The great expanse of the Renstone Fields stretched out in front of them as far as the eye could see. Grassland, flat and serene, occasionally interrupted by a natural fixture, such as a grove of trees or a mound of stones, or perhaps a less-natural fixture, such as the ruins of one of the many settlements founded in this accursed place. Truly, the Renstone Fields were a peculiar location; they appeared friendly and inviting, teeming with wildlife and ripe for cultivation, but they were in reality home to some dark power or dread beast, and any attempted homesteaders were not long for this world.

Such was the story of the Renstone Fields, which Sarai was busily acquainting her companions with as they traveled.

“Sounds like a bunch o’ codswallop to me,” Gell disbelieved. “Vanishin’ settlers? Settlers don’t just up and vanish. They gotta go somewhere. Most like they couldn’t hack it for one reason or other, and abandoned ship.”

“Codswallop?” Sarai bristled, “I’ll have you know that I am not in the habit of telling untruths.”

“Okay, then, darlin’, but what happened to all them setllers? Disappeared how? To where?”

“If I knew where they were, they wouldn’t have disappeared, Gell. They’d just have moved.”

“Maybe they got eaten by that dragon that didn’t exist,” Katja sardonically interjected.

Gell understood the implication, but elected to ignore it, instead searching the flow — more to humour Sarai than because he expected to find anything — for traces of this mysterious evil power that disappeared multiple settlements.

“Come on, Gell. If there were anything there big enough to eat villages, I’d have found it myself by now,” she pointed out.

“Well, what about wordstones? That’s what we’re here for. You pickin’ up any signs?”

Sarai’s brow furrowed. “Nothing at all. Not even an echo. You think he lied to us?”

“Nah, don’t think so. He was playin’ it straight. Gotta figure, though, if it were just lyin’ around, the College would have found it by now. So I reckon there has to be some kinda catch to it.”

“Well,” Katja said, sensibly, “let’s get looking around, then. If we can’t find it magically we’re just going to have to use old-fashioned senses.”

Our three heroes separated and began searching around the area. Sarai, being the only one who could fly, decided to search the tops of trees and the peaks of collapsed ruins, leaving it to Gell and Katja to rummage through grass and rocks and stumps searching for any sign of anything out of the ordinary. Many hours were spent in this pursuit, but it yielded no result. Katja even got the idea of searching the wildlife, and set about trapping squirrels and examining them for lurking indicators of mysterious dread power, but, to absolutely nobody’s amazement, the squirrels did not appear to be the harbingers of a strange doom that wipes out civilisation, nor did they appear as though they had any idea where a weird rock might be lurking.

The day passed by in this manner, and our heroes got no closer to solving either riddle. Frustrated, Gell began to set up camp in the shade of one of the larger ruins.

“Gell?” Sarai asked, alarmed, “what are you doing? You don’t really intend to camp here, do you? What if we get doomed?”

“Aw, relax. I ain’t never met a doom I couldn’t handle. ‘Sides, we didn’t find nothin’ durin’ the day, so maybe we gotta keep our eyes peeled at night.”

“You mean I have to keep my eyes peeled at night, don’t you? As usual, I’m expected to stand guard while you two do biological things.”

“Sarai,” Katja soothed, “we’re only mortals. We do need to sleep.”

“Fine, but I’m adding that to my list of things to change once I get back together again. You humans simply have too many necessities.”

Katja chuckled. “Not having to eat or sleep? I’ll be looking forward to it. But for the time being, I’m looking forward to a good night’s rest.”

Gell and Katja curled up inside their bedrolls — separate this time, so as to avoid scandalising the wordling — and quickly drifted off to a singularly uneventful sleep.

