There was a long pause as the two held each other's gaze.

"I knew you reeked of it," the knight growled.
"Of your god. Of your filth. This realm. Your accursed lord, I am starting to remember why I hated it so. It's wretched.... everything here is despicable... even you, Hush."

Hush smirked.

"Oh, indeed, there are some reviling things lurking in the dark."

He reached down to a shelf on the pulpit, the candlelight clinging to the long folds of his coat like moths. He removed the lid from an obsidian urn.

"Would you like to meet them?"

The urn hissed as it opened, and from its mouth poured twisted limbs, flickering eyes, and many teeth. The chimeras slithered around Hush's feet like hungry cats ready to devour a mouse.

The knight's clenched hands trembled at his sides.

"Another vile creation," he spat. "Of course you use them! Why wouldn't you..."

"When I first met you, I didn't think it would be this easy to play you into my hand, but really... You've walked straight into the arms of Lord Zeolix with a blindfold on... Do you wish to die?" Hush asked, his voice was silvery with a chilling undertone. 

"Tharadan excuse me... But may Zeolix personally drag you into the abyss after him! I pray you both rot in this damned realm for all eternity, Hush!"

Hush extended his arm and made a choke grip of his hand.

Richard was suspended for a moment, darkness poured out from the altar, and Hush suddenly drew very near. The chimeras hissed and cackled around the pews, advancing towards the knight.

"Aren't you going to run?" Hush asked facetiously in the same cool, dark tone.

"I'm done running."

The words rang hollow. A performance of bravery. Hush could see the flicker of doubt behind them. He stepped forward, fingers curling.

Richard resisted. His boots scraped against the stone. Sweat coursed down his temple. Hush watched.

He clenched his teeth in frustration. A chimera pounced for his throat and suddenly he wrenched away from the grasp, invigorated with sheer force of will. He drew his dagger with military swiftness, and dragged it across the neck of the beast. It hissed and splurted black blood across the chapel floor. 

Hush observed the crystal dagger that so easily pierced drake scales. That might be trouble. Richard took up an old Emeraldite battle stance that Byron had shown him.

Hush drew Ereshkigal from darkness, its duo-edges caught the eye instinctively, invoking a sense of dread.

Richard pointed the dagger towards Hush and a bolt of electricity chased away the darkness, it arced towards Hush, but suddenly slowed, stopped, reversed... 

Richard didn't let the time warping fool him this time, he immediately swung towards Hush again with the dagger, Hush parried with Ereshkigal, and spun the other end to strike the knight. Richard met the blade with his, electric sparks falling from the two blades.

A chimera latched onto Richard's shoulder and the knight howled in pain and began frantically stabbing the beast.

Hush pressed a finger to his heart, and Richard's eyes went dark. He flew through the air and hit the brick wall with an unsettling crack and the exhale of wind being knocked from his lungs. He fell to his knees and set one up to kneel on and balance himself, he was gasping to breathe. The air rang with a pressure that seemed to throb inside the skull. He felt as if he almost had a heart attack. His back would certainly regret this in the morning.

Hush glided forward, his silhouette warping in the thickening shadows.

"I expected more."

Richard coughed blood and rose, wobbling. A pew scraped behind him. He seized it. With a snarl through gritted teeth, he heaved it forward.

The pew splintered into Hush’s side like thrown judgment, toppling him. He hit the stone with a grunt, ribs flaring in pain. Splinters rained across the altar.

He stood slowly, brushing blood from his lip.

"You will regret that."

Lightning answered. Pure, crackling, and fast. It lanced into Hush’s chest, slamming him against the rear wall. The force shattered a stained glass  window behind him. He collapsed to his knees, twitching, smoke rising from his coat.

He groaned in a very mortal way.

The knight advanced towards him. Hush heaved abruptly up and down, as if sobbing. No... chuckling.

Then he rose again.

"Die."

Hush pointed towards Richard and a sharp black tendril stuck into his shoulder. Another sticky black spike pierced the chest. Before long it looked as if he was caught in a spider's web of pain.

Hush stepped forward with Ereshkigal in hand. The remaining chimera slinked beside him, brushing against his leg.

Richard roared. Lightning erupted from his eyes and jolted into the chimera.

Hush curled his fingers into a grip. 

"I've had enough of your Planite rage."

The siphoning was not gentle. The arcane stream in Richard’s soul stretched thin, into a wire. His limbs jerked, his eyes wide, the blue dimming into green as his mana was being torn away.

Suddenly from outside the church, the boom of an arcane pop rings through the quiet of the void. Hush clenched his jaw.

"What was that loud noise?"

The sound of muffled voices from behind the door, and the tap of feet against stone steps replied.

