Sanity is stable. Sanity produces rules and outes. It guides behaviours, it makes sure that groups as a whole do not desd into anarchy. Yet there is a cost, self-sacrifice will be made out of sanity. It is ultimately better for oo take the fall then to let ruihe entire group. The tireless grind to improve, only moving a tiny slither towards masterhood every week, is what drives men to devote their entire lives to the arts. Phobias, should as those of spiders or snakes, are specuted to exist because of geic memories to protee from poisonous critters. Likewise, the taste of bitterness is naturally disliked because most natural poisons are bitter.

  All of these are perfectly sane, yet they are absurd principles that fall outside the natural, instinctual behaviours of animals.

  Anassa has dohe opposite. Why self-sacrifice, when enough power simply remove the need for any sacrifice? Following that, if power be acquired, then why must there be an iment for said power? Should the truly powerful not just grab power by the horns and wrestle it into the ground? What stops someone from immediately peaking at their potential? Why feel the most natural emotion of fear, when ultimately, with enough strength, there is nothing to be afraid of?

  I am simply too sao prehend this mentality. I look at it, I uand the words on the page, yet my mind will simply not let me accept the fact that someone improve without training. I refuse to throw fear away even though there is nothing I am afraid of. I refuse to treat sacrifice as a failure because it simply is a noble gesture. Some natural ws are absurd, but that is simply how the world is. It is just as absurd that snowfkes are unique and that butterflies are beautiful. That fruit are sweet and that wild animals be domesticated. Some things are absurd simply because that’s how they are.

  Yet Anassa rejects this idea entirely. Her thinking is uo herself, I do not know of anyone else who logically expin why the suspension of sanity is a be. Still though, the results speak for themselves. Anassa may be troublesome, but her strength does pose a question that we simply ignore:

  Which is more effective: Absurd sanity or rationalized delusion?

  - Excerpt from “Divine Assion”, written by Goddess Essa, of Magic. Kept within Essa’s private chambers in Arcadia.

  “It’s afraid of you?” Kassandora asked. It was ohing to put up with Anassa’s terrible character. It was ohing to have to plement her in order to get her to do something.

  “It’s dreading me.” Anassa said. She started to move, to the front of the pack but she didn’t pull ahead of Fer. “I’m not mad, it’s not calli’s just never met someone like me before.”

  “Who has?” Kavaa asked ftly and Anassa chuckled.

  “True, I am one of a kind.” Kassandora started to walk onwards, her eyes on Anassa for the first few minutes of it. In that cool darkness of the underground, Anassa was surprisingly easy to see. Fer too. One had a red dress of silkes, the other a mane of gold, both shone like bonfires wheorch oi them.

  “You trol yourself?” Kassandora asked. She had to ask. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Anassa, but certainty was the highest form of trust after all.

  “Do you know who are you speaking to?” Anassa asked and Kassandora smiled to herself. There was only person in this entire who would be that rude to her, and it was indeed Anassa.

  They kept on trekking for an hour in that darkness. Iniri was stop to ihe roots every twenty minutes. Anassa would use her sorceries to cut them off, yet no matter how much they cut off, the pnts started to wilt and die immediately. Even the Goddess of Nature could barely keep them alive. “They’re incapable of life.” Iniri said after the fourth attempt. “They’re getting fatter, that’s good, but they ’t be kept alive.”

  “Say it so I uand it.” Fer said from the side as Iniri few a root Fer had torn off the a dwarven tunnel-wall off.

  “It’s as if I chopped off part of your finger and tried to keep it alive.”

  “That’s possible.” Kavaa said and Iniri scoffed.

  “Well this isn’t!”

  “I do uand it though.” Fer said. “You ’t keep it alive.”

  “No, you ’t.” Iniri said. “It just dies.”

  “So we need a bigger piece?” Fer asked.

  “We need one which has some…” Iniri trailed off for a moment. “The animal equivalent would be ans.” Fer urned and started marg again as Anassa restarted her joyous glide deeper into the cave. Two red orbs from the Goddess of Sorcery eliminated any need for torches, and Kassandora had turned hers off to serve battery. Kavaa and Iniri did too.

  Fer took a few steps, then suddenly stopped and she air. Her ears quivered. She turo face the group behind them, opened her mouth, but did not o speak. Almost the sed she repared to expin, the ground started to rumble and shake. Dust fell from the walls and ceilings. Kassandora felt her nerves crack, whether it was the silence of the Jungle or simply the ck of talking from anyone in the group, she knew she was scared, she just simply kept on moving, one leg in the front of the other a. And now that Fer had stopped, she did not want to start moving.