Uneventful for Katja, anyhow. Gell, meanwhile, was having a highly peculiar dream. He dreamt that he was sitting in the middle of the fields, all alone, staring up at the clouds, no sounds but the buzzing of the cicadas in the background. In the clouds he saw many unusual shapes — it was almost as though the clouds themselves were forming a series of tableaux depicting fierce battles he’d been a part of. There was the fight in the Bonerazor Clan hideout, clouds forming around him in a wall of wispy flame-like fluff. There too was the elemental in the wizard’s library, and its amorphous cloud tendrils. The cloud dragon in the cursed tower looked almost ephemeral, and the cloud shell surrounding the mage from the dig site seemed unnaturally round and unblemished. The cloud history went farther back than that, and Gell saw images of the pirate queen he dueled to a standstill in the seige on Port Penrod, a trio of rogue mages who’d hatched a plan to hijack the spires of St. Langostine, and even the sizable force of primals that attacked the Brotherhood of Purity’s monastery when he was just a pledge. But then things began to change. Instead of wistful melancholy, Gell was infiltrated by a sense of unease and dread; the cloud images began to show him things he didn’t want to see. Instead of gallantry and heroics, he was now treated to a procession of his own failures, his own mistakes; all the times he’d failed to protect someone, all the times he’d taken a life needlessly. He saw himself sweeping through Crimson’s body with the Nullification sign, saw the Breugger regulars wiped out by the primal Joachim because of his own misjudgment. As the buzzing of the cicadas slowly increased in volume, the images became even more damning, as he saw himself needlessly executing the pirate queen Cassandra, who had been too proud to yield; he had sincerely convinced himself he was showing her respect by killing her. He saw countless dead at the monastery because he was unprepared to protect them. And then, as he’d been dreading all along, the ultimate condemnation took shape before his eyes. The rolling hills, the verdant fields, the giant spire so out of place, and, all around, the friendly faces of —

“Gell!”

The voice snapped his attention away from the clouds. His mother! She was calling him! But was that fear in her voice? Was she in danger? He couldn’t quite make it out; damn these cicadas! “I’m comin’, ma!” he hollared back, not at all clear where she was or if she could hear him. Where was he, anyhow? In the middle of the damn field? Nothing to do but go in some direction, he figured, so that’s exactly what he did, taking off at a full run straight ahead.

“Gell, wh– –ou? I n– –o ru– –st as y–”

His mother’s voice again, but the roaring of the cicadas was now obscuring it almost completely. Where was she? What was wrong? He attempted to call back to her, but couldn’t even hear himself anymore; everything was lost in the all-consuming buzz. He began to spin around, searching for her, spinning around, and —

He sat up with a start, soaked with sweat, not even quite realising that he’d been dreaming, as the thought of it was forced out of his head to accomodate more of the overwhelming white noise. Trying to regain command of his senses, he looked around as best as he could, and saw Sarai a scant few feet away, lying on the ground, struggling with the same overwhelmth. Katja, having been awakened by Gell’s thrashing, was looking at them with some alarm.

“Gell? Sarai? What is it? What’s wrong?”

“The flow…” Sarai gasped

“Flow? What’s going on?”

Gell, drawing upon great reserves of will, formed his thoughts into a coherent sentence. “Somethin’s happening. Somethin’ huge. We’re right in the centre of it, whatever it is.”

He drew himself up to his feet, struggling to keep his surroundings in focus through the immense noise assaulting him from all sides through the flow. Looking around in the flow was pointless and disorienting, so he attempted to block it out and focus on his eyes. What his eyes saw was a very faint green glow building around them on all sides. Katja detected this too, and fearfully drew her dagger, not knowing what was about to happen. As they stood, helplessly, and watched, the ground began to crack. Not crack as an earthquake would crack; rather, a fine craquelure spreading all around them through the ground, a spider’s web of disturbances, leaking the same green glow.

“What the hell,” Gell stammered, and then looked on in helpless amazement as the glow within the cracks intensified, and then the very ground beneath their feet crumbled away, and they were falling, and gradually slipping out of consciousness. The last thing Gell remembered about the trip down was that at least the noise in the flow was finally subsiding.

When Gell’s eyes opened again, he had no idea where he was or what was going on, which was becoming a disturbingly common phenomenon. It was dark, and he appeared to be lying in a field. Slowly lifting his head up, he could make out some humanoid forms in the middle distance in front of him — two of them normal human-sized, and one of them very small, with wings. Sensing his movement, the winged creature flitted over to him.

“Gell!” she said, “You’re okay? That’s a relief. Get up!”

“Sarai,” he muttered groggily, “what’s goin’ on?”