"What... What is this place?" 

"Why would he be here?"

"I don't know, but the fact is that he's in there. He just got the badge and it's already triggering..."

The door slammed open.

Ada entered first. Cerulean robe trimmed in gold, her presence calm but dangerous. Behind her came the others: Pebble with feathers twitching under her skin. Cessair, pale and distant, covered in her rust-colored armor of motar. Astra, stuck around in the far back, clutching her staff too tight. Rose, silent, hovering above with a green mist.

"Richard!" Pebble noticed him, the gravity of the whole situation escalated suddenly.

Ada spoke, her voice snapping demandingly.

"Step away from him, Deacon. We will hear what happened... but not like this."

Hush did not move. The candlelight died in his shadow.

"He interrupted the weekly sermon, Magister. He needs to be taught a lesson."

"And I will hear your story out, but you need to back away." She stepped closer.

Richard was groaning, he raised his hand to his bleeding head.

"I can't feel... I can't hear...."

"I won't be moved by pawns when I have advantage over the knight."

"...Don't you lay a hand on him," Pebble's voice turned venomous.

"Last warning."

"Magister Ada, you don't have any authority here."

"Y- you fools. Get out of there!" Astra called from outside.

Ada's mana core began to glow. She raised it in preparation of a powerful arcane blast. Hush looked at the device and found it very curious, a blurring of the lines between technology and magic.

Hush moved in defiance of time, a pace almost too fast to witness, but with the calmness of a man with nowhere to be. He reached towards Ada with a choke of his hand.

The moment he touched her aura, it zeroed. The mana warped and fizzled. Ada looked into Hush's eyes, and her's widened with a moment of shock. 

The others rushed him. Cessair stepped forward wish a slash of her sword, Hush parted like fog around the blade. Ada stood and readied the mana core again. Pebble was crossing to get to Richard. Ada blasted towards Hush, and he blinked away, sending her mana crashing through the window. Hush cut the air in half with Ereshkigal and a great beam of darkness spread across the Chapel.

Pebble was the first to fall. The beam hit her head on and tossed her across the chapel floor, dark feathers erupted like an old pillow.

Cessair followed. She raised her shield in defense, but the strike punched through it and sent her spinning to the ground.

Rose was attending Richard with a healing spell, and caught Hush's attention. He struck her in the back, and she crashed into a shelf that poured heavy tomes over her head.

On Ada he directed most of the focus, allowing the beam to sear into her flesh the longest.

Everyone lies still for a moment. Hush watched, breathing heavily. He waited... Were they actually dead?

Cessair groaned and rose slowly, limping towards Richard. She would not take her eyes off Hush. Richard was kneeling at first, but now fell over and laid posterior. Pebble got up with her hands to her knees, and looked up to the knight. She desperately reached her hand towards Richard as he fell. 

"Richard!?" Her voice was haunted by the fear of death.

Darkness began to coalesce, gathering like clouds in the rafters.

Ada teleported from across the room to the door, joining the others. She held her bleeding side and leaned on her staff for support. Astra was outside frozen in place, watching with horror.

"...Grab Richard... it's time we leave." Ada sounded... afraid?

"Now that the story is getting good?" Hush replied, his voice was measured, but twinged by anticipation.

The very air collapsed inward... thickening, pressurizing, and then it burst. A storm of black lightning lashed across the Church, searing deep into every bone. The five screamed from the electrocution.

When the storm faded, Cessair knelt with Richard in her arms. He fades in and out of lucidity, and his grip tightens around Cessair’s sleeve to acknowledge her. The others dragged themselves upright, scorched and swaying.

"We just want to leave," Pebble said, barely above a whisper.

Hush stayed quiet, looking across at everyone. Their faces. The terror. Ereshkigal was basking in it. This was the climax of the story! Now for the denouement. 

"Then do so," Hush replied. His fingers were trembling as he gripped Ereshkigal.

Relief washed over their faces, as they hurried best they could to their feet. Rose and Cessair took each of Richard's shoulders to carry him out.

"But ensure he does not return. Or I will."

They stumbled out, coughing, bloodied. The door slammed shut behind them.

"Pitiful dung of Planu," he muttered.

Hush walked down the corridor, turned into the chapel, and leaned against the altar. The silence returned. His ribs burned. There was a metallic scent. Something was swimming in his mind... the veil was very thin. 

He trembled in pain and closed his eyes. The slow sound of a heart beat repeated in his ears. It grew nauseating. Then it grew still. And Hush understood the true weight of fear. A row of dominoes fall out of line, a clever play from an outwit, to fail, and be forgotten.

The suffocation of failure was unforgiving.