  Kassandora felt the cool bck metal of her arm her as it appeared. Joyeuse’s calmi filled her arm as she gave the Greatsword a spin. It had been a while. Kavaa and Iniri both huddled close together when they saw Kassandora draw her sword, but they said nothing. There was nothing to say in fact, the rumbling was so loud now that it sounded like an avanche approag them. Fer she air again. Her ears jumped. She opened her mouth.

  Too te.

  The tuo their right cracked. The walls gave out, the ceiling started falling like an avanche. Kassandora turned on the spot, all the fear gone, pushed away by the raw call to a of instinct. She saw a giant tooth, easily as wide as she was tall, slide past her. A giant tooth, a mouth drooling with venomous spit, and green scales. Each scale massive, as rge as one of her artillery pieces and furiously dashing past her. Snake scales, Kassandora was sure of it. She took a step back, eyes looking around for her allies.

  And the floor below them gave them. Fer roared in from deeper iunnel as Kassandora heard a shout. “KASS!” Kavaa’s voice.

  “I’M HERE!” Kassandora shouted, although what could be made over the thundering of those tremendous scales against stones, she didn’t know. “I’M HERE!”

  “I HEAR YOU!” Kavaa shouted. “I HAVE INIRI!” Fer roared from Kassandora’s side, and then the Goddess of War felt her sister’s arms around her chest as she fell, and she felt Fer almost crush her spine in a brutally merciless bearhug.

  They both fell through the floor of that tunnel. Deeper, and deeper, until Kassandora felt Fer’s arms tighter around her and then the Goddess of Beasthood grunted as she nded on rock. Fer let go of Kassandora, the Goddess of War rolled off her sister and both poiheir fshlights up at that huge green avanche.

  It was still moving, the scales were sliding so fast through the ground they were nothing but a blur. Fer she air. “I ’t smell Ana.” She said. Kassandora looked up at the snake. If what Ana had said about the Jungle, of it being scared of her was true… She looked up at that snake. If that wasn’t a way to deal with someone you were scared off, Kassandora didn’t know what was.

  “What about Kavaa and Iniri?” Kassandora asked, uo pull her eyes away. It had simply shot out of the wall. There hadn’t been even a moment of preparation they could have done apart from taking a stance. Kassandora had only barely mao slide into her armour. Fer lifted her hand and poiowards the darkness.

  “Over there.”

  “I don’t see anything.” Kassandora said.

  “Rocks fell. I don’t smell blood though, so they’re either knocked out or oher side. There’d be blood if they were crushed.”

  “Oh.” Kassandora as she turned around. There were roots here too, they were thicker, but the colpse of the ceiling had torn of them away. Various vines were already starting to push rocks over, but Kassandora didn’t care too much, she just stared at the sudden fsh of red light had appeared. The entire cave sounded with a hiss as the snake tinued, but it was when that monster had finally made its pass that Kassandora realised what happened.

  The snake had swallowed Anassa whole, but the woman had jured up one of her eraser shields around herself. With a single spell, Anassa had flipped the sario entirely, the snake was no lohe fork stabbing into a delieal. Instead, it had bee a block of butter sliding along the unmoving khat was Anassa. That bright red shield, somewhat dirtied and darkened by the amount of sheer matter it had just absorbed sted there for a few moments, and then it disappeared.

  Anassa stood there silently, looking ahead, at where the snake had e from. Her eyes burning, her mouth twisted into a smile so wide Kassandora had not seen it on the woman sihe Great War. And as the rumbling of the world went silent, as the s more distaween them and itself, as its hisses of pain died down, Kassandora could only look up Anassa a herself mentally that she had brought this fool here. Why? Shouldn’t she have known? It was like bringio a vegetarian party, like bringing Neneria to disco. It simply should have not been done. Kassandora looked up at Anassa’s fabsp; and she khat expression was what true madness looked like.

  Anassa, still smiling wide, started to move in mid-air. She turned her head to the side, one eye looking down at Kassandora. “Kassie. You should retreat.” She said, her tone slow and almost drunk. Kassandora had no clue how, or why, or what caused the Goddess to enjoy this. She simply should not sound like that, no Goddess should!

  “What?” Kassandora barked back as she grabbed onto her bde. Kavaa and Iniri lost. Just like that. They may have still been alive, but they were as good as dead when it came to the mission. If they were going to get out, tunnels would have to be dug elsewhere. Anassa excavating this could bring the whole highway down on them. Even if Olephia was here, Kassandora would have not risked the Goddess of Chaos blowing the tunnels open. And now Anassa wanted something. What exactly? It better be fug revolutionary!