“You should probably talk to this guy over here. Come on!” With that, she zipped off back to where she’d been before. Gell slowly collected himself and rose to his feet, taking stock of the situation. It appeared that his entire person was intact — no missing limbs, no extra limbs, he didn’t appear to have turned purple — and quick pats in appropriate places revealed that both Saturnine and his hat were where they belonged. Everything seemed normal, except for the extreme darkness — he looked upward at the sky, but it seemed very deeply overcast, and no stars were visible at all. Low on the horizon he was able to make out just the faintest sliver of a moon, but there appeared to be no other light available at all. With no better ideas presenting themselves, he decided to heed Sarai’s advice, and he wandered over toward the other two forms, taking the opportunity to clear his head and prepare his genial redneck persona.

“Ah,” one of the forms said as he approached, “I see your large friend has finally rejoined us.”

“Oh, Gell!” the other form exuded, in Katja’s voice, “I’m glad you’re okay. You were out for so long I was starting to worry.”

“Yeah, no worries, darlin’. Takes more’n that to keep me down! Whatever, you know, that was.”

“What that was,” the unknown form explained, “was the curse of the Renstone Fields. And you’re trapped in it now, just like all the rest.”

Gell was now close enough to inspect his interlocutor, and saw him to be an ancient man, bent and wizened, with ashen skin and frazzled tufts of white hair sticking patchily out from the sides of his head. He balanced heavily on a short, knobby cane, and displayed a pronounced tendency to point, shakily, with his other hand at whomever he was speaking to. Right now, that was Gell.

“Trapped?” Gell asked him, “Don’t seem like we’re trapped. Could walk off any time I wanted to.”

“You could try,” the old man snorted, “but there’s nowhere to walk to. You’ve landed right outside the town of Redonia, which is the only feature in this empty world. There’s nothing but barren wasteland past the edge of this field.”

“That don’t make no sense. How’d we get here?”

“You stayed in Renstone Fields overnight, did you not? And you were caught by the curse, just as we all were.”

“Gell,” Sarai asked, “you can break curses, right?”

“Normally, darlin’. This seems like a mighty big one, though. And I ain’t got an idea where to start.”

“Break the curse?” the old man scoffed. “You wouldn’t be the first to try. But you’ll never succeed.”

“What?” the wordling asked, indignant, “why not?”

Suddenly, the old man seemed angry. “I’m through with you lot. Begone! Go!”

He waved his cane at them as though he were shooing away a stray dog, and slowly hobbled off away from them into the blackness, leaving our three heroes stupefied.

“What was that all about?” Katja wondered.

“Gell,” Sarai interrupted, heedlessly, “now that he’s gone, I think I should tell you something. The wordstone’s here somewhere!”

“Well,” the Puritan said after a second’s reflection, “let’s head on into that there Redonia and see what there is to see.”

The three headed off briskly in the direction in which the old man had disappeared. Travel was less difficult than Gell had worried it would be, what with the darkness and all, since the world seemed to be relatively featureless; there were no hills and no rocks for them to trip over, and apparently no trees to walk into. It was just a featureless plain for several minutes, and then was interrupted by a looming shadow that turned out to be a large wall and a gate. On the gate hung an iron sign, but it was too dark to make out what it said.

“Sarai, honey, you mind doin’ that light trick o’ yours?”

“I’ve been trying, Gell. It doesn’t seem to do anything. There’s something wrong about this, like this place doesn’t want us to see what’s going on.”

Wordlessly, Gell reached out and grabbed the iron gate, pulling it firmly toward him. It began to creak open, slowly, as though unwillingly, and our heroes proceeded through. Beyond the gate was a stretch of cobblestone road, flanked on either side by short, dark houses. Gell had the eerie feeling that they were being watched by a thousand sets of eyes, but could not see anybody himself in the almost nonexistent light. The flow was as dark as the world itself, admitting not even the usual magical rhythms. Just dead emptiness all around. As they followed the unfriendly path, they became aware that it was emptying them into a courtyard, in the centre of which was a point — and only a point — of actual light.

The point of light was set atop a fountain, around which was arrayed a throng of people, genuflecting before it in some type of garish prayer. They appeared, as near as Gell could determine, to be as old as the man they’d met outside of town, and they paid our heroes no attention at all, focused entirely on their worship of a tiny point of light that glimmered coldly at them in perverse mockery of their adoration.

“Gell,” Sarai gasped, “that’s it! Right there!”

Before he could say anything, the wordling had fluttered over to the light, and was examining it closely. “It seems like this is also the focus of our curse. So break the curse and let’s get out of this awful place!”

“So, that’s all it takes, hey? Here I thought this curse was gonna be tough to break,” Gell replied jovially, drawing Saturnine and stepping toward the fountain.

Instantly, pandemonium broke loose. The huddled masses that had paid them little heed before suddenly animated, crowding around Gell and driving him back away from the fountain, feebly punching him or swinging at him with whatever implements they carried.

“Hey!” he cried, “what’s this all about? Cut it out!”

But they would not listen and did not respond, producing only an incoherent howl as they continued to push him backward. Soon, Gell found himself pinned against one of the houses, surrounded by an insane elderly mob. He had no desire to take arms against them, but was quickly running out of options, and had just decided it was time to start punching back when suddenly the door he was backed up against opened, and he was pulled inside by unseen hands. The door closed behind him, and the mob instantly returned to the fountain, as though nothing had happened.

Gell attempted to look around, but it was completely dark inside the house, neither the sliver of moonlight nor the minuscule twinkle of the wordstone making any headway.

“Relax,” he heard a voice say, “you’re safe here. For now.”

“Who are you?”

“Nobody, anymore. Just another slave of the Renstone, clinging to whatever scraps of identity I may have left.”

“The what now?”

“The Renstone. You know, that glowing thing out there on top of the fountain?”

“Okay, I ain’t tryin’ to be rude here, but somebody’s gotta tell me what’s goin’ on. Last thing I checked I was searchin’ some perfectly ordinary field where there was sunlight and bugs and the whole deal, and then the whole world got glowy, and next thing I’m in some creepy-ass dark town full o’ weirdos who pray to a glowin’ rock. What did I miss here?”

“Ah,” the unseen friend replied, “I see you don’t know about fair Redonia. Let me explain. Redonia once was a town more or less like any other — blue skies and sunshine and normalcy. The only really notable thing about it was the Renstone, which was a magical stone said to have been blessed by the creator. It sat in the centre of town, where, supposedly, it ensured that the harvests were always bountiful and the people were always healthy. The people of Redonia were happy and prosperous for generations, but then something happened to the Renstone. I’m not sure exactly what it was; perhaps it was punishment from the creator for our indolence. All I can say for sure is that, one day, the Renstone began to radiate a cold darkness. The darkness quickly seeped throughout the town and transformed it into the mockery you see now. Over the years, several travelers like yourself have shown up, all bearing the same story about how they got here. None ever get out again.”

“Wait a second, ain’t no records I’ve ever heard about a town called Redonia. How long ago was this?”

“It’s hard to say. Many hundreds of years, at least.”

“How’d you make it hundreds o’ years in a place like this? Ain’t exactly suitable for growin’ any food.”

“Ah. That’s the other part of the curse. We’re trapped in this dead city, but we ourselves never die. We’re free of all mortal concerns — we never get hungry, never get sick, never sleep, never die. We have all of eternity to prostrate ourselves in front of the stone.”

“So the reason they all got a mite touchy when I went to break the curse –”

“Yes. As long as the curse persists, we are immortal. But it goes beyond that, even. You may have noticed the severely advanced age of the people here. The curse prevents hunger, and sickness, and death, but, perversely, we still age. So you see, were the curse to be lifted, we would lose not only immortality, but our lives, as well.”

“Well, what the hell,” Gell said, annoyed, “there must be some way of fixin’ this.”

“There is not. Either the curse persists, and we are trapped here in this twisted mockery of life, or the curse terminates, and we die. There is no third option.”

Gell said nothing.

“Curse-breaker, please! Release us from this torment. We will die, but death is preferable to a life such as this.”

“Them out there don’t seem as they agree.’

Now it was the mysterious stranger’s turn to be at a loss for words.

“Well, anyhow, thanks for the talk. ‘Sgood to know what’s goin’ on, at least.” Gell felt in front of him for the doorknob, located it, and pulled the door open, stepping back out into the square. As he closed the door behind him, he was sure he heard a strained whisper from the stranger, but he couldn’t make out what it said.