  “Kassie. I want you to go home.” Anassa said again, her breathing heavy as she tried to trol herself. A small amount of spit was dangling from her lips as more Jungle roots shot out towards her again. And Anassa didn’t even cast her sorceries at them, she merely turo face them head on. And those vihe limbs of the huge mohat terrified aire ti, they turned and fled from Anassa as if they were little mice running away from a prowling cat. “I will kill it.”

  Kassandora blinked. Excuse me? Anassa would do what? How? It was a Ju was akin to saying one would kill an ants , but when they were half the size of an ant! “What are you talking about?” Kassandora shouted as Fer she air behind her. Owio need for a third time. Kassandora felt her sister touch her shoulder and pull her back.

  “She believes it.” Fer said quietly and Anassa burst out in ughter.

  “Of course I believe it Fer! Of course I do! This thing ot defeat me!” Anassa turo look at more roots that were slowly trying to creep towards to her. Her very gaze made them flee in terror.

  “How?” Kassandora asked in disbelief.

  “If a child came and said he knew war better than you, what would you say? If someone said they were a better survivalist than Fer, what would you say? Let’s take this farce further! What if someone was a better leader than Arascus!? What then?” Anassa looked down at Kassandora, her eyes glowing with an almost maddened joy about the situation she was in. Kassandora had not damn clue why the woman was so happy right now. There was nothing to be happy about. “If someone came in, and said they were madder than Anassa, of Sorcery, what would you say?”

  “Then I’d simply ugh.” Kassandora said ftly.

  “I would too.” Fer added as Kassandora tinued.

  “There’s just nothing worth discussing there, it’s just wrong.” Anassa nodded with every word. Too muent, and her smile was too big. More roots were slowly crawling towards her on the ceiling. This time, the Goddess of Sorcery merely snapped her fingers. A fsh of red light separated them from the main body of the Jungle.

  “It is wrong.” Anassa said proudly. “In fact, it’s not just wrong. It’s a joke. It’s a farce. It’s the fuhing I’ve heard since Essa told me I could not match her in magic.” Kassandora blinked and looked to Fer. Was that a slip-up? Anassa did not know that they k was Essa who created her.

  “This is bigger than Essa.” Fer shouted. She pulled Kassandora back as the roots of the Juarted to approach them.

  “This is a joke.” Anassa shouted from the air. “This thing is trying to match me in my own demesne. I’m not going to let it.” She turned around, the red silken dress g to Anassa yet unmoving, as if the woman was a solid statue being rotated on the spot.

  “Anassa!” Kassandora shouted. She had just realised what Anassa was wanting to do. “Don’t go in! We have the Recmation War, we burn it down safely.”

  “Kassie.” Anassa started to float deeper into the hole. Kassandora felt Fer’s hand tighten on her shoulder, whether it was Fer anch Kassandora to the ground, or Fer anch herself to Kassandora, Of War could not work out. “It’s not a matter of safety or not. I’m perfectly fine, I’m perfectly sahat snake, I don’t even know if it was real or not, but all I know is that it ’t touch me.”

  “What are you talking about?” Kassandora shouted this time, Anassa was getting further into the hole. “Fer, it’s calling her.”

  “It’s not calling her.” Fer said as she she air. “It’s still Ana’s smell. There’s a ge when it gets you, Iniri had it. When you two got stu the hypnosis trap, you and Kavaa, your smells ged too. Ana is Ana.”

  “It’s challenging me!” Anassa shouted proudly. “A Divihat drives people mad against a Divihat exists because it is mad! What better way to test myself than that?”

  “Fer. We have to stop her.” Kassandora said quickly. Fer merely shook her head.

  “You may as well be askio stop Olephia.” Fer said quietly as took a step aulled Kassandora backwards, to avoid the gnashing roots that poked at the locations they just stood. Kassandora realised why the woman wouldn’t even attempt a pursuit, Fer from bleeding from the side, and she winced as her body started to close its own wounds. It would only take a minute. Kassandora looked up. That giant tuhe snake had made started to cover itself with regrowing, and further in, a red orb appeared as Anassa lit the way for herself. They didn’t have a minute.

  Kassandora saw Anassa’s sorcery disappear deeper in that terrible web rowing roots. A Goddess of Sorcery lost, A Goddess of Health and a Goddess of Nature trapped, a Goddess of Beasthood almost killed. A disaster so terrible only the Goddess of War could have do.