Back outside, the fawning masses appeared to have forgotten all about Gell and his ill-fated attack on the Renstone, but Katja and Sarai were beyond relieved to see him again, and he filled them in on what he’d discussed.

“So all these people…” Katja whispered, trailing off.

“Well, that certainly explains why the old guy from outside of town got so shirty when we asked about breaking the curse,” Sarai observed. “What’s the plan, then?”

“Your friend in there was right, Gell,” Katja said, more confident this time. “This is no kind of life. It’s just a deranged trick. We’d be doing them a favour.”

“Would we really, darlin’? Is that really our decision to make? I ain’t so sure.”

“Either way, do we really have an option? We’re stuck here forever ourselves if we don’t do something.”

“Besides, Gell,” Sarai chimed in, “if we don’t claim this wordstone, sooner or later the College will. And they won’t hesitate to kill these people, and probably lots more once they get it.”

“That don’t mean –”

“No, it doesn’t.” Sarai was very quiet. “I guess sometimes there really are no right answers, Gell.”

“Guess the least I can do is make it as quick and painless as possible, hey?” Gell drew Saturnine solemnly from his belt.

Katja readied her dagger. “I’m with you, Gell. Right or wrong.”

He smiled ruefully. “Thanks, darlin’, but I might take a rain cheque on that one. Don’t think I’m gonna need any backup here.”

She didn’t have time to ask what he meant. Quickly drawing the sign of Sundering, Gell stepped forward into the crowd of worshippers and drove Saturnine tip-first into the ground. Suddenly, disconcertingly, the ground around the fountain began to shake and crack, throwing the gathered crowd into complete disarray. Their artificially-advanced age being what it was, they didn’t have the dexterity to cope with the shifting, shaking surface, and most ended up falling over into a heap. Gell lacked this problem, and leapt boldly over them, swinging the black sword straight toward the Renstone. In the moment just before impact, he looked down on the scores of condemned prisoners at his feet, and cast his mind back to the rows of houses they had passed getting in — how many people really were living here? How many people was he about to pass sentence on?

There was no time to speculate, as Saturnine made contact with the stone, and the altogether-too-familiar process of Nullification set in. The curse was fiendishly strong, and Gell felt as though he would be ripped apart by the force of the animus; the shriek was deafening, like so many cicadas, as the very fabric of the world around them seemed to come unspun and direct itself into the concentrating Puritan’s hands. The darkness swirled inward, bringing with it the sky, and the earth, and it became impossible to distinguish boundaries separating the scream of the animus from the scream of the Puritan and the screams of the accursed. All this rolled and boiled, forcing its way into the black blade, channeling through to its demise. And, just as suddenly as it began, the process was over, and Gell slumped to the ground in front of the fountain.

Katja looked around in wonder and in horror. They were still in Redonia, as before, but Redonia was no longer what it had been. The sky was blue above them, and the sun bore down upon them. They could hear the chirping of birds and the rustling of trees. In front of her was the dilapidated structure of a fountain, surrounded by an endless sea of ancient, withered cadavers. Amidst the devastation, Gell was slowly pulling himself together, and sadly looking out over what he had wrought.

“Sure hope we made the right decision,” he said, glumly.

“I dare say it’s not very likely to matter,” came a caustic voice from down one of the alleyways. Turning to look, they saw a familiar shape headed in their direction — a familiar shape bedecked entirely in red.

“Carmine,” Gell sputtered, “I ain’t in the mood for your nonsense right now. Suggest you head on out and try again some other time.”

Carmine sneered at him. “Last time we met, Puritan, you disgraced me. I have no intention of forgiving you for that. I am claiming this wordstone on behalf of the Hand. Furthermore, I’m claiming your life and the wordstone you bear in payment for the life of Sister Crimson, and for the humiliation I suffered at your hand. If you have any last words, I suggest you hurry up and get to them while you still can.”

Gell’s eyes flashed ferociously. “I ain’t playin’, Carmine. You don’t truck your tail right on out of here now, you ain’t gonna get off so light as a humiliation this time ’round.”

She snorted, and drew her curved blades. “So be it. Puritan Gell, as Hand of the creator, I hereby sentence you to death. His will be done!”

She leapt at him, her ferocity even greater than before, but her overall dancing style very similar. She weaved in and out of melee range, forming a wall of flashing steel, and forcing him back on the defensive. Gell was frustrated, and Gell was angry, but he’d been through enough to know not to let it get into his head, and he stayed calm and waited for an opening. They’d been through this once before, and he knew what to look for.

Soon enough, he got it — she had done nothing to close the hole in her guard. As before, he swept Saturnine down toward her ankles, readying himself to knock her on her ass when she moved to parry. Only problem was, this time, she did nothing of the sort. Carmine leapt into the air, bringing herself around on the inside of his stroke, and took a sudden swipe at the side of his neck with those vicious-looking blades.

Gell hadn’t been expecting that, and it was all he could do to tumble forward, barely escaping the slash and righting himself in time to keep from getting a sword right in the square of his back.

“You flatter yourself, Puritan. And, as expected, your stupidity is your undoing,” Carmine taunted.

Gell didn’t listen to her. He needed a new plan and he needed it quickly. Her guard was tough to break, but he didn’t really want to do anything as reckless as a sign; pre-fight bluster aside, he wasn’t really looking to kill anybody else today. No, what Gell needed was an opening he could take advantage of to stun her, but she was remarkably unforthcoming about providing one. They simply repeated the same dance steps they’d been through before — she steps in and slices, he steps out and slashes.

Suddenly, Gell backed into something soft, and heard a clattering on the ground next to him. He glanced downward — a dagger. He had backed into Katja. And then it hit him — this wasn’t a large open room like the last place they’d fought, it was a cramped alleyway. And while he was busy trying to find an opening in Carmine’s guard, she had manoeuvred him into a corner, with Katja pinned against a wall behind him! He couldn’t dodge the next attack without leaving her exposed to it.

Carmine didn’t seem as pleased as Gell would have expected. “No!” she hissed, eyes burning with rage, dancing toward him for the final blow. He was out of options now — somebody wasn’t walking away from this confrontation. Instinctively, he drew the sign of Blasting, and whirled Saturnine around to intercept the advancing dervish, thrusting his other hand behind him and into the wall.

The force of the blast was intense. Gell, straining, was able to keep himself from crushing Katja into the wall. Carmine, who was unprepared and unanchored, was launched down the alley and impacted the side of another building; she slumped immediately to the ground afterward.

Gell and Katja walked slowly, cautiously, down the alleyway toward the form of the prone Carmine. As they drew nearer, they realised what had actually happened — Carmine’s peculiar fighting style, with the curved blades held close to the body, had backfired on her. The force of the Blasting sign had driven the swords into her torso. As they approached her, she was still alive, but clearly would not last much longer. Gell knelt down beside her.

“Puritan…” she gasped, “you got… lucky. Know that it was just… just luck. My sisters… they will avenge me. Your death will be… unpleasant.” She coughed, and her eyes sank shut. “His will… be…”

Her head fell to the ground, and she said no more. Gell, once again, forrowed his brow curiously, and leaned in very close to her.

“Gell,” Katja whispered, “is she dead?”

Snapping back to reality, Gell stood up. “‘Fraid so. Wasn’t lookin’ to add to the body count, neither.”

“It’s… my fault.”

“Come on, darlin’. Ain’t nobody’s fault but her own. Her own decision to attack, her own decision to back me into a corner.”

Katja didn’t seem particularly cheered by this news.

“Hey, Gell?” came a little voice from back toward the square. “Come here a minute.”

Gell walked out to the square, leaving the shaken Katja with her thoughts. He arrived at the fountain to see a highly annoyed wordling flitting back and forth around the area.

“Hey Sarai, what’s goin’ on?”

“The stone’s gone, Gell.”

“What? Can’t be. Must’ve just fallen down somewhere.”

“No, Gell. It’s gone. While we were busy dealing with Carmine, somebody poached it right out from under our noses.”

Gell said nothing for a few moments, and then, suddenly, he exclaimed “oh, son of a bitch, that’s what Carmine was so pissed about! She knew…” he trailed off.

Katja emerged from the alley. “Come on, let’s get out of here. I think I know where our stone went.”